How do I winter-proof my home against pests?

Three overview pages in this cluster look similar and answer different questions on purpose. Our vulnerability-map page ranks physical locations on a house — the where. This page ranks the entire winter-prep action plan — sealing, storage, perimeter maintenance and monitoring together — the full what. Our DIY-steps page takes this same plan and narrows it down to only the steps a homeowner can do without hiring anyone. If you want the complete picture including the two vent-screening and gap-sealing tasks that sometimes need a ladder or a trade, you're in the right place.

The first three items on this list — sealing gaps, screening vents, and switching to metal or glass storage — account for the large majority of the actual payoff, because they address the two things a rodent needs to establish itself: a way in, and a reason to stay. Sealing removes the way in. Metal and glass storage removes the food scent that makes staying worthwhile. Everything below rank three is real and worth doing, but it's secondary — a clean foundation buffer and early trapping matter more once the first three steps are already handled, not instead of them.

Ultrasonic plug-in devices and essential-oil or scent-based repellents are the one category on this list with no reliable evidence behind them, and it isn't a new or contested finding — the FTC issued warning letters to more than sixty manufacturers and retailers of ultrasonic pest-control devices over their efficacy claims, and brought law enforcement actions against several companies for the same reason in the years before that (FTC). Rodents habituate to sound and generally are not repelled by scent in any durable way. This is the one item on the list that isn't 'lower priority' — it's the one that doesn't work, and money or effort spent here is money not spent on the sealing and storage that actually does.