Imagine it is a beautiful day and your backyard is filled with people. Everyone is happily munching on copious amounts of food and laughing. Having a great time just enjoying each others company and the food. Sounds like a party, doesn’t it? But imagine it isn’t. Instead of happy friends and family celebrating a birthday or a graduation, imagine these are workers. Do you have a picture in your mind? Great. We’re almost there.

What would happen to all those workers if it started to sprinkle? Probably not much. Most work crews would work through a light drizzle. But what if the sky opened up and it began to pour? What then? Yup. Those workers would be heading for the house or garage. Soon, they would be everywhere: Standing in your kitchen, standing in your living room, hiding in boxes in your attic–whoops. We’re getting ahead of ourselves.

We have one more twist to add to our little metaphor. Imagine that all of those people are bugs or rodents. That changes things up a bit, doesn’t it? Well, just like those workers, bugs and animals forage in your yard for food and water. When it rains, animals will look for a place to hide from the rain. That place might be your home, if they can find a way in.

Bugs can last a bit longer than those furry animals. But, when the water table rises and the ground becomes saturated, they head for higher and drier ground. If you have cracks, gaps or holes, that may be your home.

This illustration isn’t perfect, but hopefully it will help you to clearly see the problem. When it rains a lot, your home is going to be under siege. Your goal should be to make it harder for pests to get in. So, before it rains, try these exclusion ideas.

• Use a caulking gun to fill in rotted holes and seal up gaps in your exterior walls.

• Seal up small cracks in your basement wall with a liquid concrete repair kit. If you have larger cracks, consider getting a professional. Those cracks don’t just let pests in, they prevent your home from keeping warm air out in the summer and inside during the winter.

• Make sure that all of your door and window screens are in good condition. When pests try to get out of the rain, let them know they are not wanted inside your home.

• Bugs don’t need much of a hole to slip in. Make sure your weather stripping and door sweeps don’t have any damage.

• Some bugs have the ability to crawl all the way up the side of your home and gain access to vulnerable areas in your roofline or crawl down your chimney. A focused application of pesticide from a certified professional will give those bugs second thoughts about exploring your walls.

Schendel has been keeping pests out of homes since 1947. Let us help you put those foul weather pests in their place.