Aren’t uninvited guests just the worst—especially when they are creepy crawling critters in your kitchen? Your natural response would be to smash bugs in the kitchen with a shoe or newspaper. However, you have to deal with them in the kitchen area differently; this is where you prepare food for your family.
How To Get rid Of Kitchen Bugs
As a matter of fact, an unintended consequence of a lovely kitchen with lots of food is attracting all manner of creepy, crawly pests. It’s thus not unusual to find yourself perpetually exhausted by a somewhat full-time job of trying to rid your kitchen of fruit flies, cockroaches, gnats, ants, mosquitoes, or several other insects and rodents.
Tips To Get Rid Of Kitchen Bugs
Simply put, nobody wants a bug infestation in their kitchen. So, read on for 10 tips on how to get rid of kitchen bugs.
Identify the Bugs in Your Kitchen
If you think your kitchen can be completely sterile and free of bugs, you are wrong. It’s not just the occasional fly that’s crashing in your pad; you probably got hundreds of different insects living with you. So, one ant or mosquito in your kitchen shouldn’t cause you so much alarm that you nuke the entire place.
Nevertheless, be on the lookout for insect infestations. Here are some tell-tale signs of an ongoing bug infestation in your kitchen
- Live insects. You might see actual bugs scurrying on your kitchen counter, floor, shelves, sink, etc.
- Bug remains. You might find whole carcasses, cast skins, or body parts
- Bugs may leave behind small droppings in the kitchen. The droppings will be in a variety of colors and shapes.
- Tunnels/holes in food, wooden shelves, counters, and other materials in the kitchen which may or may not have bug droppings in them
There are plenty of pests that you can physically identify, either flying or scurrying around in your kitchen. The most common culprits include ants, flies, termites, cockroaches, mosquitoes, moths, rats, mice, and spiders.
Proper kitchen bugs identification leads to effective extermination.
Maintain a Spick and Span Kitchen
Cleanliness is a major turn off to those pesky unwanted visitors in your kitchen. Soap and detergent are an effective deterrent to bugs.
On the other hand, if you let food scraps and dirty dishes pile up in your kitchen sink, peter the pest will take this to be an invitation and move in with them.
To keep your kitchen clean:
- If you like snacking, don’t leave the dirty used dishes lying around. Clean them after you are done with your snack
- Shortly after meals, put your dishes in the dishwasher. Alternatively, wash and dry them by hand
- Here’s a recommended practice on how to get rid of bugs in kitchen cabinets– periodically empty out your cupboards and clean them with soap and water
- Routinely vacuum or at least clean places where food crumbs get trapped
- Routinely clean your ovens, toaster ovens, and toasters
- Clean all spills and crumbs as soon as they happen
- Frequently wipe down kitchen tables and countertops with soapy water and a sponge. You may also use disinfectant wipes or antibacterial wipes for a quick cleansing
- Thoroughly, sweep and floors making an effort to also clean the hard-to-reach areas
Related: Kitchen Deep Cleaning Guide
Don’t Feed the Pests
It’s important to ensure that you aren’t unknowingly giving those sneaky bugs in the kitchen unintended snacks.
Here are suggested ways to ensure that you aren’t unwittingly feeding the six-legged critters in your kitchen.
- Keep an eye on ripening fruits. Fruit flies, roaches, and other pests will be attracted to ripe fruit if left out for too long.
- Don’t let pet food or snacks sit in the pet’s bowl for long periods. Pet foods are filled with grains and other ingredients that can easily attract pests.
- Stagnant water in pet drinking bowls can attract mosquitoes, so they ought to be emptied, washed, and refilled regularly.
- Clean out your food-storage cabinets regularly and wipe them down with soap and water
- While roaches, flies, ants, and other common kitchen bugs can be a thorn in your side, they can’t open lids and doors. Therefore, store away all foodstuffs in well-sealed food containers.
Eliminate Bug Hiding Places
The nasty pests that come to your house are mainly attracted by food, water, and the warmth your home offers them. When they come in, they like to hide in dark, moist, and warm places.
