40+ DIY Hacks To Help Anyone Have A Bug-Free Summer
The summer allows you to show more skin, spend more time outdoors, and hang out with your acquaintances. You get to soak up the sun while also spending more time with family and friends doing activities that you wouldn’t be able to do in the colder months, like going to the pool or taking a vacation to the beach.
However, the hotter months are also prime time for bugs and pests to make an appearance. They were hiding for so long while it was cold that now they are ready to take over every nook and cranny of your home now that it’s hot. However, have no fear.
Instead of paying unnecessary money for chemicals that will only get rid of a few of them, we have compiled 45 hacks that will help you take control over these resilient bugs so you can enjoy the precious Summer months!
Clean Up After Your Time Outdoors
Outdoor time is good for your mental and physical health, but the risk of attracting bugs and mosquitos is even higher. Take advantage of green spaces in your compound, neighborhood, or parks to interact with nature, cool off, and escape from the confines of your home or office.
After coming back indoors, you should take a shower and change clothes within hours of your return. If you spend time in tick-infested areas, avoid interacting with furniture and other parts of the house that may harbor ticks, increasing your risk of Lyme disease.
Fix Leaks to Keep Silverfish Away
Pests like silverfish thrive more in damp and humid habitats. The presence of silverfish in your home could be a warning sign for a moisture problem. Silverfish are more active in the night as they search for protein-rich foods and starchy materials.
If left unchecked, you may incur damages to your stored food, books, and clothes. You can avoid the damage of silverfish by improving ventilation, fixing water leaks, sealing gaps in walls and pipes, and vacuuming the silverfish-infested areas to get rid of leftover eggs.
Use Rosemary to Repel Wasps
As for wasps, you may benefit from a symbiotic relationship. Apart from their aggressive and venomous characteristics, wasps feed on insects like flies, crickets, caterpillars, and other pests. They don’t even harbor honey. It seems they only make an appearance to attack.
If wasps thrive in your yard, your threat of getting a wasp sting increases as they react with violence whenever they perceive a threat to their nests and young ones. Hang sprigs of rosemary or plant them in designated parts of your yard and patio to drive them away.
Maintain Clean Gutters
Mosquitoes use pools of water and vegetation around your home as breeding grounds and habitats. If your gutter is blocked with leaves, branches, and other foreign particles, mosquitoes probably use it as an ideal breeding ground, especially if water is trapped inside.
Protect your yard from transforming into a mosquito breeding ground by using trash containers with holes at the bottom to allow water to pass through. Apply your DIY skills to clear the gutter or hire professional cleaning services for better results.
Add Marigolds to your Arsenal
Maintaining a beautiful garden adds aesthetic value to your home while helping you become a better master of your time. Besides plants like rosemary, your garden should also comprise plants like marigolds. With the right flowers and plants, it protects your home from negative energy and notorious pests.
Including marigolds in your garden allows you to spend some quality time outdoors in the pursuit of fresh air and peace of mind. Beyond aesthetic beauty, marigolds are a natural repellent for mosquitoes, veggie pests, aphids, and spider mites.
Use Turmeric to Repel Spiders
Turmeric is an essential kitchen ingredient loaded with health benefits and the ability to protect your home from pests. If taken in healthy amounts, turmeric is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory that improves your cardiovascular health, prevents cancer and Alzheimer’s, and improves symptoms of arthritis and depression.
Turmeric is a superfood for humans, but it can also play an influential role in repelling pests. Combine turmeric pastes with water or sprinkle the turmeric powder to kill pests like mites, beetles, cutworm larvae, cabbage cooper larvae, and spiders in your house, around the home, or garden.
Use Coconut Oil
Coconut oil has a wide range of uses and health benefits, making it essential for every household. Most folks use coconut oil in beauty routines, cooking, and the improvement of health goals. Other than the usual, you can use coconut oil as a bug repellent.
If you need to spend time outdoors, a bug repellent should be at the top of your list. Most synthetic bug repellents are associated with nasty smells and side effects like itching your skin. Coconut oil gives your skin a beautiful scent while also keeping it healthy, hydrated, and bug-free.
Use Bay Leaf Sachets
Bay leaf contains medicinal properties and is also perfect for home and office decorations. When cooking, you can use the bay leaf to give soup and tea a menthol aroma. In the gut, bay leaf treats gas, stimulates sweating for better waste disposal, and stimulates bile flow for healthy digestion.
If you don’t prefer bay leaves in your cooking¸, you can use them to send bugs away from your residence. Harvest bay leaves, crunch them up, put them in a cheesecloth, seal them with a ribbon or string, and position them in parts with roaches, moths, mosquitoes, or earwigs and wait for the magic.
Keep Calm When Outdoors
Spending more time among trees improves your ability to fight stress, meditate, refresh, break the monotony, and plan for your going forth. Recent studies show that some insects and pests are more attracted to stress hormones and pheromones your body produces.
