There are many things that you should do to protect your food storage. Many things, such as insects, rodents, and weather will try to damage it if you do not take certain precautions.
Many things threaten your long term food storage. You will want to make sure that you take the necessary precautions in order to fully protect this precious food against the time that you may need it.
Some of the things that may threaten your food storage include rodents, bugs, time, and the weather. All of these things need to be taken into account so that you will be able to anticipate and prevent damage.
It is significantly easier to prevent this damage than it is to replace the food or to remedy the situation once it is taking place. There are several things you should consider doing to the storage unit before you put your long term food supply in there.
For example, the first thing that you should do is make sure that you clean off all of the furniture that you are going to store in there with the food. If you are bringing in shelves or cupboards to put cans and other items one, you will want to make sure that there is not one stray crumb anywhere.
One stray crumb can draw the insects and rodents and then they will discover that they can get into the bags of wheat and other items. Make sure that you clean them off thoroughly.
Even if you are storing a couch in the unit temporarily, you will want to make sure that it is cleaned off properly too. Make sure that you vacuum out all of the cracks and corners so that no crumbs are left in the deep recesses of the cushions.
One crumb is an invitation to insects to come and invade. Once the insects invade, they will be hard to get rid of, and they may devastate the units next door as well if they are also storing food in their unit.
Any appliance that you put in with your food storage will also need to be cleaned off properly. This
Includes things such as toasters, which probably have a lot of crumbs in the bottom that will need to be cleaned out.
As a result, you may want to consider keeping a separate storage unit for your long-term food and another one for other items. This may keep your food more protected from insects as long as the two units are not right next to each other.
Another thing you may want to consider doing is placing some mothballs in with clothing. Clothing is an important part of preparedness as well.
If you have clothing stored with a 72 hour kit, they will be sitting there for a long time and they will be susceptible to insects as well. However, mothballs can help keep the insects away.
However, you will want to watch out because some cheap versions of mothballs can stain clothing. The cheap versions still work well, but you may want to make sure that they are in part of the drawer or bag where they will not touch anything that you do not want stained.
Other items that can help keep insects away include cedar scented blocks and sachets. These things are also effective for protecting towels, blankets, sheets and other cloth items which may be a part of your preparedness plan.
The cedar scented blocks and sachets can last for three to four months before they need to be replaced. You should probably take a trip to check on your long-term food storage at least this often if not more often anyway.
The next thing you may want to do is use contained poisons and insecticides in various areas of the compartment. Contained poisons and insecticides will not harm you or your food.
In addition, they can be quite effective in keeping these nasty pests away. Many roach and ant baits are quite inexpensive and they can be very effective.
You will want to place these baits in areas where the pests are likely to enter, such as near the door, in corners, and near other cracks. It may be advantageous to place a few near the food area in case they enter through another path that you do not expect.
The next thing you will want to address is rodents. Again, mouse and rodent traps with peanut butter can be quite effective.
However, you will have to check it regularly and clean it out so that more mice and rodents can be caught. There are also several natural repellents that you can choose instead of traps and poisons that can also be effective and which you may want to look into.
Author Resource:-
Ronald Pedactor has written hundreds of articles relating to food storage. He recommends food storage guidelines for saving money with food storage.
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