Home =>
Cleaning => Rodents and Pests => Homemade Insecticides
Homemade Insecticides
by Nikki Willhite - willhite@aol.com
Description: Controlling insects and other pests with homemade insecticides.
Warm weather is coming, and in many part of the country that means a
parade of bugs! Here are some homemade recipes you can try.
ANTS
Here is a list of deterrents:
Cinnamon
Lemon Dishwashing Detergent
Boiling Water
Equal Parts Borax Detergent and Sugar (mix with water or use dry)
ANT TRAPS
1/3 C Molasses or Honey
6 T Sugar
6 T active Dry Yeast
Mix together. Outside put the paste in a container near the
colony. Inside put the mixture on a piece of cardboard in the
areas ants come into the house.
BUGS
Kill by spraying with rubbing alcohol.
Spray with a multi-purpose cleaner like 409.
INSECT REPELLENT
Rub dryer sheets over your body to repel.
Mix the following ingredients and let sit 5 days. Then put in a
spray bottle:
3 C Rubbing alcohol
1 1/2 Cups Red Cedar Wood Shavings
1/2 C Eucalyptus leaves
EARWIGS
Use Bay leaves. Crumble them and spread them around.
FLIES
Homemade Fly Paper
1/4 C Maple Syrup
1 T Granulated Sugar
1 T Brown Sugar
Mix. Pour over strips of shopping bags or other paper and let
soak overnight. Poke a hole in the strip and hang,
MICE
Use Mint- soak cotton balls in mint extract and place around house.
Steel Wool- Stuff in holes leading to house.
MOSQUITOES
Put Rubbing Alcohol on your skin (but not face).
Spray outside area 3 times a week (early morning or late night)
with a 20 Gallon Hose Sprayer with this mixture:
1 Cup Lemon Scented Ammonia
1/4 Cup Baby Shampoo
Water
ROACHES
Mix the following and spread around house:
1 Lb Borax
60 oz. powdered sugar
1 oz. cocoa powder
2 oz. salt
WASPS
Spray with liquid detergent diluted in water.
Reprinted with permission from:
The Pennypincher
An E-zine for the Frugally Minded
Reader comment: Get a jug and put a gallon of water in it. To this, add 2 ounces of
orange oil. You should be able to find orange oil at a garden center, feed
store, or online. If your local retailer does not carry it, ask them
to do so.
This mixture will kill ants, roaches, silverfish, even spiders. Spiders
are good to have around, though, because they trap nuisance bugs. Only
two spiders you need worry about are the brown recluse and the black
widow. These are not aggressive spiders and will only bite if you are
about to smash them.
The mixture may be made stronger, just take care that you do not make
it so strong that it will strip the paint off your walls.
Note: The manner in which it kills cockroaches is interesting.
Cockroaches have a waxy coating on their lungs. The orange oil melts the wax,
suffocating them...Nadine
