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How To Prepare Your Home For Spring

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Bring The Freshness Of Spring To Your Home

Spring has sprung—almost. As the winter months come to an end here in the Carolinas, it’s time to start prepping your yard and home for spring! Winter storms and cold weather can cause damage to your home, so there is no better time than the present to assess potential damage or issues. Ready to get started? Here are some tips to help get the outside and inside of your home springtime ready!

First Things First—The Yard

Time to get those hands a little dirty! While the inside of your home is just as important as the outside, we recommend starting with your yard and garden first. That way, you’re not tracking leaves, grass and dirt inside your spring ready home! Here’s how to give your yard some much needed TLC for spring.

Clean up the mess

Winter can be harmful to all parts of your lawn, especially the plants and trees. So it’s important to start with them first. If you have trees in your yard or garden, you’ll want to begin by raking away any dead leaves and picking up fallen branches and twigs. If you have a garden, pluck dead weeds and apply fresh mulch. Paying attention to the mess will give your yard a refreshed, clean look and add curb appeal!

Don’t snub your shrubs

Give your trees and shrubs some love by applying a fertilizer. Low temperatures and winter storms can cause some of your trees or bushes to become malnourished, and a good fertilizer can fix that! Take a look at your trees and shrubs to see if they might benefit from fertilizer. It might not be as beneficial to older trees, but newer ones that have never been fertilized will soak it up! Check out some of our organic options to find the right fertilizer for you.

Feed your lawn

Next, shift the focus to your lawn. Once you have any fallen debris taken care of, you can start looking at your grass. It’s still too early to mow, but if you know your yard is prone to weeds or crabgrass, you can begin considering pre-emergent control options. This could also be the perfect time to apply some grass seed, especially if you notice dead or barren parts of your lawn. Lastly, aeration is always a wonderful option for your yard! This will allow water and air to reach the roots faster, hopefully gifting you a more luscious lawn in the spring. As is starts to get warmer, consider the benefits of applying a lime application before your first mow. Not only will it provide much needed nutrients to your grass, but also balance the pH levels in your lawn, giving you beautiful, healthy grass.

Time To Tackle The Inside Of Your Home

Now that your yard is ready to take on spring, let’s get your home ready, too! To spruce up your home for spring, get started on these three things:

Kick clutter to the curb

Time to say goodbye to all that extra clutter lying around your home! It seems like old boxes and paper can pile up during the winter, especially after Christmas. Used wrapping paper and boxes might find themselves collecting dust in a forgotten corner, and all the new gifts may have not been put away yet due to lack of storage. Now is the perfect time to sort through the items cluttering your home. Not only will you feel more organized, but also more prepared for spring (not to mention the pests that might be hiding in that clutter—gross!). Once you have tidied up, check for places in your home that could benefit from a makeover. Maybe you have some old clothes in your closet to donate, or pieces of furniture that could use a new home. Cleaning out these items from your home will help you, and others—it’s a win-win! Lastly, don’t forget to declutter your gutters! Old leaves and twigs can get stuck in your gutter, causing standing water (perfect for mosquitos) or clogs. Make sure to thoroughly clean your gutters so they can handle spring showers and keep pests at bay.

Lock out moisture

Speaking of spring showers, you need to make sure your home is prepared for all the moisture it’s bound to encounter. First, check for any moisture damages you may already have around your home. If these continue to go unnoticed, you could end up with a more serious problem on your hands—especially with more rain on the way. Check your home for water damage in your attic, on the walls and floors and under your cabinets. If you notice damage to one or all of these areas, contact a specialist to make repairs. Next, check your crawl space. Now is the perfect time to consider fully encapsulating your crawl space if you want to keep moisture out of your home. By completely sealing off your crawl space, you will prevent mold, mildew and pests from sneaking into your home. If you’re not sure where to begin with encapsulation, request a free inspection so we can help!

Freshen up

Spring brings enough allergens on its own—your home doesn’t need to be full of them, too. Vacuuming your floors, changing air filters, dusting all surfaces and cleaning your windows are some of the final touches you home will need to be spring ready. We know no one enjoys vacuuming or dusting, but completing these chores will help remove aggravating allergens that threaten your home. Now that most of the cleaning is behind you, it’s time to get to the fun part—refreshing your home! Maybe you’ve been considering changing paint colors, hanging new decorations or refurbishing your bedroom. Spring is the best time of year to make these changes, and you will feel so much better after you do. After all, it’s a new year and a new season—your home should feel like-new, too! Getting your home and yard ready for spring may sound like too much to do on top of your already hectic schedule. That’s what we’re here for! Let us make spring cleaning as easy as can be—set up an appointment with us today!

How To Prepare Your Home For Spring

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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