Tips for Preventing Household Pests

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You know you have to share this planet, but sometimes it’s nice to have a space of your own. Even the smallest of housemates can be a nuisance, and insects have a way of getting into your home whether you want them to or not. Harsh repellants and pesticides can damage your air quality and can lead to respiratory irritants. Fortunately there are some common sense preventative measures you can use to reduce your risk of an infestation.

Household Cleaning

Vermin are attracted to sources of easy food. When you leave crumbs and spills out in the open for too long, you are inviting unwanted guests over for a feast. In addition to cleaning up messes in the kitchen, you should also avoid leaving open trash containers sitting for too long.
Vacuum regularly to clear up dust and contaminants. Clean up your furniture by lifting the cushions and removing debris and dust that has fallen in the cracks. Also try to keep food in areas that are specifically designated for eating. Restricting eating habits reduces your exposure to vermin throughout the rest of your home. Also, check your food cupboards regularly and discard any open containers that have sat for too long.

Home Maintenance and Repairs

You need to seal off all points of entry. Insects are small enough to wiggle their way through the tiniest of cracks, so it is important to restrict their access as much as possible. An annual exterior inspection of your foundation can help to identify areas where termites, cockroaches, and ants may invade from. Torn screens and improperly sealed window panes are points of entry for mosquitoes and flies.

Alternative Lighting

Some insects are confused by sources of light. As nocturnal creatures, their survival depends on their ability to remain hidden in the shadows. Certain varieties will respond to light by avoiding the area. If you have found a point of entry into your home that you have not successfully sealed up, try installing a small, low-voltage light near the area. Some aluminum foil also helps to reflect light and causes confusion.

Control Temperature and Moisture

Humid and warm environments help termites, roaches, bedbugs, and other parasites to do more than just remain active. They breed and multiply rapidly. It is essential that you keep your home as dry and cool as possible to discourage their activities.

Fix leaking water pipes that run under your house. Water damage is a serious enough cause for concern, but extra moisture is inviting to pests. As insects absorb the moisture through their bodies, they are able to travel farther and cause more trouble.

Wipe up spills as soon as they occur. Open your windows and doors regularly to allow trapped humidity to escape. You should also launder wet towels and avoid leaving laundry to sit for too long. In some dry climates, humidifiers may improve your personal comfort, but avoid using these devices for prolonged periods. Get in the habit of turning the thermostat down when you are away from home. Not only does this help you to save on your power bill, the varying temperatures discourage insects from coming indoors.

Always Check for Hitchhikers

Bedbugs, fleas, and other parasites often catch a free ride into your home. Pets may bring these vermin indoors where they can attack the rest of the family. Routinely bathe your pets with a shampoo that is specially formulated to remove insects. If you have stayed overnight at a hotel, you are at a higher risk for bedbugs. Make sure you check your suitcase and personal belongings for any signs of infestation before you get home and unpack.

You may not be able to eliminate every insect from your home, but you can reduce the risk of becoming the target of an infestation. If you have already adjusted your habits and are still struggling to control an outbreak, contact a professional exterminator for help.

Every chef deserves the right kitchen sink

When it comes to food and cooking habits, Australia’s early indigenous history l has a great influence on what people eat every day. An whilst hunter gatherer diets such as bush tucker are now a less common occurrence, being replaced over time by the influence of British colonization, the culture of outdoor barbecue cooking is still a very prominent aspect of Australia’s food culture. However, modernization and multiculturalism have brought Australia a diversity of new cooking habits which have brought people back to the art of indoors kitchen cooking, popularizing the use of pan and oven cooking.

A country rich in fresh produce

With its climate, land and sheer size, Australia is a land where fresh produce is readily available. The coastal areas are rich in fish and other seafood products, and the inland sees the seasonal growing of many vegetables, including cucumber, asparagus, cauliflower, tomato, peas, mushrooms and many more. This diversity has given birth to a culture of stir-frying and steaming lean meats and vegetables. Australia is also known for its fruit growing culture, especially known for being the birthplace of the famous iconic apple: the Granny Smith.

Australian drinking

Whilst beer is often seen as Australian’s drink of choice, the country has a huge wine making culture. This is because the land and the climate allow for the growth of well ripened grapes, producing rich, fruity and often slightly higher in alcohol wines. Red wine varieties such as Shiraz and white wines such as Chardonnays are among the many wines Australia’s land has to offer. And as well as the love for tea drinking, brought along by the British colonization, another very popular drink in Australia is coffee, brought along by the immigration of Italian and Greek population over the past 100 years.

The need for a good kitchen

Just like any other country, Australian homes deserve a good functioning kitchen. This is necessary for the cooking of all the diverse ingredients the country has to offer. There is always room in the garden for a good barbecue but when it comes to food preparation, indoors is where it is at. The Australian climate can be too hot to leave foods outside, so a cool temperature kitchen is essential for the preparation of all those lovely dishes.

Keeping it clean and hygienic

Because of the hot climate, insects and other animals can still make their way into people’s kitchens. This is why hygiene is very important in an Australian kitchen. The sink is the central hub of cleanliness in any kitchen, it is essential to washing our dishes, cleaning our foods, keeping our hands clean and maintaining the hygiene levels to a good standard. The sink is one of those aspects which is worth investing into as it will be a central part of our cooking for the rest of our lives. Looking online, kitchen laundry sinks from abl are some of the best ones to buy in the country, offering a variety of choices, from beautiful designs to practical sizes where all kitchen hygiene needs can be met. After all, a clean kitchen is a good kitchen.

