Keeping little buggers out of the house or apartment - DIY remedies

Baron Von Murderpaws

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Mar 28, 2021
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In the recesses of your mind
Everybody has their own ways to combat pests in the house or their apartment.
Here's a couple of mine that I've found over the years.


Mothballs -
1.
My sister had squirrells in her attic. They happened to nest over my bedroom and were running around all night keeping me up.
I threw a handfull of mothballs into that corner of the house in the attic. Never heard them again.
2. Crushed mothballs placed into the wall, drives off mice and insects.......including roaches. I put 2 tablespoons worth of crushed mothballs the wall where a plug is. I remove the plug cover and dump it in the space between the sheetrock and the plug housing. On sheetrock that is cut to the socket and has no space, I just use my pocket knife and dig out a hole big enough to dump the crushed mothballs through a funnel into the wall. One socket per wall has worked for me. And don't do it on a wall with water pipes!

No, I've never smelt any mothballs smells from doing this. But apparently the sent gets into the walls and lasts a long time, as once I've done this, it's over 5 years before I see any bug coming in again! So, once every 5 years is pretty good!

They also have mothball bits they sell, as well as mothball packs. So if you can place a pack in the wall or use the bits, then you won't have to crush them.

*ALWAYS wear rubber gloves when handling mothballs, and do so in a ventalated area.
Clean up any spillage and wipe clean so people and pets don't come in contact with it.
Do NOT use utensils, funnels, or other tools for use in food related items! Use an old spoon or a plastic spoon you can wash and then throw out or keep in your tool box for other uses.

1662825587258.png



Diatomaceous Earth-
ALL NATURAL, no chemicals, no toxins.
Diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms.
This takes care of most all insects with an outter skeletal structure......ants, bed bugs, cockroaches, etc....

You can dump this into the walls as you would crushed mothballs, by spoonfulls or by funnel. This is safe to use on walls with water pipes, unlike mothballs. You can get a "Puffer" accessory which sucks up the DE into a bulb and then you can "puff" it into cracks and under baseboards.

Safe around pets and children, as long as they cannot come in contact with it!!! It's isn't really toxic or dangerous, but can cause health issues if injested or inhaled, because of the nature of how it works.

You can use this directly on any mounds, just block off the mound so no animals can get it in their fur or into their nose/lungs.

I had a friend that got a bad bedbug problem from another apartment. I bought him a bag of this stuff and some masking tape. He used a spoon to fill up the gap with DE between the baseboard and floor. Then he used masking tape to cover that up, and left it for 6 months. The bed bugs "went away". He also did this as his fathers house with bed bugs and other insects, and after a couple months, the bug problems went away.

**Wear rubber gloves AND a face mask when using this stuff!
How it works is, it cuts up the outside of the insect skeletal structure, leaving it to dry out from the inside out, since their skeletal structure is on the outside and has been breeched, they just dry up and die.
For mammals though, if it's injested or inhaled, it can scratch up your insides/lungs to the state you get an infection. So you want to wear a mask even when just opening the bag........just as a precaution. This stuff does work on rodents as well though, so if you have rodents as well as insect problems........it can drive them off.

1662826887659.png


And yes, DE is also a "vitamin supplement", but it's processed different, so it can be absorbed into the body without damage.
1662826969027.png
 
Everybody has their own ways to combat pests in the house or their apartment.
Here's a couple of mine that I've found over the years.


Mothballs -
1.
My sister had squirrells in her attic. They happened to nest over my bedroom and were running around all night keeping me up.
I threw a handfull of mothballs into that corner of the house in the attic. Never heard them again.
2. Crushed mothballs placed into the wall, drives off mice and insects.......including roaches. I put 2 tablespoons worth of crushed mothballs the wall where a plug is. I remove the plug cover and dump it in the space between the sheetrock and the plug housing. On sheetrock that is cut to the socket and has no space, I just use my pocket knife and dig out a hole big enough to dump the crushed mothballs through a funnel into the wall. One socket per wall has worked for me. And don't do it on a wall with water pipes!

No, I've never smelt any mothballs smells from doing this. But apparently the sent gets into the walls and lasts a long time, as once I've done this, it's over 5 years before I see any bug coming in again! So, once every 5 years is pretty good!

They also have mothball bits they sell, as well as mothball packs. So if you can place a pack in the wall or use the bits, then you won't have to crush them.

*ALWAYS wear rubber gloves when handling mothballs, and do so in a ventalated area.
Clean up any spillage and wipe clean so people and pets don't come in contact with it.
Do NOT use utensils, funnels, or other tools for use in food related items! Use an old spoon or a plastic spoon you can wash and then throw out or keep in your tool box for other uses.

