Pest infestations are a serious problem that many homeowners have to face. Pests can damage property, bite humans, and they damage the hygiene of the house causing many diseases. There are many methods to deal with pest infestations, but most people do chemical treatment of their homes. These chemicals can linger for a while, and you have to leave the home until the chemicals fade away.
Though chemical solutions are sometimes necessary with large scale infestations, there are also some amazing DIY hacks that can help you repel small to medium scale infestations. Here is a list of some easy methods that you can use to get rid of pests and insects from your home.
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Use a mixture of Baking Soda and Sugar
A common method of getting rid of pests and insects is using boric acid and other poisonous chemicals. Even though boric acid is an easy and effective pest repelling method, the poisonous powder can cause some safety problems.
A natural alternative to poisonous powders is a mixture of baking soda and sugar. This mixture works quite similar to boric acid. The sugar attracts the pests and insects, and while consuming the sugar, the pests ingest baking soda as well. The backing soda reacts with the acid in the stomach of the pests, poisoning the tiny invaders from the inside. This mixture kills pests but it is not dangerous for humans, which makes it one of the best DIY pest control remedies to use, especially in the kitchen.
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Make a DIY Bug Spray
You can also make an effective bug-repelling and killing spray with some items found at home. A common natural bug spray is created by mixing vegetable oil with some dishwashing soap. You can dilute this mixture with water and spray it on pests. This solution can cover the exoskeleton of many pests and block the pores that they use for breathing. This way, the pests are suffocated and killed.
Another DIY anti-pest spray can be created by mixing the extracts of garlic and mint. The smell of this concoction is very annoying for the pests, and it keeps them away. This is a great solution to use in kitchens as it isn’t harmful to humans.
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Use Zap Lights for Flying Pests
Some houses are infested by flying pests that can’t be killed or repelled by anti-pest powders, and the sprays are hard to use on them. For such situations, you should use a zap light. Mosquitoes, flies and many other flying pests are attracted towards the light as well. They go towards the zapping light, and when they sit on it, they are electrocuted and killed.
Zap lights are an inexpensive yet very effective method to get rid of many annoying pests. So, there will be no more annoying buzzing sounds and mosquito bites after a zap light is installed.
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Repel Pests with Essential Oils and Coffee Grounds
Another effective and common method used to repel pests is essential oils. Many essential oils have odors that are annoying for pests and keep them away. Peppermint, clove, lavender, rosemary and eucalyptus essential oils are used to repel common dust mites. Citronella and geranium essential oils are used to repel mosquitoes. The lavender essential oil can also get rid of fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes.
You can mix a couple of spoons of the essential oils with water or for better effect, grain alcohol and spray it around the house to repel certain pests and insects effectively without using any dangerous poisons.
Coffee may be an amazing “pick me up” for you, but the pests don’t like it as much as you do. Many crawling pests, especially ants, are repelled by the smell of coffee grounds. So you can also use this inexpensive method to get rid of ants and other crawling pests. To learn more about how to get rid of ants, check this article out.
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Use Traps to Get Rid of Larger Pests
For some of the larger pests like mice, you can use traps. A common mistake many people make while dealing with mice is that they use poisons. You should not use poisons to get rid of mice because it takes some time for the poison to take effect and kill the rats. By the time the effect completes, the mice have already reached their hiding places.
The mice die inside the walls and other hiding places, creating a lot of smell and an unhygienic environment that invites a lot of diseases. Instead of poisons, you should opt for using traps to get rid of mice. Traps catch the mice and make sure that they can’t crawl back to their hiding spots.
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Cover Up the Entrance Points
Make sure that you block all the nooks and crannies the pests enter your home from. Fill up small cracks in the walls and cover up the drains to make sure that the pests don’t have anywhere to enter your home from. This is a difficult task to do as you can’t always discover all these entry points at once. But each hole you block limits the access of the bugs and pests so don’t get demotivated if you don’t see results instantly. This is a very effective method for permanently fixing a pest problem.
As far as flying pests are concerned, try to keep the doors closed, especially in the evening. And get rid of any open water puddles in the backyard, because water puddles are the best habitat for mosquitoes to lay eggs.
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Get a Pet Cat
Cats naturally feed on many common pests like cockroaches and mice. You should get a pet cat so that you can keep these pests away. Firstly, the pests will stay away if they sense the cat and even if they do come into the house the cat will be waiting impatiently for them. This is a fun and easy way to get rid of many crawling pests naturally. Cats also keep away some more dangerous intruders like snakes and scorpions. So, if you have these problems in your area, then a cat is a good idea.
About the Author: Cora James is a blogger who loves to write about home improvement as well as its maintenance. She is an extrovert, believes in creativity and loves to re-model almost everything! You can read more about her posts at https://www.pestwiki.com/category/blog/.
