Gina Pickard, St. Petersburg homeowner and mother of five, recently participated in the “Debug My House!” Her home was inspected for potential pest problems and to identify ways she and her family could help prevent creatures from sharing their home.
Living in Florida with year-round warm temperatures, pests are always a problem. Living in Florida with five children enhances the challenge of maintaining a pest-free home as dirt is tracked in, doors are left open, and half-eaten afternoon snacks are left on the counter. The opportunity to have a professional “debug my house” was one I couldn’t turn down.
Greg Baumann, the senior scientist for the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), has 27 years of experience in residential and commercial pest management, and I was lucky enough to have him come inspect my house along with Realtor Gray Mattern of Keller-Williams Realty. Greg and Gray looked under rugs, in the attic, around the outside of the house, and more to find where pests may be or have been and to identify best practices for me and my family to help prevent problems. Here are a few things I learned:
-Pests can cause health problems for me and my family. My son has asthma and cockroach allergens can irritate it. So pests are more than a nuisance – they’re a health hazard.
-No matter how clean or well-maintained your home, you can still have pest problems. It’s important to try to prevent them, but also important to properly control them with pesticide products when needed.
-As a home owner, it’s important to protect my property value by controlling pest problems as damage cause by past issues and the presence of pests in a home can make it even harder to sell a home.
The housing crisis has hit the Florida economy hard. Gray’s insight was especially helpful in discussing how the pest damage to my home and lawn at my home could affect its resale price if I were to consider selling. If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, be sure to check out his advice [link to realtor video].
Now that they’ve debugged my house maybe we could debug my lawn. I decided not to have a lawn care company treat my lawn for chinch bugs, and now it’s basically devoid of grass. I’m paying more to fix the problem than I would have to prevent it!
Check out my video and learn more about Debug my House!
