While your garage is meant to house your car, sports equipment, tools, and other items, it can easily turn into living quarters for certain pests. The garage, unlike other areas of your home, is sometimes left open for an extended amount of time. This provides easy access for bugs and critters seeking shelter. Here are the most common pests found in garages.

1. While these pests can infest any area of a home, they prefer the garage, as it’s easy for them to sneak underneath doors or be toted in through cardboard boxes. Silverfish feed on paper items, glue, clothing, flour, meat, and other silverfish. It doesn’t take long for them to multiply, as females can lay up to three eggs a day, hiding them in cracks and underneath objects.
2. These pests are most likely found indoors when the weather is too hot and dry for them outside. Crickets can damage fabrics and clothing.
3. Mice seek shelter during colder months and can build nests in storage boxes and gaps/space in walls. It’s not impossible for them to make their way into your vehicle either! Cars have food crumbs and wires in them, both of which mice love to chew on. It’s easy for mice to come into garages that aren’t properly sealed, so it doesn’t matter if your door is left open or not.
4. Many people use pest control for the main areas of their home, often skipping over the garage. This is where spiders tend to navigate, as pests are more prone to be in this area that hasn’t been treated. Once they’re inside, it won’t be long before they’ll spin webs and lay eggs.
5. Sowbugs (also known as pillbugs or rolly pollies) is confined to areas with high moisture due to not having a closing device for their respiratory system and an outer waxy layer of exoskeleton that reduces water loss. They’re mostly inactive during daytime hours, hiding underneath things to prevent moisture loss. If you have sliding glass doors, you are more prone to get sowbugs than the average home. It’s easy for these small bugs to crawl through thresholds. If you find one in your home, there’s a chance there are much more living outside your home.
6. These pests are drawn indoors by air currents and odors. They most commonly enter a garage due to the door being left open and are easily spotted resting on walls, floors, window sills, etc.
7. Beetles spend most of their time during the day hiding underneath stones, as they’re a nocturnal species. If you have a poorly sealed garage door or an open window, a beetle will most likely make its way into your garage…especially if there’s plenty of clutter for it to hide underneath.