by Ken Reetz

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: August 22, 2010

Your best effort won't be enough to keep some pests from making a visit to your home, but you can minimize their stay by removing the welcome mat and limiting their menu. That means you have a snug fit on all screens, you dust and vacuum often, and you have eliminated any food source.

Also, pay attention to the outside environment by keeping a clean landscape and proper garbage disposal. The common cat and dog are excellent guards against the rascally rodent, and attracting birds to your front and back yard will reduce the flying insect pests at a surprising rate.

The scent attraction and trap for Yellow Jackets is extremely effective and doesn't affect the beneficial bees at all, they are inexpensive and can be used for years. If you are absolutely plagued by Yellow Jackets you simply need to increase the number of traps to exhaust their population.

Among the most common household pests are spiders and ants. Try keeping a hand held vacuum, something akin to the Dirt Devil portable model, with the hose attachment ready for action. Whenever you see a spider you can simply suck it up in the vacuum and the job is done quite effectively without an ounce of mess.

You may also buy the little spider traps. Light weight cardboard is folded into a tent like tunnel that spiders like to hide in, but these traps have a very sticky inside floor that holds the spider, and any other insect that happens upon it.

Ants are another story, but I have found a way to deal with these little soldiers. Ants like to travel in a route from their nest, and then they scatter to explore and forage in all directions. Find the main route and lace it with plenty of thick sugar water and honey mixture, enough to really get them excited.

Let the ants feed and spread the word. When you notice a few hundred ants have gathered, use a wet vacuum, shop model, to suck them up. If their route is near a sink or bath/shower then you can simply wash them down the drain; re-apply the sugar water each time to keep them gathering.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you repeat this every several hours you will eventually kill off the entire colony in four or five days. I do this every year when they invade our master bathroom, at the shower walls.

We live in a wood area that is plagued with ants, they live throughout the entire neighborhood, but we have been able to get rid of them completely after just a few days of intense attention at least until the following year when another colony realizes there is new real estate available.

The value of a poison free environment is considerable and should be seriously encouraged. Nature has a way of keeping things in balance if we don't commit mass exterminations by poisoning everything in and out of sight.

Learn more about this author, Ken Reetz.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.