Nobody wants pests in your gardens or home. Bugs crawling across the walls, ceilings, and the floor is a terrifying sight to most homeowners! But if you aren’t careful, you might be unintentionally creating the ideal home for these pests.
Maintaining top-notch hygiene levels in your home is one of the best ways to prevent pests. Here are a few tips to get rid of some common pests.
Rodents
Rats can be lethal because they’re carriers of the Leptospirosis disease. What should you do to curb these unsolicited guests?
Keep your garden tidy
Rodents often enjoy messy spaces. Trim long grass and clear wood chips so they won’t have a place to stay.
Frequent rearrangement
Rats and mice are neophobic, afraid of new things. Placing new objects and barriers along their trail will confuse and deter them.
Clear food remnants
Rodents thrive in food scraps found in your garden. Tighten all water taps, since rats also love wet areas.
Install mouse traps in your house
Attach some bait to the trap and integrate glue traps in hidden areas. Strategically place these traps in the ceiling, attic level, and floor corners.
Apply peppermint oil
The scent of peppermint oil repels mice and rodents. Apply the oil to corners and door frames repeatedly.
Get a cat
Cats will never bond with rodents. Cats are the surest way to get rid of these rats and mice.
Spiders
Use vinegar
Spray white vinegar in the corners to keep spiders at bay.
Plant a eucalyptus tree
The medicinal scent from this tree repels spiders like magic. You can also look into pest control agents in your region, such as high-quality pest control in Riverside, CA.
Dust your house
Clean your home to remove dust and dirt. Spiders love creating webs in dusty zones. While dusting, spray some peppermint oil onto any surfaces. Mint is a great spider repellant.
Ants
Boric acid
Spray a boric acid pesticide on your garden ants. Boric acid poisons the ant’s stomach, affecting its metabolism.
Cover your trash bins
Better still, place your trash containers outside of the house and seal them. The smell of the food pieces often attracts black ants.
Use Dawn soap spray
Mix water with the dish soap in a spray bottle. Spray the ant-infested plants in the garden. The soap spray not only kills the target spray but also destroys the entire colony.
Ticks and fleas
Clean your garden
Dispose of any debris, mow the grass and clear up shed leaves. Ticks tend to shelter in these shady spots.
Treat your pets
Spray your home pets with tick insecticides. Your cat or dog could be housing the fleas and ticks. Vacuum the pets’ shelter to kill potential fleas and eggs.
Pesticides
Spray a pesticide on furniture cracks, ceiling cornices, and timber doors. Ticks often thrive in wood and lay their eggs in wet wood surfaces.
Flies
Use bay leaves and basil
Strategically position the basil and bay leaves around your home. The scent of these spices repels the flies at full tilt.
Spray cayenne pepper and water
Mix cayenne pepper and water and spray it in your house. Cayenne pepper naturally repels flies.
Use insecticides
Pyrethrin insecticides are globally proven to be lethal to flies. Spray your house with the insecticide directly at the ants.
Affix sticky traps within your rooms
The sticky traps are paper pieces of sticky material. The flies get stuck on them while roaming in your house.
Wasps
Dispose of food waste in covered trash bins
Protein-rich leftovers often attract wasps. For whatever you don’t throw away, cover your surplus food containers to avoid sugars attracting the wasps.
Spray the nest with insecticide
Get a wasp insecticide and load it in either a hand spray or knapsack sprayer. Aim at the nests (while wearing proper protective gear).
Use soap and water lather
Mix the regular soap with some water and spray the wasp nests. The soapy water clogs the wasp’s spiracles, killing it painlessly.
Silverfish
Store food carefully
Cover all your grains and cereals in airtight containers. The silverfish bugs thrive in rice, flour, sugar, and all other dry foods.
Reduce humidity
Minimize humidity in your garden and house. Fix all leaking taps and pipes, allow adequate ventilation in all rooms, and install air conditioning systems. Silverfish multiply in humid conditions. You also need to unblock your clogged rain gutter system.
Cockroaches
Clean your house meticulously
Cockroaches feel at home in dirty environments. Wash the dishes after meals, seal food containers, scrub hidden corners, and mop off any oil spills to keep them away.
Buy some boric acid
Mix some flour, boric acid and sugar in equal amounts to form a dough. Hide the mixture in the dark spots of your garden or house. The boric acid blocks roaches’ metabolism.
Slugs and snails
Seal all cracks with silicone
Slugs thrive in dark zones. For wide cracks, use polyurethane foam to fill them up.
Sprinkle salt
Salt melts and dissolves the slugs and snails.
Attract more birds to your garden
Songbirds and bluebirds live on snails and slugs. Garter snakes are also snail predators. So by attracting more birds — maybe through feeders or birdhouses — your snail population will likely decrease.
Lay grit on your garden ground
The gravel material cuts the slug’s body, eventually injuring it. You can also aerate your soil to avert excessive dampness.
Firebrats
Use insecticide
Apply Firebrats insecticide on the infested zones. Spray your walls on both faces, externally and internally.
Clean up and avoid moisture
Clear off any debris, including long grass, waste bricks, lumber, decaying mulches, and bark stumps. You can also try to avoid moisture content in your spaces. Firebrats thrive in humid areas, leaking drip pipes as well. Allow adequate ventilation in the loft spaces.
Chiggers
Mow regularly
Maintain your garden’s landscape. Mow your grass regularly and declutter the decaying mulches. Clear overgrown weeds, too.
Reduce shade
Abolish the shady areas in your garden — chiggers thrive in low phototropic spots. Clear the bushes in your garden as well.
Wash well
Wash your clothes in hot water and soap. Mop your house with warm water and disinfectant, too.
Pillbugs
Clear out the yard
Collect and dispose of your garden debris. Fallen fruits, weeds, and decaying mulches are favorite spots for pill bugs to shelter.
Improve ventilation
Enhance ventilation and air circulation. Use highly permeable mulches to discourage water retention.
Seal cracks
In the house, seal cracks and fissures on doors, floor slab, and ceiling cornices. Dehumidify your attic and basement spaces. Invent ventilation systems in stuffy rooms.
Scorpions
Keep clean
The primary way to deter scorpions is by cleaning your house scrupulously. Trim and mow lengthy bushes and grass in your garden. You can also use pesticides if needed.
Use these tips to deter pests from your home and garden for good.
