Five Tricks for Keeping Pests Out of Your Custom Closets

As a Colorado resident, certain pests are more common in your home than if you lived in other parts of the country. Here are the five main culprits to be on the lookout for, especially in your closets!

Earwigs

The earwig includes 12 families and 2,000 different species. They’re long, lean critters with pincers or forceps. These pincers help the earwig climb, such as onto you or your closet’s clothes, but they have to be irritated to do that.

Although the earwig won’t sting or bite you, it’s still not something you want to see crawling out of the pocket of your blazer when you go to get ready in the morning!

Cockroaches

Nearly 5,000 cockroach species exist, but the good news is that just 30 of them hang around humans. Still, it's safe to say you do not want to see one of these big brown bugs scurrying around the floor of your closet.

If the cockroaches run out of food in your closet, they might begin biting you. This doesn’t happen very often at all, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t. You’ll want to dump the cockroaches from your closet immediately!

Black Widow Spiders

The black widow spider or Latrodectus is an ominous black spider with a red marking on its abdomen to tell you to get away. These spiders may live anywhere for a year to three years, which is far too long if spiders give you the creeps. 

Since black widow spiders are considered a more dangerous spider species, don't let them hang around in your closet long! You'll want to take action immediately.

Bed Bugs

Despite the name, bed bugs don't only live in your bed, but in your closets as well. They can come in almost any item you bring into the house. You're more likely to have a bed bug problem if you have a large family and a small house, with a lot of clutter.

Bed bugs are either the Cimex hemipterus or the Cimex lectularius, the latter of which is more common. Since bed bugs look for areas to hide out in, including in blouses, pants, and purses, it's definitely worth keeping your eye out for these nasty critters.

Carpenter Ants

You can tell carpenter ants apart from other ant species because they’re much larger than the average ant. The carpenter ant is also unfortunately pretty common in Colorado, so if you see a  bunch in your home, now is the time to act.

The bite of a carpenter ant stings immediately, and it feels very sharp too. The best way to avoid carpenter ants is to keep your closets nice and dry since they are attracted to any type of wood that is damp.

Whether it’s carpenter ants, earwigs, or cockroaches, you have too many multi-legged creatures calling your closet their home. Before you necessarily call the exterminator, try these methods for pest removal instead. One or a combination of them should do the trick!

When you go to pick up your clothing from the dry cleaner's, they are typically returned to you in a plastic garment bag, right? You might feel inclined to store the outfit in your closet in that same bag since you're not wearing that outfit again right away. Plus, it's hard for bugs to eat clothing if they have to reach through a layer of plastic to get it.

The problem with plastic garment bags isn't so much bugs but what can happen to your clothing. Some clothing materials, especially cashmere, require more space for breathability. Stuffing your clothes into a garment bag could weaken the quality of some materials and cause discoloration in others.

If you must use a garment bag, then get one made of a breathable material. 

Now that your kitchen is clean, go into the rooms where your closets are and look for openings. Broken seals, cracked walls, and other gaps will welcome the bugs right into your bedroom or hall closet. Even if an opening seems microscopic to you, it’s plenty big enough for a bug to use to get into your home.



Apply caulk, sealer, or even add fresh concrete to patch up the openings. Ideally, you want to continue doing this around your whole home so pests no longer have a point of entry anywhere.

Your closet is a dark, warm environment, which is the perfect hiding place for insects. There’s also an abundance of food in the form of your clothes, which some bug species do indeed eat. The cockroach especially will consume any type of clothing fabric they can get their tiny legs on. By vacuuming and dusting your closets at least once a month, you disturb the bugs and send them packing.

Not everyone wants to wash their jeans after wearing them once or send that blazer through the wash cycle if you wore a shirt underneath. That’s a personal choice, but by leaving worn clothing in your closet, you are definitely inviting bugs in.



It’s not just bugs, by the way. Mice might be more attracted to the smell of your dirty clothing, not to mention the oils, food debris, hair, and skin that gets left on worn clothing. It’s much better to wash clothing immediately after wearing them.

You might not like bugs, but you don’t want to be inhumane and use chemicals to get rid of them. Fortunately, lots of critters hate cedar, especially cockroaches and ants as well as mosquitoes, moths, and termites. You can buy a cedar block or use cedar chips, spreading them throughout your closet to ward off bugs.

Black widow spiders don’t enjoy lemon and earwigs aren’t so fond of the odor of borax.

Nothing is worse than coming home after a long day, opening your closet, and seeing several bugs spring out. In Colorado especially, you have to beware visits from earwigs, black widow spiders, cockroaches, and carpenter ants, not to mention the odd bed bug here and there.

With the methods in this article, now you’re ready to combat closet critters so you can enjoy your beautiful closets once again!

• https://www.pestfreedenver.com/resources/the-10-most-common-nuisance-pests-in-denver-colorado-part-1/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwig
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug 
• https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/insects/western-widow-spider-5-605/#:~:text=Several%20species%20occur%20in%20the,southern%20areas%20of%20the%20country.)