Getting Rid Of Common Household Bugs

No matter how clean your house is, common household bugs always seem to find their way in.

They can simply fly in when the door is open even briefly! I have seen ants literally waiting on the doorstep for the right moment. For whatever reason, most likely to check out a new food supply, common household bugs just seem to get in.

Depending on where you live, your household insects could be different, but one thing for sure, is that most people seem to have problems with either ants, cockroaches or flies. These seem to be the most common household bugs to deal with.

But there are ways to deal with pest bugs, without calling in chemical warfare, and having an all out toxic war on household insects. You have to remember that whatever you use to kill them, if it is toxic, it will hurt you in the process. So, try to remember back to Grandma's day, when there was not a spray can of pesticide sitting around, they had to deal with common household bugs naturally with what ever they had around.

Here are a few tips for getting rid of these pest bugs and you getting your house back!

Cockroaches

This one works really well. It is better of course if you can stop them at the source and find out where they are coming in, but if you just have a few trying to set up shop then give this a try.

Find a metal coffee tin

can opener that cuts a V shape (the older style)

2 tablespoons of Borax (you can usually find this in the laundry detergent section, although my grandma always had boxes of this stuff around!)

one tablespoon of flour

one tablespoon of sugar

Take your can opener and punch entrance holes around the base of the coffee can.

Mix the borax, flour and sugar and place in the bottom of the coffee can, and the put on the lid and place this can where you have seen cockroaches.

Common household bugs, such as cockroaches like damp areas. If you can address a damp area and dry it out, this may be half your battle. You have to get at these pest bugs before they take a liking to your house and setup shop.

Remember, even if you are making your own homemade repellants, you still need to watch children around them.

Flies

You can spend the day swatting them with a fly swatter, or you can make some of your own fly paper. All you need:

7 tablespoons of corn syrup

1 tablespoon brown sugar (they love the sweet stuff!)

1 tablespoon white sugar

6 strips of brown paper ,from a paper grocery bag.

Mix the syrup, brown sugar and white sugar in a bowl. Soak the strips of brown paper in this mixture overnight. Then scrape the excess off them and hang them in the doorways where flies are a problem. These strips work really well in sheds as well where flies can be a real problem. These are great to use in rural areas when the fields are being fertilized!

Ants

You can take a bit of cornstarch or some baby powder and sprinkle near where they are, they don't like to cross powder. If powder is not convenient for you, then you can put a few drops of white vinegar near them and they can't stand the smell of that either.

Most common household bugs, can't stand the smell of vinegar. Wipe your counters down with a damp cloth and some vinegar to help keep them off of food surfaces and you can the added bonus of a disinfectant .

It can be hard to keep common household bugs and pest bugs out of your house, especially in the summer, with kids flapping the door open and the dog rolling around in the grass then running inside.

As good as these repellant ideas are, you should try and find the source. You will be amazed where some of these pest bugs set up shop. We recently replaced a front door, that had seen better days. When we took it off it hinges, there were hundreds of little red ants lurking in a little gap that could only have been a couple of inches. But there they were. We would only see a few here and there, but by putting powder near the door, they had not bothered to venture right into the house.

One thing that ants really love and are attracted to, are your pet food bowls. If you are really have trouble with your dog or cats bowl, getting a line of ants to it, you can try this idea, as you don't want to be putting powder or even vinegar near the pets bowl, or it will put them off their feed. But if you can find a pan that will fit you dog food or cat food bowl, and then put some water in the pan then your pet bowl in the water, the ants won't cross a moat!

A friend of mine told me that this worked wonders at the cottage where they always have trouble with ants. Their dog would be so distressed by his food bowl. It would literally have a line of ants to the food bowl and in the food. She tried this idea of fitting the food bowl in the pan with water and the ants just stopped trying.

So, she tried this with the cat food bowl. The cats are a bit more put out by changes like this, but she found that if she used a smaller pan, such as a pie plate, and fit the cat bowl in it with a bit of water, the ants tried, but drowned.

You basically have to outsmart common household bugs. If you can do this without a toxic storm of sprays and chemicals, then you have won the battle.

Another quick hint for pest bugs, are moths. My friend also stores sweaters at her rustic cottage and always had trouble with moths. She didn't want to use moth balls as she had pets and children. But she found if she purchased basic hamster cedar shavings and put some in a small mesh or nylon bag, then into the drawer the moths never came back, and the drawer smelled nice. Quite cheap!