Ridding Your Home Of Pests

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If you have ever come home to find a cockroach running across your kitchen floor, you may have been tempted to burn your house to the core and move to a different state. Pests invading our homes can be an incredible pain in the neck, as well as causing damage to our homes, they can bring in diseases and other issues too.

Ridding our homes of these pest is something which we all strive to do because let’s face it, no one wants a giant wasps nest in their roof or a nest of mice in their basement. It’s unsanitary and unnecessary.

Before you go out to the shops and stock up on the bug spray, you need to know that bug spray is not good for your health at all. They contain chemicals which can aggravate asthma symptoms, cause seizures and even nerve damage in extreme cases. This means that if you have children in the home you may to be using this as your method for eradicating pests.

As an alternative, you could get in touch with your local authorities to find the best termite extermination service or a more humane way to deal with your mouse issue- this way you know that the job will be done with care and consideration, and in a professional manner. Failing that, you can try out some more natural methods for getting rid of the pests which reside in your home.

Clean Out Your Gutters

This tip applies to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes will often be able to breed in the most miniscule amount of water- this means that any place around your home which harbours a small amount of liquid could be a potential breeding ground for these critters. To prevent this from happening, you’ll want to get rid of any small areas of water around your house- one of the most common of these being the gutters. Make sure that you clean out your gutters regularly to make sure that even if the mosquitos have laid eggs, you can get rid of them easily. The same applies to small ponds in your back garden as well as bird baths. You don’t want to get around to the summer time and have a whole circus of them flying around your home.

Weed Out Invasive Plants

There are plenty of prime places for ticks to breed- and they often love to live in invasive species of plant in the garden such as large ferns and Japanese barberry plant. These plants are hardy and will take over any available space as they grow, meaning that your garden could be overrun with these plants- and with that your garden could also be the perfect place for ticks. Ticks are dangerous creatures because they latch onto their host: i.e. animals or you; and they feed on your blood. What makes these animals even more dangerous is that they carry Lyme Disease- which can be fatal in humans. Clearing out the invasive species in your garden where ticks thrive can actually reduce the risk of the ticks you encounter carrying the disease too.

Always Shower After Being In The Garden

A piece of advice which could save you from being bitten by ticks and carrying Lyme disease is to make sure that you shower within 2 hours of being in your garden. This can be the perfect remedy to knock the tick off your body and prevent it from biting into your skin. This of course doesn’t apply to every single time you go outside, it is more for when you have been spending time weeding or getting rid of invasive species as we talked about above.

Rosemary

Wasps are nasty creatures who seem to attack anyone and anything without rhyme nor reason, they are the hooligans of the insect world. Luckily, wasps hate strong herbs like rosemary, mint and thyme. By hanging a small bouquet of these herbs underneath where you think a nest is or has the potential to be; you will begin to drive the wasps away as they cannot stand the smell. The key to sensing whether your home is about to be scouted as a wasp’s home is to notice when you start getting wasps buzzing around your walls in the garden. If they start flying near your home, they are most likely searching out the perfect little nook or cranny to set up and call home. You can prevent them from making a nest by hanging up herbs in the places you think could be potential nesting spots.

Although you never want wasps anywhere near your home, you can still leave them in your garden. Although wasps may have some serious anger management issues when it comes to humans; they can actually serve as a useful form of pest control themselves. They get rid of small pets like flies and spiders, and will also help pollinate flowers just as bees do.

Armpits

No, we aren’t talking about shaving your armpits. However, could armpit hygiene can go a long way to preventing small insects like ticks from making their home under your arm. When you shower after being outside for a long period, make sure that you also check your armpits in case a tick has buried itself under your arm. If you do find that a tick has latched onto you, you need be very careful with how you remove it so that you don’t leave the legs inside your body. The correct way to remove a tick is to take tweezers and grab the tick as close to your skin as possible. Then pull up slowly and steadily so that the tick dislodges and is removed from your body. If the mouth piece comes away and stays lodges inside you, you will need to remove that too. Never ever use nail polish to drive a tick out of your body, because this can cause the tick to secrete toxins into you as it defends itself.

Use A Repellent

If you do decide to use a spray on an animal such as a mosquito, you must be aware that they are becoming immune to the main chemical inside these sprays: DEET. In order to effectively use a spray against a mosquito you will need to find one which is more natural than chemical. Sprays which are pepper based and contain eucalyptus can be great defences against these creatures.

Clean Out The Bins

You might be forgiven for forgetting to clean your wheelie bins or the bin in your kitchen- because it isn’t necessarily the first thing you think about. However, taking the time to clean these bins can prevent house flies from laying eggs in the bottom of your bins and your house being filled with these pests. One of the best household items you can use to stop flies from invading your bins is borax- which you can find in the laundry aisle at the supermarket.

Drown Them

Not in a mafia movie kind of way, but more of a passive aggressive one. Fruit flies will always become attracted to anything which contains fruit or sugar. So, if you place a small dish of fruit juice, sugary water or wine in your home, the flies will be attracted to the area and will drown in the liquid. It might sound extreme and a little cruel, but it is incredibly effective.

As with the mosquitos and water which we talked about earlier, silverfish are attracted to areas which are humid and moist. They thrive in wet conditions- meaning that if your home has a lot of damp or humid spots, they will make their home in yours. To prevent this from happening you need to take some measures to fully damp-proof your home against these creatures by fixing leaking pipes, improving your drainage system and increasing the ventilation you have around the house.

Cinnamon

If you’ve ever seen anyone try to complete the cinnamon challenge, then you’ll know that this spice can be incredibly intense and hard to swallow. The good news is that ants agree. Similar to wasps, ants hate strong flavours such as cinnamon and mint, and will stay away if you have a lot of this in your home. If you have ants in or around your home, simply sprinkle some of this spice in the area and you will drive the ants away.

Make A Trap

Cockroaches are perhaps one of the most hated among all of the pests you could encounter in your home, and it’s easy to see why. They are disease infested, they breed at a ridiculous rate- and they can survive without a head for at least a week! They are weird, alien creatures and no one wants them in the house. Making a trap for these pests by placing a piece of fruit such as banana inside a mason jar, and then lining the inside of the jar with Vaseline can be a perfect way to trap these beasts for good so that you can get rid of the infestation. The key is to place these traps near pipework, under cupboards and in nooks and crannies. You will eventually be able to pinpoint where they live and inject boric acid to get rid of them.

Knowing When To Stop

Although you might understandably want every single pest out of your home for good; sometimes the best thing you can do is leave them to do their jobs. Spiders are a creature which many people are afraid of, but they do perform a crucial role in our homes by hunting small critters and pests so that we don’t have to encounter them at all. If you do see the odd centipede or spider in your home from time to time, leave them to it. They aren’t harming you or your family, they are just hunting for food.