Can There Be Bugs In My Clean House?

You have probably heard, as most have, that a clean house is a bug deterrent house. This is mostly true. If you clean regularly with the right cleaning solutions, you will give those bugs less reason to want to make your home their home. But there is more to excluding bugs than just having a floor so clean you can eat off of. Here is a quick guide that will help you isolate potential trouble spots.
    1.    How clean is clean? You can mop the floors, clean the counters with disinfectant, and make everything shine, but are you cleaning where you need to clean? Bugs and roaches spend most of their time in places you hardly ever see on a daily basis. They are squeezed between the oven and the wall, where grease splatters and drippings hide. They are under the fridge where juice spills and lost food live. They are behind your sofa and in the cushions, where crumbs, candy and popcorn get lost. If you want to deter roaches and bugs, you need to get these areas on a routine basis.
        DONT FORGET:  Clean environments are always contaminated by us…. the humans that go in and out all the time.  We bring in grocery sacks that have been sitting in a grocer’s back room for months with feed and food waste.  We interact with floors, grass, dirt, car carpet and everything else that houses bug “eggs” that attach to our shoes, socks, and clothing just waiting to get into our homes to hatch… sometimes within minutes of our return.  We take in mail and FedEx packages that have been all over the world picking up every critter’s eggs possible. We also have friends and associates that enter our homes and leave behind microscopic bug eggs from all their doings.  Its a never ending challenge.
    2.    Stored food. Besides eating the grime and crumbs we leave behind, these insects also get into stored food. If you have any pantry items, you'll have some very happy roaches. Manufacture, storage, transportation, and eventual sale to us, the consumer, provides endless opportunities for bugs to enter our homes, live or in egg form.
    3.    There is no food here. Really? Roaches and bugs eat some crazy things, like soap, toothpaste, glue, leather, book bindings, hair and feces, laundry. These are not preferred dietary staples, but they do in a pinch. What is even worse, cockroaches can go more than 6 weeks without eating or drinking anything at all, all the while reproducing new offspring.
    4.    More reasons than food. Sometimes you can have roaches for no other reason than that they are looking for a place to hide. If they can get in, they will.  Many are only searching for water.  
Keeping your home clean, and all food sources secure does deter roaches and bugs. But if you're looking to keep all roaches out of your home you’ll find a million and one ways they can get back in, on a continual basis.