Halloween Decorations, Pumpkins, and the Pests They Attract

Halloween decorating is one of the best parts of fall, and almost nobody thinks of it as a pest problem. But the classic display on a White Mountains porch, a few pumpkins, some straw or hay, cornstalks by the door, and boxes of decorations pulled out of the shed, happens to combine several of the most reliable pest attractants there are. Food, moisture, and shelter, arranged neatly right beside your front door.

None of this means skipping the fun. It just means a few small choices that keep the season enjoyable. At Neff Exterminating, here is what to watch for.

Pumpkins Are a Countdown

A whole, uncarved pumpkin sitting on a cool porch can last for weeks without trouble. The moment you carve it, the clock starts.

Cutting into a pumpkin exposes wet flesh that immediately begins to ferment and decay. Within a few days it starts attracting fruit flies, gnats, ants, wasps, and picnic beetles. Give it a week or two and you have a soft, collapsing, actively rotting food source. In our climate the warm afternoons and cold nights speed the breakdown considerably.

A few things that help:

• Carve close to Halloween, not three weeks out. The shorter the window, the smaller the problem.
• Dry the cut surfaces thoroughly and wipe the inside out well after carving.
• Keep pumpkins off the ground where you can, on a step or stand rather than directly on soil or mulch.
• Use battery lights instead of candles. Real flames cook the interior and accelerate the rot dramatically.
• Remove them promptly once they start to soften or collapse. A rotting pumpkin left through November feeds insects and draws rodents.

Do not toss old pumpkins into the yard or over the fence line, either. That simply relocates the attractant somewhere less visible while continuing to invite rodents and wildlife closer to the house.

Hay Bales and Straw Are Rodent Hotels

Straw and hay make a wonderful autumn display, and they are close to ideal nesting material. Mice find a bale on a porch to be warm, dry, hidden, and easy to burrow into. If the bale sits against the house for several weeks in October, you have effectively installed rodent housing next to your entry door.

Hay in particular can also arrive already carrying insects, and both hay and straw hold moisture against whatever they sit on, which encourages the moisture pests that follow.

If you want the look, keep bales away from the foundation rather than pressed against the wall, set them on a hard surface rather than directly on soil, and take them down promptly after the season rather than leaving them until spring. Check underneath when you move them, since that is where you will find whatever moved in.

Cornstalks, Gourds, and Other Organic Decor

Cornstalks bundled against a porch post are a favorite around here, and they behave much like hay. They hold moisture, provide cover, and often carry insects in from the field. Dried gourds and decorative corn are a direct food source for rodents and can also harbor pantry style beetles that are perfectly happy to move indoors.

Set these pieces where air can move around them, keep them off bare soil, and inspect them before you bring any of it inside or store it.

The Decoration Boxes Themselves

Here is the part almost nobody considers. The bins of Halloween decorations that have been sitting in the shed, garage, attic, or crawlspace since last November have spent a full year in exactly the kind of undisturbed, dark storage that pests prefer.

Cardboard boxes are the main culprit. Cardboard is both nesting material and, to a rodent, something worth chewing. A stack of cardboard bins in a garage corner is one of the most common places we find mouse nests and black widow spiders.

When you pull decorations out this year:

• Bring boxes outside or into the garage to open them, not into the middle of the living room.
• Wear gloves. Black widows favor exactly these kinds of undisturbed containers, and reaching in blind is how people get bitten.
• Look for droppings, chew marks, shed skins, and webbing before handling the contents.
• Shake out fabric items such as costumes, cloth banners, and spider webbing outdoors.
• Switch to sealed plastic totes for next year. This one change eliminates most of the problem permanently.

Lights, Candy, and the Rest of the Night

Bright orange and white display lighting draws insects, which in turn draws the spiders that feed on them. That is why webs seem to appear overnight around a lit display. It is worth knowing so the webs do not surprise you, though for a few weeks of decorating it is usually a fair trade.

Candy deserves a mention as well. Large bowls of unwrapped candy, bags left in the garage, and the inevitable pile that lives on the kitchen counter through early November are all ant and rodent attractants. Keep the surplus in sealed containers rather than open bags, and do not store candy in the garage where rodents will find it first.

Finally, straw, cornstalks, and pumpkins left out well past the season are a bigger draw than anything during the holiday itself. The single most useful habit is simply taking the display down within a week or so after Halloween rather than letting it sit into Thanksgiving.

Serving the White Mountains

Neff Exterminating provides pest and rodent control for homes and businesses throughout Show Low, Snowflake, Taylor, Pinetop-Lakeside, Holbrook, Winslow, Eagar, Springerville, Heber-Overgaard, and surrounding communities. View our full service area list to confirm we cover your location.