Off and on through the years, we have discussed how homeowners have been preventing bugs from invading their properties. Here are more options.
It isn’t uncommon for homeowners to have to deal with fruit flies, spiders, mosquitoes, ants, wasps, bees, and house flies. In many cases, some bugs can provide a major nuisance both outside and inside the home.
Fruitfly (Courtesy: Jez Nunn on flickr.com)
Let’s begin with fruit flies. Of course, these pests target fruit you may be growing or have stored inside or outside your home.
Option one suggests that you get a tall cup and place a little vinegar and some ripe fruit in the bottom of it. Roll a piece of paper into a funnel with the tiny hole at the bottom. Place the funnel in the glass so that the bottom is about one inch or so above the mixture of vinegar and fruit. Tape the funnel together and to the cup. Set the trap out on the counter of your home. The flies will be attracted to the fruit at the bottom of the glass and enter through the wide opening of the funnel and proceed into the cup through the small hole at the bottom of the funnel. Once in, they can’t get out.
The second option involves the use of a bowl of apple cider vinegar and dish soap. The bugs again find their way into the bowl. As the lyrics of Hotel California that says, “You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.”
Whenever I spot a spider I immediately recall a scene in the old horror movie, The Fly. At the end of the flick, Vincent Price is thinking about how his scientist
Spider (Courtesy: Nayle03mat at flickr.com)
friend tried to telecommunicate himself between two boxes in the same room. However, a regular housefly gets caught in the first booth with him. When the controls are engaged, the scientist disappears from the booth and re-appears in the other booth with the head and body of a fly. Price is musing about how such a thing is possible when he hears a squeaky voice calling out, “Help me! Help me!” Price gets up from his seat and goes to where the voice is originating from, a spider’s web on a rose bush. A spider is closing in on a fly with a human head and arm, screaming, “Help me!” more urgently as the spider approaches. Price is shocked, picks up a rock and throws it at the web killing the spider and the unfortunate fly/man. Ever since that movie, spiders have scared me.
Anyway, option one in ridding the interior of your house of spiders involves a sock filled with dried tansy leaf. You put the sock under beds. The concoction seems to work on the pests.
The second option suggests that you use an orange or lemon to deter these scary little creatures. Spiders hat the smell of citrus.
Mosquito (Courtesy: Sijodk at flickr.com)
In the hot days of summer, many people who like to take advantage of the outdoors have problems contending with pests like mosquitoes. They can be banished by using option one that involves vegetable glycerine, Witch Hazel, vodka, or homemade Vanilla Extract in the vodka.
Mix ½ teaspoon of the vegetable glycerine with 14 oz. of Witch Hazel, Vodka, or homemade Vanilla Extract in the vodka. As an option, you can add your favorite essential oils like Citronella, Lavender, Eucalyptus, and/or Tea Tree oil. Once mixed, pour into a 16 oz. spray bottle and spray those creepy pests.
Option two is an alternative to get rid of mosquitoes on your lawn. Sprinkle minced garlic over the grass. Of course it smells, you may not like it, but the mosquitoes don’t either.
Ants are also pesky little pests that like to ruin picnics. You may also see them crawling around the interior of the house or outdoors. For ants inside the house, it is suggested that you use cloves, cayenne pepper, chili pepper, peppermint, paprika, cinnamon, or sage sprinkled under and inside cabinets or inside an old sock.
To deal with ants outside, sprinkle minced garlic around the yard. Just like mosquitoes, ants also hate the smell of garlic, too.
If you find anthills, just pour boiling water over them. It is also believed that pipe tobacco water will get rid of the mounds, too.
Bugs that can sting including wasps, bees, and hornets always seem to cause a panic when you try to entertain guests outside your home.
Wasps (Courtesy: Mark Rose at flickr.com)
As far as the wasps and bees are concerned, take the lid of a jar and punch a small hold in it about the size of your pinky finger. The hole should go right in the center of the lid. Fill the jar half full with sugar water and set it in the corner of your yard away from the kids. The sugar will attract them and then they will go into the jar through the hole and will not be able to get out.
To kill yellow jackets, fill a 5-gallon bucket half full with sand. At night when the critters are in their nests, turn the buckets of sand upside down on the nests and leave them there. The next day the yellow jackets will crawl out of the hole through the sand and to the top portion of the bucket. They will then be trapped there and will die due to the heat inside the bucket. Leave the bucket alone for several days before removing them and the sand to assure that the yellow jackets are all dead.
