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How To Maintain Ideal Humidity Levels In Your Home

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Tips To Balance Out Your Home Humidity Levels

Keeping your home comfortable can definitely be a struggle—especially when it comes to humidity. The humidity levels in your home need to be like Goldilocks and the Three Bears—not too high, not too low, but just right. Maintaining just the right humidity level in your home is usually easier said than done (especially down here in the South). Each home is different, and some might trap more moisture than others! If you think the air in your home is too moist, or too dry, we have some tips for you! Here are a few ways to keep your home perfectly comfortable all year long.

Homes With High Humidity Levels

Homes with excess moisture in the air are a little more difficult to treat than homes that are too dry. However, there are plenty of ways to decrease the humidity in your home! If you’re unsure if your home has high humidity levels or not, check for these key signs of moisture:

Signs of increased humidity levels

    • Mold in corners and on your ceiling
    • Peeling paint and wallpaper
    • Moisture stains
    • A musty odor
  • Condensation on windows and doors

When humidity is in the air, it can stick to and grow on anything. This is why it can cling to the corners of your home, peel your paint and leave nasty stains. If your home constantly looks like it’s sweating, it’s way too humid! Once moisture has continued to build up for a while, you’ll probably noticed an odor. If you start smelling moisture around your home, chances are you have mold or mildew growing somewhere. Fighting mold and mildew in your home can be tough, so always consult a specialist if it becomes too much to handle!

How to keep moisture levels low

Excess moisture can make your home feel sticky and uncomfortable. To help keep you and your home cool (and balance those high moisture levels!), try: Installing exhaust fans. Do you know that fan that you normally find in Nana’s kitchen over the stovetop? The one that she turns on after cooking a delicious dinner? That’s the one! These fans definitely come in handy for decreasing humidity. Consider installing exhaust fans in rooms that typically have more humidity such as your kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms. Installing these fans can be expensive, but they are an investment worth making! Using a dehumidifier. Did you know that dehumidifiers work like air conditioners? With hot and cold coils, a fan blows air over the cold coil that condenses the moisture in the air, which drips down into the collection area. The air is then passed over a hot coil to restore it to its original temperature. Dehumidifiers are a great way to remove moisture in the air, and they can be placed anywhere in your home with extra humidity. Replacing moisture-soaked items. Consider replacing any objects or items in your home that have been heavily affected by moisture. In most cases, mold and mildew growth may have already begun, and it could be too late for smaller repairs. Soaked items could be sheetrock, bathroom tiles, windows, or other objects—the list goes on! If moisture damage is bad enough, it could impact not only the health of your home but also the health of your family. If you think your home needs mold and mildew restoration, don’t try to fix it on your own! Always consult a specialist for help.

Homes With Low Humidity Levels

The ideal humidity level in your home should be right around 45 percent. When that level begins to drop, especially in the colder months, you will probably begin to notice the following:

Signs of decreased humidity levels

    • Static electricity
    • Dry skin
    • Dry nose and throat
  • Shrinking wood planks

If you keep getting zapped when you touch a doorknob, or your clothes and blankets are sticking together, your home most likely doesn’t have enough moisture in the air. Low humidity levels can also cause dry skin, and dry out your nose and throat. This could lead to nosebleeds, cracked skin, and overall discomfort. Dry air can also strip the moisture out of your home, specifically anything with wood. This could be your home’s foundation, doors, windows, walls and more. If you have hardwood floors in your home, you might notice they squeak or have begun to separate. Doors might be more difficult to close, and paneling may be detaching from the wall. To keep you and your home healthy, you need to add some moisture back into the air!

How to add moisture to the air

Here are a few things you can use in your home to strengthen your humidity levels: Use a humidifier. Humidifiers will push moisture into the air in the form of mist. There are many different types of humidifiers, so make sure you purchase one that will cover the area of your home where it’s needed most. To avoid refilling it often, try to purchase one that holds plenty of water. Lastly, be sure that you keep it clean and change the filters regularly. Set out houseplants. Having house plants around your home can help increase humidity levels, among other things. When you water your plants, the moisture will then go back into the air through the process of transpiration. We also recommend keeping your houseplants grouped together, since they will feed off of each other’s humidity. There are some plants that will add more humidity to the air than others, so be sure to choose the houseplants that work best for you, and your home! Cook on the stovetop. While this might not always be the most convenient cooking method, cooking on the stovetop will definitely add some steam to the air! Even boiling water on the stove, or using a tea kettle to make your morning cup of joe can make the air less dry!

