Dirty outlets are an electrical hazard. When dirty outlets overheat, they can spark, ignite debris, and cause fast-spreading electrical fires. Unfortunately, your outlets may be harboring insects that constantly track debris in and leave lots of detritus behind. Some of these pests may even chew through your wiring’s insulation and cause other outlet damage. Ants, cockroaches, bed bugs, and termites are just a few of many six-legged pests that can wreak havoc on your electrical system. At Mister Sparky, we’re sharing everything you need to know about bug-proofing your outlets and keeping your home protected.
How Do Bugs Affect Outlets?
Where there are insects, there’s bound to be debris. Insects leave outlets littered with:
- Wings
- Shed exoskeletons
- Carcasses
- Feces
- Food
As these materials dry out, the risk of outlet malfunction and electrical fires increases.
Many insects also leave pheromones in outlets. These potent chemicals signal and communicate with other bugs. Pheromones can draw more bugs to an already infested area and compound your problem. If you have outlets that regularly trip your circuit breakers, insects and their leavings are a likely cause.
Constant Nibbling
Ants and cockroaches are known for nibbling through wiring insulation. However, termites and silverfish can cause significant damage by nibbling on outlet wires as well. These activities leave live wires bare. With larger insects, large insect populations, or more robust activity, they can also loosen electrical connections.
Ant Bridges and Electrical Arcs
Ants are highly conductive. Their bodies have a high water content and they have a thin layer of moisture in their exoskeletons. To shorten their traveling distances and expedite their access to water or food, ants often build living bridges with their bodies. In outlets, these bridges create unintended flows of electricity that can trip circuit breakers or cause dangerous electrical arcs.
Outlets Make Whole-House Infestations Difficult to Treat
Outlets are the perfect hiding spaces for insects. In fact, they’re one of the top reasons why bed bug infestations are notoriously hard to get rid of. If you’ve cleaned your bedding and used sprays, powders, or bug bombs to no avail, bed bugs may be hiding in your outlets.
Outlets are unaffected by many DIY bed bug treatments. When these pests set up camp in outlets, whole-house heat treatments are often the best solution.
Which Outlets Are Prone to Infestation?
Insects can slip through cracks that are less than a millimeter wide. They don’t need much space to get into outlets. They can even enter and exit outlets via their contact openings or “prong holes”.
With bed bugs, all bedroom outlets are a likely target, especially those closest to beds and pet beds. Bedroom outlets put bed bugs right near warm, sleeping bodies.
Ants and cockroaches frequently inhabit outlets in kitchen and bathroom areas. These outlets give them easy access to fixed water sources and dropped food. If you have a perpetually greasy GFCI outlet near your stove, it may be a prime target.
Although less common, spiders, termites, and wasps usually enter outlets with active drafts nearby. In exterior walls, there may be cracks and gaps in building materials that provide a way in from outdoors.
How to Treat Pests in Outlets
While you might be tempted to take your outlet covers off and liberally spray behind them, doing so could cause more damage than it prevents or resolves. One common DIY intervention is to apply boric acid or diatomaceous earth behind outlet covers. These applications dry insects out and kill them shortly after contact. Unfortunately, they also introduce dry, flammable materials into outlets. A much safer method is to lightly dust outlet covers with these products while keeping them out of all contact openings.
The surest way to get rid of an existing outlet infestation is to hire a reputable pest control company. Pest control companies can leverage treatments that are:
- Species-specific
- Capable of breaking breeding cycles
- Non-harmful to wiring and other electrical system components
- Long-lasting
Once your outlet pests are eliminated, you’ll also need an electrician. At Mister Sparky, we conduct thorough electrical system inspections and make recommendations for post-infestation repairs and replacements. Depending upon the severity of your outlet damage, these recommendations could include replacing:
- Wiring
- Circuits
- Outlets
- Outlet covers
It may even be necessary to have your outlets professionally cleaned.
How to Prevent Outlet Infestations From Recurring
There isn’t a way to completely bug-proof your outlets. However, there are ways to make your outlets less appealing to insects and other pests.
Establish an Ongoing Pest Management Plan
Pest treatment and pest management are not one and the same. Pest treatment eliminates existing infestations. Pest management is an ongoing, multi-pronged effort to deter pests that thrive within the local environment. It includes:
- Finding and fixing plumbing leaks
- Eliminating standing bodies of water
- Tightly covering trash bins
- Sealing cracks and gaps in building materials
- Keeping counters, floors, and other indoor surfaces clean
You can work with a pest control company to establish a needs-specific pest management plan. For instance, if you have a termite infestation in your outlets, your pest management plan will include removing all non-essential sources of wood cellulose, such as old, decaying tree stumps in your yard or wet landscaping mulch. Measures like these will keep termites from congregating on or near your property and getting anywhere near your outlets.
Install Outlet Seals
You can prevent bugs from entering your outlets via contact holes and other indoor points of ingress by installing outlet seals. Positioned just behind cover plates, outlet seals create formidable barriers without affecting the integrity or functionality of outlets. To find out more about using outlet seals to bug-proof the outlets in your home, get in touch with Mister Sparky today!