During the cold months many bugs try to worm their way indoors to stay warm. Rather than spend the entire season living with unwanted intruders, you can keep those bugs at bay with a few simple tricks. These tips won’t take much time to enact, and they can do wonders to keeping your home bug free.
1. Don’t Leave Food Out
Bugs often come into your living space following the lure of food. Leaving food on the table, kitchen counter, and on the floor can be an open invitation to bugs. If you must keep food on the counter for easy access or to let it ripen, keep it in a sealed cloth or plastic bag. Also, make sure to keep the garbage cleaned regularly as bugs like to crawl in after leftover food particles.
On a side note, many bugs go crawling at night to get a drink of water. Whenever you come across a house spider in the bathroom at three in the morning, know that it’s just trying to sneak a drink from your water faucet.
2. Lay Down Diatomaceous Earth
As an option other than pest control, which will spray inside the house with insecticide, you can sprinkle diatomaceous earth along the wall and corners of the interior. You can also sprinkle this along window sills and in entryways. Diatomaceous earth is made up of microscopic fossils of ancient single celled and algae organisms. This earth is extremely sharp and will cut up any insects that crawl over it. However, it is so fine that it won’t cut a person. Be careful of inhaling this product by accident, as it can cause breathing difficulties. It’s safe to sprinkle on the ground in areas where you don’t tread very often. If you have a dog that likes to sniff around inside the house, you may also want to avoid using diatomaceous earth.
3. Use Essential Oils
Plants in nature create essential oils to help protect themselves from insects. We can use the same oils to keep them out of our homes. Create sachets soaked with these essential oils and place them in your closets, clothing drawers, or even cupboards in the kitchen. Some of these oils also smell quite nice, such as lavender and eucalyptus, which are both good for repelling insects. Clove oil can also help repel bugs for months at a time. Another good oil to consider is citronella, which is commonly used in candles to help repel mosquitoes when eating outdoors.
These tricks are easy ways to keep bugs from invading during the cold season. You can set up the diatomaceous earth and the essential oils within a few minutes and then forget about them for the rest of the season. It’s also easy enough to keep food from sitting out in the open to keep from drawing insects into your living space.
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