Killingsworth Services Can Balance Humidity Levels In Your Home

Balancing humidity levels in your home can be tricky. We know that as you go through the year, humidity levels will increase and decrease. The best thing you can do is stay proactive, and monitor your home frequently for signs of damage due to low or high humidity. However, not everyone has the time to make sure their home is maintaining an ideal humidity level. We do though! If you’re curious about the air in your home, reach out to us! We can take a look at your HVAC, make mold and mildew repairs and restore your home’s air quality. Got mold? We can fix that. High humidity levels and spring showers can bring lots of unwanted moisture into our homes. Luckily for you, we know exactly what to do! Schedule a service with us today!

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How To Maintain Ideal Humidity Levels In Your Home

Bedbug inspection

How to Know if Your Hotel Has Bedbugs

Upon entering a hotel room, do you typically reach for the tiny toiletries, take a leap onto the bed, or perhaps start by inspecting for bed bugs? Knowing what to look for is essential. Anticimex Carolinas Service Manager Christian Tweed has shared valuable insights on identifying bed bugs in your hotel room and preventing them from hitching a ride back home with you. And if bed bugs do become an unexpected part of your vacation, remember that Clark’s Pest Control is here to assist!



Q&A with a Pest Professional


How do bed bugs get inside hotels?


Bed bugs are primarily hitchhiking insects as opposed to foraging ones, meaning that they get carried around on people’s clothes and belongings. Someone with an active infestation in their home can easily bring bed bugs to their hotel, but they can also be picked up during travel (airplanes, taxis, and rideshare services) and brought to a hotel room.


What do people misunderstand about bed bugs in hotels?


From a probability standpoint, all hotels will deal with bed bugs at some point in time. If you think about a bed bug’s method of travel, there’s literally nothing a hotel can do to stop them from being carried in. What I have realized is that luxury hotels are more likely to have an aggressive response to dealing with a bed bug case once it’s identified as they tend to have a higher quality of service and a reputation to protect. While this isn’t always the case, it has been my experience more often than not.

Got bedbugs? Call Clark’s at 866-781-4991 today!

What do you recommend travelers do when they get to their room to check for bed bugs?


Most hotel headboards hang directly on the wall. I start my inspection here before even looking at the bed itself. I have found bed bugs, their exoskeletons, and the telltale black stains they leave behind around the edges of or in the crevices of headboards. If the headboard looks clean, move on to looking over the pillowcases and comforter for any signs or stains. You can dig into the bedding as deep as you want here, but I encourage people to look over the top layer of things at the very least.


What are some lesser-known signs of bed bugs in your hotel room?


The specifics of the black stains they leave behind, which as gross as it sounds, are just digested blood as that’s all that bed bugs feed on. If the stains are on a hard surface, they will be small dots as if left behind by an ink pen and will smear into a brownish gray when moisture is applied. If they’re on fabric, they will usually bleed along the fibers making a small diamond, square or X shape.


If there are bed bugs in your hotel room, can they travel home with you?


They absolutely can, however this is easy to prevent. While staying in a hotel, keep as much of your clothing and luggage off the beds as possible. Storing suitcases in the bathroom might sound odd, but it’s an effective method of prevention.

Don’t tackle bedbugs yourself, call Clark’s at 866-781-4991!

What should you do with your suitcase if you suspect your hotel has bed bugs?


When arriving home from a trip, leave your luggage in the garage or on a porch and bring your clothes in one load of laundry at a time. If the clothes are dirty, wash them like you normally would, if they’re clean then run them through the dryer for at least forty-five minutes. Once your suitcase is empty, vacuum over it meticulously (don’t forget to empty the vacuum when you’re done), or if you’re in the right climate, expose it to heat for a few days by placing it in your vehicle (parked in the sun) or for a few weeks in your attic.


The Clark’s Solution


If you brought bed bugs back to you home, Clark’s is here to help. Our Bedbug Control service is designed to eliminate bedbugs and create a safe, comfortable environment.


A Clark’s Pest Professional will do an inspection and recommend a plan of attack to get rid of bed bugs now and prevent them from hatching in the future. Call Clark’s at 866-781-4991 today for more information.



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