View attachment 694389


Diatomaceous Earth-
ALL NATURAL, no chemicals, no toxins.
Diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms.
This takes care of most all insects with an outter skeletal structure......ants, bed bugs, cockroaches, etc....

You can dump this into the walls as you would crushed mothballs, by spoonfulls or by funnel. This is safe to use on walls with water pipes, unlike mothballs. You can get a "Puffer" accessory which sucks up the DE into a bulb and then you can "puff" it into cracks and under baseboards.

Safe around pets and children, as long as they cannot come in contact with it!!! It's isn't really toxic or dangerous, but can cause health issues if injested or inhaled, because of the nature of how it works.

You can use this directly on any mounds, just block off the mound so no animals can get it in their fur or into their nose/lungs.

I had a friend that got a bad bedbug problem from another apartment. I bought him a bag of this stuff and some masking tape. He used a spoon to fill up the gap with DE between the baseboard and floor. Then he used masking tape to cover that up, and left it for 6 months. The bed bugs "went away". He also did this as his fathers house with bed bugs and other insects, and after a couple months, the bug problems went away.

**Wear rubber gloves AND a face mask when using this stuff!
How it works is, it cuts up the outside of the insect skeletal structure, leaving it to dry out from the inside out, since their skeletal structure is on the outside and has been breeched, they just dry up and die.
For mammals though, if it's injested or inhaled, it can scratch up your insides/lungs to the state you get an infection. So you want to wear a mask even when just opening the bag........just as a precaution. This stuff does work on rodents as well though, so if you have rodents as well as insect problems........it can drive them off.

View attachment 694395

And yes, DE is also a "vitamin supplement", but it's processed different, so it can be absorbed into the body without damage.
View attachment 694397
Good choices.

With ants, I find a place in the path of entry and block it with a little dish of sugar and boric acid and water. They take the boric adic back to the nest and it kills everybody there.

Roaches? Get powdered boric acid in a bottle that will allow you to aim a stream of the powder. With the assistance of an electrician (my disclaimer -- don't do this unless you know what you're doing) take off an outlet plate low on a wall and puff the boric acid into the space inside the wall.

Note: I do not accept responsibility for any idiot who electrocutes himself at any time, for any reason.
 
Oh, yeah! Fruit flies!

Pour a few ounces of apple cider vinegar into a small glass jar. Spread a piece of plastic cling wrap over the opening of the jar, tightly. Then poke holes in the plastic. I use a fat darning needle. It can take some doing to get the holes the right size -- big enough for the fly to get into the jar but small enough that he can't get back out.
 
Oh, yeah! Fruit flies!

Pour a few ounces of apple cider vinegar into a small glass jar. Spread a piece of plastic cling wrap over the opening of the jar, tightly. Then poke holes in the plastic. I use a fat darning needle. It can take some doing to get the holes the right size -- big enough for the fly to get into the jar but small enough that he can't get back out.

Oh, I tried something like that once for gnats. We get gnats around here in the spring REALLY BAD!!!

1662827886168.png


It didn't work. I followed the instructions and followed the recipe for the "trap" fluid, but after a whole spring and summer, it only caught ONE gnat!!!!
 
I manage a large apartment building that was crawling with roaches. We tried sprays, bombs, sticky traps, poison baits, boric acid. Nothing worked. We finally hired an exterminator. Within a year, no bugs. We were able to stop using the company after about two years of regular maintenance treatments. Haven't seen a roach since. They have proprietary treatments not available to the general public.

I had the same problem with an 8-unit that I owned. Finally hired an exterminator. Within months, problem solved. And, it wasn't expensive.
 
Last edited:
I manage a large apartment building that was crawling with roaches. We tried sprays, bombs, sticky traps, poison baits, boric acid. Nothing worked. We finally hired an exterminator. Within a year, no bugs. We were able to stop using the company after about two years of regular maintenance treatments. Haven't seen a roach since. They have proprietary treatments not available to the general public.

I had the same problem with an 8-unit that I owned. Finally hired an exterminator. Within months, problem solved. And, it wasn't expensive.

As far as bugs go we've never had a problem with them.
We just make sure we dont leave anything out they want to eat.
The only serious bug problem we had was when the dogs got fleas.
Man are those things a bitch to kill off!!!!
 
Oh, I tried something like that once for gnats. We get gnats around here in the spring REALLY BAD!!!

View attachment 694402

It didn't work. I followed the instructions and followed the recipe for the "trap" fluid, but after a whole spring and summer, it only caught ONE gnat!!!!
Gnats, probably the same thing as what I call fruit flies. The apple cider vinegar works great. They can't resist it.
 
Mine are regular house flies. I turn out all the lights and open a sunny window with a screen. The flies go to the window with the light. I close the window, go outside and spray. Kills all the fllies.
 

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