Baron Von Murderpaws
Diamond Member
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.
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.
And yes, DE is also a "vitamin supplement", but it's processed different, so it can be absorbed into the body without damage.
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.
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.
And yes, DE is also a "vitamin supplement", but it's processed different, so it can be absorbed into the body without damage.
