Don’t Let Cicadas Slow Down the Sale of Your Home!
You’re finally ready to sell! As a responsible seller, you probably took the extra effort to make a few improvements around your home and perhaps even hired a professional stager. Yet, your efforts to intrigue home buyers shouldn’t be thwarted by the bright red eyes, veiny wings, and continuous buzz of the season’s cicadas. Or maybe you’ve noticed that ticks are a major problem in your yard this year. Many homeowners are discovering pesky, and often dangerous insects on their lawns, ones that are usually found in the deep forest. But as potential buyers take a look on the inside – and outside of your home, the last thing you want them to focus on are pests creeping on the property. The following prevention and maintenance tips can help reduce and significantly remove unwanted insects from your property.
Removing Cicadas
Besides being incredibly loud, cicadas are known to fly and land almost anywhere, including on the shoulder of potential buyers. Although these creatures are arguably grotesque, they actually do not cause much harm, if at all, to plants, mature trees, and people. However, they are a nuisance in a number of other ways. To keep them at bay, loosely wrap any young trees around your home. Using foil tape, sticky tape, or cheese cloth, simply wrap all the way around the trunk from the ground to where the first branch starts. Female cicadas love to nest in trees, this method will help prevent them from laying eggs there. If cicadas are already on your property, you can spray them away with a hose. Sounds too simply, but it works surprisingly well. Avoid using bleach or essential oils. Harsh chemicals like bleach can kill your lawn and foliage, and you would need an enormous amount of essential oils to ever reduce the pests. Although cicadas do not come around often, keeping your yard well-manicured and avoiding too many open dirt spots will help eliminate them from burrowing and going back into the soil. And rest assured, that once the cicadas go away in six weeks, they won’t come back again until 2038!
Removing Ticks
Unlike cicadas, ticks can be harmful as they can cause skin irritations and carry diseases. These parasitic arachnids are often so tiny that you may not even realize you have been bitten until it’s too late. Due to a warmer, wetter winter ticks are highly active this summer. A simple walk through the lawn or enjoying a cup of coffee on the patio may result in an unexpected bite. Luckily, tick prevention methods are often very similar to what a homeowner would do to keep their property looking its best. For example, removing leaf litter and clearing tall grass around the home and on the edge of the lawn can make all the difference. By keeping your lawn trimmed frequently, ticks are less likely to stick around. Consider placing a 3-ft wide barrier between your lawn and wooded area by using gravel or wood chips. This can significantly restrict ticks from migrating into recreational areas around the home. As a plus, these methods also deter rodents away from the property.
There are few things as unsettling to homeowners as pests on or in the home. Giving potential buyers the peace of mind that the home is move-in ready in every aspect, can be appealing and a major selling point. Ridding your property of the season’s most bothersome insects can make a huge difference when it comes to receiving an offer.
Don't let the cicadas disturb your plans to sell your home this summer. Contact me today for more information about Washington, D.C. luxury real estate.
