How would you say you pay for homeowners insurance a year? Two hundred? Three hundred? A thousand? Whatever you pay, you pay in good faith, that if a natural disaster will strike your home, your family and your assets are protected. What you may not know is that most insurance companies homeowners sit back and let nature's smallest natural disasters wreck havoc with how many houses as they want, and will not lift a finger toto help.
Studies show that in 2008 had about 10% of homeowners and dishes to invite to damage caused by pests in their homes by the rain has caused damage to be repaired. Mice, rats, wasps and termites have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to homes in the United States, and in some cases, houses are falling to the ground, if not sent faster than at least as efficient as storms, hail, tubes leaking kitchen fire and that your home and apartment owners insurance is designed toprotect you against.
The catch is, these little critters are considered to be an avoidable peril-in other words, if they've set up roost in your foundation they're there as a result of something you did and you should be able to get them out.
Whoever invented that policy clause quite obviously never actually had to attempt to remove a termite colony from their floor joists.
Regardless, if your home suffers damages as a result of something these tiny invaders have done you and you alone are responsible not only for repairing the damages but also for taking steps to evict your uninvited guests to begin with. Your homeowners insurance isn't going to help you unless you've purchased a special policy designed to protect your home from death by snacking, and if you're like most Americans at the heart of today's slumping economy the hundreds of dollars it's going to cost you to call in an exterminator is money you just don't have.
So what can you do?
The most obvious solution is to stop these vermin in their tracks so before they have the chance to cause a problem. Remember that any opening into your home, regardless of how small, is an open invite for mice and other uninvited guests. The average mouse can squeeze through a hole in your wall that's less than ¼ of an inch wide, so you want to make sure that these holes are well plugged with steel wool or some other inedible materials.
Keeping termites and wasps out is a little more problematic. Try to avoid leaving tissue paper and stuffed toys lying around in your attic, as these attract wasps looking for a place to set up roost. Termites love damp wood, so make sure there's no moisture lingering around your foundation and dig up any stumps or trees that are too close to the house. Don't leave firewood or other wood products lying on the floor where they're an open invitation to any creepy crawly that happens to come crawling past.
Your homeowners insurance company isn't going to do much to help protect you from these miniature invaders, but that doesn't mean you have to sit back and take it. Remember, the best defense is a good offense-and when you consider the price of an exterminator an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
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