Besides domestic and work-related stress, your body may lose its cool if thirsty, hungry, or wearing the wrong attire. Dress right, stay hydrated, and eat light to limit the production of pheromones and hormones attracting insects to disturb your hard-earned peace of mind.
Do More with Vanilla
Whenever we hear or read the word ‘vanilla,’ ice cream and cakes come to mind. Other than a horde of health benefits and sweet flavors, you can use vanilla to keep pests away from your house. Most households use vanilla extract as an alternative to onions and garlic.
Unlike onions and garlic, vanilla has a beautiful scent that won’t leave your items and rooms stinky. Position cotton balls drenched in vanilla extract in cupboards, window sills, and other parts of your kitchen and rarely used rooms to deter pests.
Build a Fire Place
The summer is a perfect time for you to spend quality time outdoors with friends, families, and neighbors. As the summer approaches, you should install a fire pit in your yard to make your nights more fun, action-packed, and naturally lit with fire from the pit.
Besides making your summer nights fun and memorable, a fire pit helps keep your home safe from pests and bugs at night. As it burns, the fire emits fumes that are effective for repelling mosquitoes and other insects threatening your comfort outdoors with uncomfortable bites.
Use Crushed Garlic
Garlic is an essential ingredient associated with a series of health benefits and bug repellent properties. Unfortunately, some folks disregard garlic due to its unique smell and taste. If mosquitoes limit your ability to initiate and maintain sleep, then garlic in your drawers may be your best option.
Follow a simple procedure to prepare a homemade mosquito repellent using garlic and other ingredients in your kitchen. Crush four cloves of garlic, mix it with mineral oil, water, and one teaspoon of dish soap and leave put it in a small bowl in the rooms where there are problems.
Introduce Hang Air Curtains
Some common pests and insects behind closed doors include flying culprits like flies and mosquitoes. You can hang air curtains around the house to rid your home of the flying felons that may fly into your eyes, make noise in your ears, and cause damage around the house.
Identify indoor and outdoor hang-out areas serving as hotspots for flies and mosquitoes in the day or night to make the installation simple. You can apply simple DIY skills to hang air curtains or seek professional services to ensure that your house is bug-free.
Use Sliced Cucumber
Imagine going for a whole day without sighting flies and ants in your kitchen, living room, and other rooms. Thanks to readily available vegetables like cucumber, you can keep flies and ants away as long as each slice is fresh and strategically positioned in areas they can access.
While shopping for groceries, get extra cucumbers to help you ward off ants and flies away from the house. Cut off tiny slices and leave them on a plate or scatter them in areas with flies and ants. The scent and taste of cucumber drive off flies and ants to ensure that you have quality time without ant bites and flies buzzing around your face.
Use Mint Leaves
As you compile a list of plants for your garden, include one or two mint plants to add beauty and value to the place. With a starter pack of good drainage and soil, you can harvest mint leaves during the summer to fight off notorious pests like moths in your compound.
Moths can raid your clothes during the day or night, especially if you hang them outside. If you have a moth problem, collect mint leaves from your garden and dry them up. Prepare packages of a handful of dried mint leaves that you can put among your clothes to repel moths.
Use Salt
Salt is an essential item present in almost every household. Besides its role as a spice, salt is also used in food preservation, bleaching, tanning, dyeing, and production of chlorine and soap. If you have a pest problem of fleas and ants, salt helps break their tracks and send them away.
For flea infestation, sprinkle some salt on the carpet and couch and leave it intact for the night. If fleas come into contact with salt, they dry up quickly. After the night, you can use the vacuum cleaner to restore your carpet and couch to its original state.
Put up a Fake Wasp Nest
Wasps are territorial insects looking to build their home in isolation from other nests. If they find your home free of wasps, it may take less than a week to put up their new home in your yard. You can use a fake wasp from the nest to deter wasps from setting up camp in your yard.
For the best experience, use at least two sets of fake wasp nests to send a strong message at the gate, backyard, and other parts that wasps may prefer. If your home is already infested with wasps, consider professional extermination services before putting up the fake wasp nests.
Use Citrus Peels
While shopping for fruits and vegetables, citrus should be on your list. Citrus is a delicious fruit with a series of health benefits for the young and old. Citrus is rich in soluble fiber, vitamins, and flavonoids. Long-term benefits include good heart health and less risk of kidney stones.
If you spot a spider or two, the citrus may come to play a vital role in their eradication. Collect unsweetened lemon juice in a spray bottle, mix with water, and spray areas with signs of webs. You can use the mixture to clean doorways, counters, and window mills to deter spiders.
Hang a Bag of Water with Pennies
Finding the best remedy for flies includes an endless search for synthetic and homemade remedies. In areas with the most flies, you can use the budget-friendly intervention involving water, lime juice, table salt, and a few pennies in a heavy-duty freezer bag.
Seal your heavy-duty freezer bag and dangle it above a door, window, in the kitchen, and other parts with plenty of flies. As the bag, coins, and water reflect light into flies’ eyes, their vision and ability to focus when flying around the house are limited.