Some common hiding places for bugs in the kitchen include:
- Inside such kitchen appliances such as blenders, coffee makers, toasters, dishwashers, microwave, oven, and the fridge
- Inside the kitchen cabinets, so you ought to know how to get rid of cockroaches in kitchen cabinets
- Inside stored grocery bags
- Behind the backsplash
- Under the sink
- In the garbage can
Regularly cleaning out and checking these areas for pantry bugs will keep you from getting an infestation in your kitchen.
Seal Off Potential Entry Points
Most bugs in the kitchen often move in from the outdoors. For instance, mice and some other small rodents may move in during the cold winter months looking for a dry, warm place to stay.
Consequently, it helps to seal up and holes, cracks, or gaps existing around your home’s exterior. You may seal them up using a variety of materials, including:
- Stainless steel wool pads
- Rolls of stainless steel
- Expanding foam sealant
- Metal sheets
- Caulk
The windows in your home must also be tightly and adequately weather-stripped. Any rips and holes in your window screens should be repaired promptly.
Having a flyscreen may work great at stopping flies from coming into your home.
Remove Accumulated Leaves and Litter
Creepy crawlers may breed outside and then move into your home for water, food, and shelter. Therefore, destroying their outdoor breeding grounds makes perfect sense when you want to get rid of kitchen cabinet bugs.
- Start by cleaning out any leaves that accumulate around your home’s foundation
- Destroy any unwanted and unnecessary plant overgrowth around the home
- Clean out your gutters
- Trim your hedges, shrubbery, and trees
- Gather any form of litter around the home
- Destroy any places where stagnant water collects
- Practice good lawn maintenance
Fix Leaks in Your Kitchen
Bugs like moist places. They will thus weasel their way into a leaky kitchen. Pooling water in your kitchen may attract all sorts of crawlers, including roaches, pantry beetles, rodents, and even snakes.
The high humidity levels that normally come with kitchen leaks also increase the risk of structural damage by fungus and termites.
While checking leaky taps, pipes, and kitchen faucets, it’s also wise to check the downspouts to ensure that rainwater doesn’t find its way back into the kitchen.
It’s also recommended that you address other minor sources of water leaks, including walls, windows, and sump pumps.
Use Insecticide Sprays
Spraying is a time-tested, very effective way of banishing kitchen pests. Sprays are not only good for knocking out any crawlers that set foot into your kitchen, they are also effective at repelling insects from your kitchen.
However, it’s important to bear in mind that each insecticide spray has specific instructions for use. They work best only if they are used as directed.
When spraying, pay attention to such areas as baseboards, around windows and corners, beneath cabinets and the refrigerator, as well as under the sink and near pumping fixtures.
If you have pets and small children, you ought to see to it that the insecticide spray you purchase would adversely affect them.
When Using insecticide sprays, be cautious and make sure that you put all foodstuffs safely out of the way.
Trap Kitchen Bugs
A downside of using insecticide sprays is that they may inadvertently kill off some other harmless insects in your home. One way of ensuring that your war against pantry bugs doesn’t kill innocent bystanders is by using traps.
Pest traps come in various shapes and sizes. They are designed to target specific pests and, therefore, are unlikely to harm other unintended creatures.
Not all insects are bad guys that need to be purged completely from your home. In the background, some insects are pollinators, decomposers who prevent us from being overrun by our own waste and are at the base of the food chain feeding many animals, birds, and fish.
Therefore, killing these tiny critters shouldn’t always be automatic; we sometimes need to preserve them. When using traps, you get rid of specific pantry pests efficiently and without using harsh chemical pesticides. Traps are effective against such pests as flies, rats, mice, and ants.
Always try to place your traps in places that are hard for children and pets to reach.
Call an Exterminator
Are you speculating how to get rid of mice in kitchen cabinets? Do you want to secure your kitchen against bugs? Your best option is calling a professional exterminator.
Picture this, you might spray a high-grade bug spray, but bugs in the kitchen just scurry away and wait for the insecticide to wear out—and then they return.
Exterminators are trained to get rid of even the most extreme and advanced infestations. They may additionally proof your kitchen against future infestations.
Your campaign to drive bugs out of your kitchen will be most successful if you engage a reputable exterminator.
