10 Tips for Going Back to School Pest-Free

Summary: The school year is a busy time, so pest prevention often falls to the wayside. This blog gives 10 easy tips for preventing pests during the return back to school and throughout the school year. Green Pest Services eliminates pests with precision and care.

Depending on your relationship to school, the phrase “back-to-school season” is exciting, disappointing, nauseating, or a combination of the three. One thing is for sure: the school year is easier to digest when there is some sort of basic routine in place. Of course, there are always random events that throw a wrench in your plans. One such event is a pest infestation.

Whether it’s an army of ants or a family of rats, any pest presence is unwelcome in your home. So, how do you prevent pests from invading your house (and school year)? Let’s find out by exploring our top 10 tips for preventing pests while your kids are going back to school!

Clean School Items

Once your students are going back to school, make sure they don’t accidentally bring home a pest problem by cleaning their bags. On a regular basis, use an antibacterial wipe or spray to clean backpacks, lunchboxes, and other bags. Look for bed bugs in the crevices of each bag as you do this.

Keep all school bags in one place, like the mudroom or entryway. In the event that any of them have hidden pests, keeping the bags in the same area helps to contain the issue until it’s solved. Check these bags often for dirty gym clothes and leftover food to make sure those pest attractants aren’t sitting out.

Manage the Clutter

On a related note, keeping the clutter to a minimum is a great way to prevent pests. Rodents, roaches, silverfish, and spiders like hiding in clutter because they can avoid us for a longer period of time. When you keep your items organized, you remove a lot of their hiding spots.

At the very least, store backpacks and other items off the ground. Items on the ground are easily accessible to pests, so keep bags elevated to make them less accessible. Use baskets or containers to hold papers, mail, and loose items until you have time to go through them.

We know organization looks different for everyone, so as long as your children’s school items are kept (relatively) tidy in one place, you’re managing the clutter well.

Store Food Properly

Stocking up on snacks and portable foods for school lunches is an easy way to eliminate that stress, but be sure to store those items well. Food-motivated pests (ants, roaches, rodents, etc.) are attracted to easy food sources. When flimsy bags and boxes of food are left open, pests have an opportunity to invade (speaking from experience).

The easiest way to protect stored food is to transfer it into airtight containers. It’s especially important for pantry staples like cereal, chips, crackers, nuts, chocolate, and dried fruit. If your home has a history of ant problems, put individually-wrapped snacks (still in the wrappers) in these containers for extra protection.

Stay on Top of Your Chores

When your kids are going back to school and you have a million items on your to-do list, the last thing you want to think about is chores. But what if we told you that completing your chores helps to prevent pests? A tidy home often results in a pest-free home since the pests have less attractants. Pests can still invade clean homes, but the risk of an infestation is much lower.

Whether you do a little every day or save it for a designated “chore day” each week, we suggest completing these chores regularly:

• Washing the dishes

• Doing the laundry

• Cleaning the floors

• Sanitizing the kitchen counters

• Tidying up the yard (mow the lawn, trim hedges, pull weeds, etc.)

Keep the Car Clean

It’s easy to just think of your car as a vessel to shuttle your family to and from activities, especially as your kids go back to school and get involved in a lot of activities. But it can quickly become a pest-mobile if there are enough attractants inside. Half-drunken coffees and cereal crumbs aren’t much to us, but they are everything to rodents and ants.

Basically, there shouldn’t be any pest food sources left in your car for a long period of time. Make it a habit to remove food wrappers, to-go cups, and other trash from your car every day. If you have little ones, don’t forget to clean those carseats! Vacuum the floor mats and seats often, and keep the windows rolled up when your vehicle is parked.

Seal Entry Points

Pests have to enter our houses from somewhere, so one of the most important steps to a pest-free home is to seal all openings. This removes any easy access these pests might’ve had otherwise. It’s also effective in every season since pests are always seeking shelter from bad weather, whether it’s hot or freezing.

Inspect your house’s exterior (especially near pipes and vents) for cracks, and seal these openings with waterproof caulk. Also, make sure all windows and doors have tight seals. If the weatherstripping is weathered or cracked, replace it as soon as you can. Any window and door screens that are loose or ripped should be replaced as well.

Protect Your Pets

By keeping your pets pest-free (say that 3 times fast!), you’re effectively protecting everyone in the house from the same issues. After all, fleas and ticks aren’t exclusively “pet problems” since they’ll feed on any warm blood.

Check your pet daily for fleas and ticks by running your fingers through their fur. Pay close attention to the “hotspot” areas, like the neck, head, tail, and paws. If you notice your pet acting strange (excessively scratching, refusing to eat, vomiting, etc.), please take them to the vet immediately.

Change the Bedding

We understand the frustration of an ever-growing laundry pile, especially when some items need to be washed by a certain date (looking at you, sports uniforms). If it’s not already in your chore routine, make sure all of the bedding in your household gets washed on the regular too.

Washing sheets and pillowcases in hot water removes dead skin, dander, and hair that some pests like to eat. This goes back to our point about consistently doing the chores. When you remove easy food sources, you make your home less inviting to pests.

Washing and changing the sheets is also a great opportunity to check the bed for bed bugs. These reddish-brown pests are easy to miss — until they start feeding — so look out for rogue bed bugs and their droppings.

Keep Trash Contained

It’s no secret that flies, ants, rodents, and other gross pests find their favorite foods in the trash. We can’t stop creating trash, but we can make it harder for pests to access it! All food waste, including wrappers and school lunch leftovers, need to make it into the trash can. Use strong trash bags to contain the mess.

Once it’s full, take the trash out to your outdoor garbage cans. Never let the kitchen trash can overflow, as this attracts pests and contaminates the floor. The lids to the outdoor garbage cans should always be kept closed to keep out rodents and other critters.

Solve Pest Problems Immediately

It’s easy for pest concerns to get lost in the shuffle of the return back to school, so keep an eye out for pest activity as you go about your day. Pest problems are much easier to solve when they’re caught in the early stages. If you have young kids, teach them to come to you if they see any bugs in the house.

An easy way to monitor pest activity in low-traffic areas, like the garage and shed, is to place glue boards in the corners. Just make sure they’re out of reach of your pets and children. If these boards start collecting a lot of pests — or if you see pests somewhere else in the home — contact your local pest professionals ASAP.

Go Back to School with Green Pest Services

There’s enough to worry about when your kids are going back to school — lunches, sports practices, 10:00 PM homework sessions — without adding “pest problems” to that list. That’s why the experienced technicians of Green Pest Services are here to help! Once we assess the issue and determine the pest species at play, we can implement our long-term solutions that target the root of the issue.

Every season brings new pest problems because pests are always looking for food sources and seeking shelter from bad weather. Don’t let pests ruin your family’s school year. Contact us for a free quote on our reliable services today!

Citations

Back to school pest control tips: Keeping your Florida home pest-free. (2023, August 22). Hulett Environmental Services. Retrieved July 29, 2025, from https://www.bugs.com/blog/back-to-school-pest-control-tips-keeping-your-florida-home-pest-free-and-sanitary/

Speer, F. (2024, August 9). Back to school pest control tips. Clark Pest Control. Available at https://www.clarkpest.com/residential-service-blog-old/back-to-school-pest-control-tips (Accessed on July 29, 2025).