No one wants to open their storage unit to find that it’s become an open house for nature’s good-for-nothings. But mice, moths, bedbugs, roaches and their skulking ilk can easily multiply in the unpatrolled darkness of a unit with an absentee owner. But let’s be realistic: You’re not paying to have your stuff out of sight and out of mind just so you can check on it every few weeks. So, how do you take preventative steps to ensure pests can’t get a claw-hold in the first place?
Set Traps in Your Unit
Speaking of traps, you might be tempted to put some in your own unit. While “roach motels” and similar insect killers should be fine, think twice before laying any lethal mouse traps, since you don’t want your stuff marinating in a cloud of rotting rodent fumes for the weeks or months between that sickening snap and your next visit!
Less-Lethal Pest Control
But there are less-lethal ways to deter pests that can actually be an aromatic boon to your unit’s atmosphere. Cotton balls soaked in essential oils — peppermint, eucalyptus, and lavender all have some claim to pest deterrence — and the well-known remedy of cedar blocks all have a place in your deterrence strategy. But even better is to cut off pests’ access to the stuff they’d be interested in, namely fabrics and food.
Wrap Before Storing
To that end, clothes and linens should absolutely go in sealed plastic bins (making sure they’re well dried first, of course, to prevent mildew). If your closet at home has been infested with moths, you might even consider dry cleaning and vacuum-sealing valuable items before storing them. When it comes to furniture, total sealing is probably not feasible or cost-effective, but a plastic covering that zips or is secured to key points with ad hoc solutions like tape or Saran wrap can make the tasty fibers harder for bugs to reach.
As for food remnants that might attract critters, they can hide on kitchen equipment in the form of grease smears or bits of smoothie stuck in those crevices between blender parts. Disassemble and thoroughly wash all this stuff before storing it. And seriously, don’t store food. Just don’t. Not even in plastic bins. Vermin have much more sensitive noses than we do. And remember, paper and cardboard are nearly as attractive to rodents and insects as actual food. Some critters will eat paper outright; many more will happily chew it to shreds and use it as nesting material. So, replace cardboard boxes with plastic bins wherever possible. All it takes is one pregnant mouse following her nose into your unit through a hole in the wall, and you can have a serious infestation in a matter of weeks.
Pesky Health Hazards
If chewed belongings aren’t enough to inspire you to take action, keep in mind that mouse droppings can transmit a nasty respiratory ailment called hantavirus, which the CDC warns can sometimes be fatal. You can get the virus just by breathing the air where dust from rodent droppings has been stirred up, as it’s likely to be when, say, you sweep or move out of your unit. Apparently, the disease is usually carried by rural-dwelling, white-bellied deer mice, as opposed to the all-brown or -gray urban house mouse. Wherever you are, hantavirus is a very rare danger — but if you do get it, your chance of dying is somewhere in the neighborhood of 33%, so don’t take that chance, especially if your storage facility is on the outskirts of town near woods and fields where deer mice are more likely to be scurrying.
If You Get Infested …
If you do discover mice or their droppings, especially if the mice are white-bellied, you won’t want to dry-sweep the unit or (obviously) handle mice or their droppings. Instead, get rubber gloves to remove any dead mice. Then, clean your unit’s floor as much as possible with a wet item — mop, rag, etc. — to keep the dust down. And it’s probably a good idea to wear a HEPA-filter mask just to be sure you’re not inhaling anything nasty. Sure, you don’t have to take such extreme precautions out in the regular world, where mice are all over the place, but remember, this is a closed space where the critters have been crapping potentially for months. There’s a much higher potential concentration of any pathogens. If you really had it bad, it might be a good idea to move any items you can’t wipe down out into the sunshine for a few hours. The UV should kill off any hantavirus they might’ve deposited on your couch. After such an ordeal, go back to those preventative steps outlined above so you don’t have to do this again.
If you get a bug infestation, there are a few steps you can take. Completely cleaning your unit is probably the best option here. If you have kids’ items you don’t want fumigated with insecticide, you could box them up or remove them and try to debug them yourself with a more natural method like trash-bagging to suffocate bedbugs. If roaches are your only problem, you can probably get rid of them by making sure any food sources are removed, then installing lots of roach motel traps and replacing these after a month or two. Roaches are mainly just gross; they don’t pose as much of a threat to your textiles or your health, so massive fumigation may or may not be worth it to you.
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