Living in Florida is not always about beautiful beaches or amazing theme park thrills. Sometimes, Florida life looks more like hurricane season, weather so hot you can fry an egg on a car, and rodents causing a ruckus in your home.

Sounds pretty glamorous, right? Not at all, but that’s okay. Seasoned Floridians know a thing or two about hunkering down for hurricanes and beating the heat, and many of them know how to deal with a rodent problem, too.

If you’re not familiar with the latter, don’t worry.

Here are 9 simple things you can start doing right now to learn how to keep rodents away from your house.

1. Manage Your Trash Better

Rats love a good trash bucket that’s been left open, it’s like a buffet for them. Stop giving them such sweet temptations by making more of an effort to take out the trash and keep a better eye on it overall.

Stop leaving trash bags outside and invest in a big garbage can instead. Even then, don’t set out your trash the night before it gets picked up but rather in the morning on the day-of.

If your home happens to produce a lot of trash during the week, it may be time to get more garbage cans than you already have or to start making drop-off trips to dump your trash.

2. Rethink How You Compost

Compost is a pretty cool way to manage your trash, but it’s also an open door for rodents to come into your home. Think about it: having compost means you have a bunch of unused vegetables, fruit skins, and other organic matter lying around.

You’re practically inviting rodents to come have a bite or two.

The good news is you don’t have to stop composting if you notice a few mice around the house. All you have to do is be smarter about where you do your composting and how you store it.

Get a tight lid for your compost container so that the smell doesn’t attract rodents. Keep it on an elevated surface if you can, and try to dump it out on a regular basis.

3. Keep Pet Food Stored Away

Here’s something you may not have thought of: rodents are attracted to pet food. At the end of the day, rats and mice are going to take whatever they can get their hands on. If you don’t have any yummy trash or organic matter lying around, they’ll go for your dog or cat food.

This is why you need a tight container for this, too. Rolled-down bags of dog food won’t do because rodents can still knaw at the bottom corners of the bag. In a similar way, it’s not good to leave your cat’s dish with food in it all day because even that is enough to tempt a rodent.

Instead, be mindful of how you store the food and when you present it to your pet, too. Try to get your furry friend on an eating schedule so you can minimize the amount of food left out and prevent unwanted animals from entering your home.

4. Clear Your Yard

Just as you have to be mindful of the “rat food” you have in the house, also be careful of leaving things in the yard that rodents may like. This includes fallen fruit from your mango or lemon tree and the vegetables in your home garden.

It only takes one or two treats like this lying on the ground to bring a whole bunch of rodents your way. Even if the fruit in your yard is the result of a neighbor’s tree, it’s up to you to keep your home pest-free.

5. Clean the Inside of Your Home

Maybe you’re pretty good about managing trash and you don’t have any pets, but you still have some sort of clutter in your house. If so, the answer to your rodent problem could be some serious spring cleaning.

Take a weekend to go through every room in the house. Throw out all the stuff you don’t use and do something about those holes in the walls you’ve been meaning to fix, too.

6. Close the Garage Door

Although it’s not common for most homes to have random holes, plenty of homeowners love to keep their garage door open when they’re home. This is kind of like a “come over” sign to their neighbors or a good way to get some airflow when working on a project in this part of the house.

But, open garage doors are also an open invite for rodents. This makes it incredibly easy for them to get into your home. Instead of having to crawl through pipes or somehow get on the roof, a rat can just waltz right into your garage when you’re not looking.

Keep the door shut to prevent this from happening.

7. Set Traps

What if it’s too late and you already have a few rats in the house? Then it’s time to start laying traps.

Set traps in the areas where rats are most likely to be. They love hiding in kitchen cabinets and sometimes go as far as the oven or the pantry. Rats may also be around an air conditioning vent or in a quiet room that’s not often used.

8. Watch out for Feces

You have to protect yourself while you’re setting traps. The last thing you want to do is get a finger caught in one of these things, or to end up with a handful of rodent feces. Wear gloves and move with caution.

If you do have some unfortunate contact with rodent feces, get yourself checked out right away. Wash your hands (or whatever body part) thoroughly and go to your urgent care center, just in case. Remember, rats carry all kinds of diseases.

9. Get an Inspection

The last thing you can do to get rid of the rodents in your home is hand the responsibility over to the professionals. Get an inspection to find out what the real source of your rodent problem is.

This takes out all the guesswork and gives you a solid action plan for removing the problem once and for all.

Get Rid of Your Rodent Problem for Good

Nothing lowers the comfort of your home like a rat problem. When you have rodents in your house, you tend to sleep with one eye open and tip-toe around each room. But, you don’t have to keep doing this.

All you have to do is pick up the phone to get rid of your rodent problem for good. Call us today to discover how our team of professionals can restore the peace in your home.