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Black Ants? Use pieces of wormwood and place in the area where the critters are. (wormwood can be toxic to children and pets, so be careful) Hope this helps make your home a little more bug free! Keep shelves and pipes and cracks dry and clean. Sprinkle borax freely wherever they come from. Replace the borax whenever it is washed or brushed. No remedy is successful as long as there is dampness. Stop up cracks; replace damp, decaying wood with dry wood and fresh paint. Cayenne Pepper is also good to keep cockroaches and black ants away. Put some in a small open containter in the areas that are troublesome. Be sure to keep small children away from the area Pie pan Water Dish soap Votive candle The
best trick I've found for flea removal is to take a pie pan, put in home and yard? Remove all puddles of water as they are breeding places. If you have containers outside filled with water, keep them covered. Be sure to have screens on all doors and windows. Rub citronella o r cedar oil over screens to repel the critters. Burning incense is a very good way to keep the mosquitos away from you while you are outside on the deck or working in the garden. Set out about 4 sticks in each area you are in. The mosquitos will stay away from you. I find patchouli incense works wonders! (especially if you are weeding in the garden in the early evening) ceiling will stupefy them and they will drop in the water. Use
a mixture of 2 ounces of oil of citronella, once ounce oil of cedar,
once ounce spirit of camphor and rub on the hands, face, and
ankles to
prevent bites. Mix this liquid into vaseline for a more effective
mosquito repellent.
If your house has become a home to many spiders this season, you can help them vacate by using pennyroyal. Get cotton balls and soak with the pennyroyal oil. Place the cotton balls where the spiders are hiding.
RED
ANTS
Have
a problem with red ants? In large container, put 1 pint of tar.. Add 2
quarts of boiling water and mix well. Place the mixture in open
containers where the ants are bothersome and the ants will look
for
another place to live! (I would not recommend this method if you have
small children or pets) Another method for red ant removal: A
safe
method to use when you have children or pets: Sprinkle beach sand
(from
ocean beaches) You can also use oyster
shells.Mosquitoes Get a small bottle of Oil of Pennyroyal Essence from your favorite Natural Foods store. Open the bottle and keep the bottle open in the room you want to rid the mosquitoes. As long as there is the scent of pennyroyal in the room, the mosquitoes will not enter! Flies Be sure to keep your windows and doors screened. Patch up any holes or get rescreened. Be sure to have your screens in place by early spring, when the first flies arrive. Try using fly paper, but be sure to keep out of reach of children and pets.
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![]() Ask the Bugman!: Environmentally Safe Ways to Control Household PestsWith thirty-years’ experience in pest control, Fagerlund offers suggestions for controlling nearly fifty common (and a few not so common) pests found in and around the home. The questions are divided into categories including disruptive pests, destructive pests, biters and stingers, reptiles and rodents, and garden and household bugs.. Typical IPM methods include habitat modification, improved sanitation, and the use of less-toxic, pest-specific baits. As alternatives to harmful chemicals, he counsels use of home remedies, provides a number of these, and includes others sent in by readers of his column. Ten original sketches of common household pests give readers an appreciation of their appearance.You open the kitchen cabinet, reach for the jar of peanut butter, and there on its top are mice droppings. What’s the safest means to be rid of the mice? In Ask the Bugman, Board Certified Entomologist Richard Fagerlund offers advice on pest control drawn from answers to commonly asked questions in his nationally distributed newspaper column. For mice, live traps are best, using oatmeal as bait. Never use poisons or glue boards. He also encourages preventive measures to plug the holes mice use as entrances. Save 30% off Publishers Price-Click Here to Order! What do Mosquitoes Like? They are attracted to Perfume, Scented soaps, scented shampoos are also attracted to those wearing blue jeans. Nope, I do not have a scientific answer to this. Slug Catcher Keep those pesky parasitic slugs from eating your leafy greens with the chemical-free and environmentally friendly SLUGX slug catcher. Fill the SLUGX with beer and be prepared to find as many as 50 slugs and snails trapped in a single night. The SLUGX is designed to sit on top of the soil or on your deck or patio. Pick up a few and have a toast to the slug-free garden you never thought was possible. Moths and air-to be sure there are no eggs or larvae on the clothing. Store in sealed boxes or moth proof bags, or seal in newspaper and tie in cotton bags. Cold storage is the most effective method, but it is expensive. Strong odors of camphor, cedar, moth balls, etc., do not kill moth eggs or larvae, but they do help to keep moths out of places where woolens are kept. If eggs are shut in with the clothing, the moths will hatch and eat your material. Garments worn frequently are less liable to be eaten than those left undisturbed in a dark closet. Do you have problems with
silverfish and centipedes? Silverfish
love paper that is kept indark,
warm
places. To prevent the little critters, try to keep your storage places
and attics dry. Sodium Fluoride or pyrethrum powder blown into
cracks and areas where the bugs congregate will help rid them.
You
may need to do this more than once.
![]() Slug Bread and Beheaded Thistles : Amusing & Useful Techniques for Nontoxic Housekeeping and Gardening Many homemakers and gardeners take the easy way out when it comes to exiling odors and banishing bugs--they use toxic chemicals that may be harmful to their families and the earth. Ellen Sandbeck has discovered that the all-natural alternatives are just as easy and effective to use, and that they are wickedly fun. Sandbeck's way of banishing thistles from her backyard kingdom is a case in point: she chops off their heads and lets them bleed to death. Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles reveals all of her best tricks. From bedroom to bathroom, garden to lawn, your home will be clean and green and pest-free. Click Here to order for only for under $10.00 Many of the tips on this page and on other
pages come from the great book "Keeping Hearth & Home in Old
Massachusetts. I highly recommend this series!
Click on the above picture for more information.
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