Practical yet stylish bathroom design ideas

Image by Ines Hegedus Garcia, Used under a Creative Commons license.

Deciding to renovate or redecorate the bathroom is considered by many to be a difficult and demanding task. Some people believe it takes a lot of exertion and a large upheaval to make any real difference to the room’s look and feel.

However, there are quite a few practical yet stylish changes you can make, which have the potential to transform any bathroom. Best of all, they don’t require much time, effort or money either.

Put up some shelving

This might seem like a straightforward step, but it is surprising just how many people don’t put up shelves in their bathroom. In addition to improving organisation, shelving units can be incredibly decorative too. Floating shelves look clean and crisp, but ornate options will suit more traditional bathrooms.

Introduce more storage

Certain bathroom items can be rather unsightly and not very attractive, which would be better hidden away. This is a great opportunity to enhance the room’s aesthetic, so think about introducing storage containers such as glass jars for cotton swabs or wicker baskets for toilet rolls.

Change the cabinet

If you don’t have the budget to update your entire suite, consider changing the cabinet instead. This piece of bathroom furniture has the potential to revamp and rejuvenate any tired looking space but isn’t that difficult to fix-up. What’s more, it will increase practicality and improve overall tidiness.

Upgrade the small details

It is easy to overlook things like towel racks, toilet roll holders and sink taps, but if you upgrade these small details, you’ll end up with a much more decorative bathroom. Even if you don’t have these furnishings in the first place, it will undoubtedly increase overall functionality anyway.

Improve the sights and smells

There is nothing quite like taking a nice relaxing bath after a stressful day. But this can be improved even more by adding some scented candles, which smell great, create the right ambience and reduce your energy footprint too.

Put up more mirrors

This is a really good idea if you have a small bathroom, as mirrors can make a confined space look much larger. On top of that, adorning and alluring mirrors are bound to enhance your bathroom’s appeal while providing greater functionality at the same time.

All of these design ideas are sure to be within most budgets and don’t require much work or effort to complete. But most importantly, they’ll improve the style and practicality of your bathroom and day to day living.

A guide to a super cheap bathroom

Whether it’s making your home a more comfortable place to live, trying to make it more valuable with more energy or elegance, or just simply you want to make yourself feel happy, these projects of super clean bathroom remodeling are the key element and are the most economical way that you can make your bathroom clean with ten times the cash that you would have spent in some luxury bathroom shops buying new bathroom interior.

When it comes to the elegance and the cleanness of your bathroom, there are several ways of making the difference in it, and few of those are the lightning, painting, wall decoration and assents, the main bathroom mirror which is usually present in the bathrooms around the world, followed by the curtains over the bath tub and the linens.

The first thing in any cheap bathroom remodeling and making it look amazing is the paint. The paint must be done in neutral shade and colors, and the energy should come from the accessories that are placed there later on, not from the paint itself. Even if this is the case with the paint being the second background color of the bathroom, don’t underestimate the power of it because it gives the shininess of the other elements by being the contrast itself.

Next money spending step are the fixtures with new lightning that should be placed on the wall once the paint is dried. Wattage is needed because your light determines the happiness that you will place inside the bathroom. Aim to focus is where you plan to put the mirror for double light due to the reflection. The lights are not something that you can remodel and clean to look cutter. This is where you should spend some money and at the end of the long run they will definitely pay off.

Towel racks and light switch covers should come after the lightning is placed. Aim for white or chrome because it’s the color of the century, and it makes the bathroom look elegant. These accessories are not so expensive so go for the kill. They can be found in any shop for bathroom accessories.

Mirror and everything else is next as the last step of the wall decorating. This is the main bathroom element including the interior so we suggest you watch a tutorial video on how to reuse your old mirror and make it look amazingly new, as well as how to place the mirror in the bathroom so it can get the maximum out of the lightning that comes from the window, and the artificial lightning that you have previously set in the bathroom.

Shower curtains are a cheap element to replace and a fun one as well. Aim for live colors that contrast the walls, and with no doubt at all your bathroom will look fresher and cleaner, while you won’t have to spend much time and money on it. Natural material curtains are the best way to go because they are cheap and soft, and for this matter, look for cotton duck.

Linens should be the same color as your bathroom shower curtains and if your shower curtains are white, beige or cream, your mat and towels should also share the same color and intensity. The last accessories like toothbrush holders and tissue boxes should be white as well, if your curtains are white. Some may way that this is a classic and a color that has already been used many times before, but the thing is that white color is one of the cleanest colors and the best looking one for a bathroom. Not to mention that it is the cheapest color on the market.

We hope that this small cheap bathroom remodeling guide helped you and your idea of remodeling your bathroom while saving you cash.

Stop energy leaks cold

Did you know that half of all people in the US spend 20% of their income on energy costs? That's a huge amount of money and by insulating properly you can decrease the amount of money you spend and get yourself on the right side of those statistics.

 
Via: Spray Foam Insulation Kit Manufacturer