How to Keep Pests Out of Stored Holiday Decorations in Florida

To keep pests out of stored holiday decorations, pack them clean, put them in plastic bins with tight lids, and open every box outside before it comes into the house. In Brevard County that matters more than up north. Our decorations live in the attic or the garage, and that is where roof rats, roaches and silverfish live too.

TL;DR

• Open the boxes in the driveway or the garage, not on the living room floor.
• Look for droppings, chewed corners, chewed light wires and shed skins.
• Swap cardboard boxes for plastic bins with lids that latch.
• Never pack anything edible, and pack scented candles on their own.
• Droppings in a box mean rodents in the house. Find the way in, not only the mess.

What gets into stored holiday decorations in Florida

Most guides on this were written for a house with a basement. Florida homes do not have one. Here the boxes go up the attic ladder or onto a garage shelf, and both places are hot, humid and quiet for eleven months.

Three pests do most of the damage:

• Roof rats and mice. Roof rats are the rat that climbs into Brevard attics. A box of soft tree skirts and tissue paper is good nest material. They chew the box, chew the light strings and leave droppings in the bottom.
• Roaches. Cardboard gives roaches a dark, tight place to hide. A garage shelf full of old boxes is a good roach home.
• Silverfish. UF/IFAS Extension says silverfish feed hard on things high in starch, glue and cellulose, like paper. Cardboard, wrapping paper and old tissue are all of that. They like damp air, and a Florida garage in summer is damp.

Check every box before it comes inside

October is when the first boxes come down, for fall and Halloween. Check them now, and again in late November.

1. Carry the boxes outside. Open them in the driveway or the garage. If something runs out, it runs outside.
2. Wear gloves. Spiders like a box that sat still all year.
3. Look at the bottom of each box first. Droppings, shredded paper and chewed corners show up there.
4. Run each light string through your hands. Look for bare copper and bite marks. A chewed wire is a fire risk. Throw that strand away.
5. Shake out fabric. Shake tree skirts, stockings and wreaths outside before they come in.

If you find droppings, do not sweep or vacuum them. The CDC says to wear rubber or plastic gloves, spray the droppings with a bleach and water mix or a disinfectant, let it soak for five minutes, then wipe it up with paper towels. Bag the waste and put it in a covered trash can.

How to pack decorations so pests stay out

When the season is over, pack for next year.

• Clean first. Wipe down plastic, glass and metal pieces. Wash and dry fabric. Crumbs and old food stains bring pests to a box.
• Use plastic bins with latching lids. Cardboard is food and shelter for silverfish and roaches, and a rat chews through it in a night.
• Nothing edible. No popcorn strings, no gingerbread, no candy canes left in a stocking.
• Pack scented candles on their own, in their own sealed bin. A strong smell draws pests to the box.
• Wrap ornaments in dry tissue or bubble wrap. Pack them dry. Damp paper in a hot attic grows mold.
• Keep bins up off the garage floor on a shelf, with a little space from the wall, so you can see behind them.

What we see in Brevard

In Brevard the rat in the attic is almost always the roof rat, also called the citrus rat or the palm rat. It climbs a tree or a fence onto the roof and goes in at a soffit gap, a cracked roof pipe boot or an AC line hole. Once it is in, the attic is its home, and your holiday boxes are the furniture.

So when a homeowner finds a chewed box of decorations, the box is not the problem. It is the sign. If droppings are in a box in the attic, the rats are already in the house. A new bin keeps the next box clean. It does not get the rats out. Our post on signs of rodents in your attic has the other things to look for while you are up there.

What to do now

1. Bring this year's boxes down and open them outside.
2. Throw away any light string with a chewed or bare wire.
3. Clean up droppings the CDC way, with gloves and a disinfectant, never a broom.
4. Buy enough plastic bins with latching lids to retire the cardboard.
5. While you are in the attic, look at the soffit edges and the AC line hole for daylight or a chewed edge. Our post on how small a hole a rat can get through shows where to look.

When to call somebody

A few silverfish in a box is a packing problem, and a plastic bin fixes it. Droppings, chewed wire or nesting in the attic is a rodent problem, and it does not go away when the decorations come down. If that is what you found, our rodent control starts with a free inspection of the attic and the roofline. Roaches in the garage are part of general pest control.

Sources

• UF/IFAS Extension: Silverfish, Lepisma saccharina
• CDC: How to Clean Up After Rodents
• UF/IFAS: Rat and Mouse Control (ENY-224)

Frequently Asked Questions