Home Interior 2011: Keeping insects out of your home

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Keeping insects out of your home

Suddenly it feels like spring in Barrie. The snow is gone, the days are longer. I've seen my first Robins and this morning I saw some lady bugs crawling along the railing of the back deck. I thought the following article written for Food & Home Magazine last year was worth re-post on the blog.

When I was growing up just south of Barrie in an area bordering the woods and surrounded by overgrown fields that would have inspired Mark Twain, bugs were fascinating little critters. We would spend entire summer days discovering and observing them. This was the Serengeti through the eyes of a curious 12 year old boy.

Flash ahead to the present; those woods and fields of south Barrie exist in memory only. Urban expansion has transformed my old stomping grounds into subdivisions and parkettes and if you can find a boy with a stick in his hand there's a good chance it’s attached to a video game console.

As a home owner making my small contribution toward urban sprawl I find I've become a little more territorial against the lowly bug. They were here long before any of us and will no doubt adapt to whatever environment we leave behind for them in time, but once we have staked our claim to a patch of land, there's no room in the plans for multi-legged critters.

Some bite, some sting; they buzz and chirp, burrow and tunnel, mulch and munch with more determination and strategy than a four star general. The best you can do in your war against them is try to eliminate the source of their attraction, secure your perimeter and attempt to eliminate the enemy with repellents and poisons. Allow your defences to weaken and they will be back.

You could easily fill an encyclopaedia on this topic, but for now let’s focus on recognizing and resolving some of the more common household pest problems.

First thing to do is identify and eliminate the potential ingress points bugs like to use. Ripped or missing screens, holes in brick mortar and poorly caulked gaps in window and door frames top the list. Take a close look around the house, and think like a bug. "How am I going to get inside?" A good temporary fix is to loosely stuff steel wool into these spaces which works especially well where wasps or hornets have found entry into walls or overhangs of the house.

To avoid ants keep the kitchen counters and sinks clean and the floors swept. Get some plastic containers for dry foods stored in cupboards. Aside from having the strength equivalent to you or I carrying a Lincoln Navigator on our backs, ants can smell a crumb from across the street and can text message thousands of their friends within seconds once they do.

Cover fruit bowls with plastic wrap to avoid fruit flies, and don’t allow food waste to ripen in the kitchen trash, or before you can say "There's a fly in my potato salad!" you will stumble upon a full blown indoor bug banquet in the trash bin.

Keep outside wood surfaces stained or painted and dry if possible to deter the many wood eating insects common to Ontario. Store fireplace wood outside and away from the house.

Lawns and gardens are home to many pests, although some insects actually contribute to your lawn's and garden’s health. It’s good to know which is which. There is an endless number of products and solutions, many of which are natural, to repel, deter, and/or eliminate common household pests.