Nov

Getting Rid of Pests Naturally

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Sharing our homes with insects, rodents or other uninvited creatures can be very unpleasant and on occasion, dangerous. Using commercial pesticides can be and often is hazardous to your or your family’s health. Here are some safer natural alternatives.

First Rule of Natural Pest Control

The first rule of pest management is to avoid encouraging pests in the first place. Seal all cracks and holes in walls, floors or skirting where mice, rats or insects could enter and consider fitting fly-screens over doors, windows and vents.

You can use wire wool to stop rodents. They won’t chew through that.

4 Simple Preventative Measures

Keep food in tightly sealed jars or plastic boxes, not open packets.
Keep floors and surfaces clean. Wipe up crumbs and sticky spills immediately.
Rinse food and drink containers before recycling or throwing them away.
Keep your rubbish bins covered and empty them regularly. A good feng-shui practice is take all the rubbish out of the house before you go to bed at night.

If these 4 simple preventions don’t work, try these non-toxic or “least-toxic” methods of discouraging or killing pests.

Ants

Stop ants reaching pet food by placing the bowl in a container of water, making a moat that ants can’t cross.
Crush and sprinkle pennyroyal, sage, mint, thyme or bay leaves, paprika or cinnamon broadly across ant paths.
Boric acid and borate based products are pretty effective and generally available at garden centres. Boric acid is a natural product and is far less toxic than chemical pesticides, but it is mildly harmful if ingested so use it sparingly.

Cockroaches

Dust boric acid into the cracks and under cupboards where cockroaches shelter.
Diatomaceous earth is a dust that scratches the waterproof coat of cockroaches and other crawling insects, causing them to dry out and die.

House flies

Use fly screens, fly-wire doors.
Old fashioned muslin covers prevent flies settling on food.
Mint, rue, fennel and horehound generally repel flies.
Fly paper or sticky strips are effective. Home-made versions (how-to in another post) don’t give off toxic fumes or bad odours.
UV lights and electronic “zappers” work, but use up energy (and add to your electric bill).

Fleas

At times they seem to be taking over the world. These bloodsucking pests not only are irritating to man and beast alike, but can also cause severe skin problems in both dogs and cats. Worse yet, as fleas become increasingly resistant to the synthetic chemicals science has produced for their control, pesticide manufacturers are making their products increasingly stronger — and more dangerous — in an attempt to keep pace with the parasites.

Fortunately, there are effective non-toxic ways to do battle with fleas and win.

Use a flea comb on your pet. Drown any fleas you catch in soapy water.
Clean bedding and vacuum your home regularly. Pay special attention to dark, damp places where fleas may have deposited their eggs. After vacuuming, the cleaner bag shouldn’t be left in the closet, since the flea eggs it contains can hatch and reinfect your house. Empty the bag and burn the contents, or seal the sweepings in a plastic trash bag and dispose of it properly.
Diatomaceous earth or powdered pyrethrum — both of which can be found at herb outlets or lawn-and-garden shops (or check with your veterinarian) — should then be sprinkled on the clean pet bedding, as well as on carpets and floors, and worked in with a broom.
Shampooing with a mild organic lotion soap will kill many fleas by drowning. Afterwards, a lemon rinse will tone the cleansed skin, leaving a residual citrus odour that will help repel fleas for a while.
There are several herbal sprays, shampoos and flea collars whose odors repel fleas. Pennyroyal, citronella, rosemary and wormwood, which are the most common ingredients in these natural treatments, can be found at health food stores and lawn-and-garden shops.

Mosquitoes

Protect yourself and your rooms. Use a spray bottle filled with 10 drops of essential oil (try citronella, cedarwood, lemongrass, peppermint, eucalyptus or neem and 115ml of water. Shake well before applying.
Use a fan. Mosquitoes don’t like breezes.
Sleep under a mosquito net.
Clean up and limit mosquito breeding places around your home. Keep lids on rainwater tanks, empty standing water from bird baths, flower pots etc. Keep fish in your pond to eat the larvae.

Rats and mice

Pet cats keep mice away. A good mousing cat will eat 1,200 mice a year. Female cats are usually much better mousers than males. Jack Russell Terrier dogs are excellent hunters and may keep rats at bay.
There are a lot of different types of traps available. Put out lots of traps all at once. More mice will be trapped the first night than at any other time. Use this rule of thumb: Put out twice as many traps as you think you have mice, placed in groups of two or three at irregular intervals. Trap for three days, gather up all the traps, and then do another mass trapping a week later.

Clothes Moths

Washing clothes at high temperature kills the eggs and the larvae. Also try putting wollen clothes in a freezer for at least 72 hours.
Store natural fibre clothes in airtight bags. Vac bags are very good.
Put lavender or cedarwood chip sachets among your stored clothes.

Food Moths

Some food moth grubs eat flour, cereals and many other types of food. Seal and throw out any contaminated food.
Grubs can even chew through cardboard packaging, so inspect unopened boxes.
Grubs crawl up walls and into crack before they pupate. Use a vacuum cleaner to get right into these spots.
Outdoor moths that fly into the house at night don’t cause problems.

Final caution: Pyrethrum (from pyrethrum daisies) sprays can be very effective against ants, cockroaches, flies, and mosquitoes. They break down rapidly and are non-toxic to birds and animals, but are highly toxic to fish and frogs. The need to be used carefully.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.