Use Overripe Food in Traps
Fruit flies are notorious for attacking uncovered food, fruits, and other sugary foods. The fruit flies are tiny, but the sight of them is unbearable and quite irritating. Thanks to this ingenious trick, you can get rid of fruit flies in your kitchen or living room whenever they resurface.
To set the perfect trap, you need fruit juice, a mixture of vinegar and sugar, and a bottle with a tiny neck. A small amount of the mix will draw fruit flies into the bottle to savor the sweet juice. After a while, more fruit flies will be drowning at the bottle’s bottom instead of flying.
Mix Up Pepper, Milk, and Sugar in a Shallow Bowl
When using a bottle or deep container to trap fruit flies, some may be lucky to escape death and set out to torment your home further. In this case, you may need a different approach to trap as many as possible. Some DIY enthusiasts recommend a mixture of sugar, pepper, and milk.
Heat two cups of milk, add four tablespoons of ground pepper, and eight tablespoons of sugar. Put the mixture in a shallow bowl or dish close to the infested area. More fruit flies will fly right into the thick mixture, limiting their exit.
Use Red Wine in a Jar
Since Jesus’ first miracle of changing water into wine, several cultures have embraced different flavors of wine for a wide range of uses. In recent times, red wine has been identified for its key role in the fight against pests like fruit flies.
Mix the red wine and water in equal proportions, add the mixture into a jar, and cover it with plastic wrap. Your plastic wrap should have tiny holes allowing the fruit flies to get in while limiting their exit. Empty and refill the jar based on the severity of your fruit fly problem.
Heat Up Apple Cider Vinegar
Fruit flies and gnats love apple cider vinegar, making it an ideal trap. Based on your preference, you can use apple cider vinegar before or after heating it. Whereas the unheated one works as efficiently. Heating makes it heavy enough to make an escape impossible for the flies.
You can put half a cup of heated apple cider vinegar in a jar, tumbler, or bottle with a narrow neck and wait for their arrival. Make the mixture more effective by adding a few drops of dish soap to make the apple cider vinegar heavier and stickier.
Plant more Catnip in your Garden
The proper collection of plants and flowers in your garden improves your protection against bugs like mosquitoes. Your garden should also comprise catnip for the benefit of your cat and outdoor nights in the summer. It requires less maintenance and less strict conditions for growth.
If you have limited garden space or none, you can plant catnip in a jar or bucket to repel mosquitoes. Instead of exposing your household to synthetic sprays, catnip uses the highly potent nepetalactone to repel mosquitoes from the compound.
Plant lavender in your compound
Lavender is popular for its beauty, natural scent, and wide range of uses. Spare some space in your garden to ensure that your home smells nice while free from bugs like mosquitoes. The natural repellent helps your preserve the environment and keep track of your carbon footprint.
Lavender produces a unique scent that promotes calmness by delivering a soothing sensation while driving away mosquitoes from the vicinity. Collect leaves from the lavender plants around your house, crush them, and apply them on open skin to reduce the frequency of mosquito bites.
Use the Lemon Balm Plant
The Lemon Balm is widely acclaimed for its healing properties. It improves your garden’s quality by attracting pollinators like bees and butterflies. You may also benefit from a Lemon Balm Plant’s benefits in the fight against mosquitoes limiting your quality outdoor time.
If you need to spend some hours in the backyard or front yard during the summer, crush lemon balm in your hand. Apply it on your skin to reduce the need to swing arms again and again as you chase away mosquitoes making rounds by your ears.
Make Peppermint Your Best Friend
Since its first planting in 1750 near London as a tentative hybrid of spearmint and water mint, peppermint has gained more popularity in different parts of the globe. Given that it requires minimal maintenance and growth factors, peppermint is a perfect addition to your garden.
Peppermint is widely used as a gum flavor and ingredient for a soothing body wash. Its scent and properties make it a natural insecticide that will ward off mosquitoes in your house and yard. Crush peppermint leaves and allow them to emit a unique scent to deter bugs roaming the air.
Introduce a Basil Plant
The Basil plant stands out as one of the most aromatic herbs. It is commonly used for cooking dishes like pasta. The unique herb is best for intestinal gas, stomach spasms, kidney conditions, head colds, worm infections, warts, and the treatment of snake and insect bites.
Contrary to common expectations, the pungent smell of a Basil plant makes it a unique mosquito repellent. Unlike most natural mosquito repellents that require garden space, the Basil plant thrives indoors and outdoors. While inside your house, mosquitoes will choose to play outdoors.
Maintain Clean Armpits to Avoid Ticks
Ticks are blood-sucking pests notorious for latching onto animals like cows, deer, squirrels, rats, cats, dogs, birds, reptiles, and humans as their hosts for food and shelter. Unlike silverfish, ticks are associated with intense discomfort and transmission of diseases like Lyme.
You should create a climate-controlled environment for tick-infested areas while maintaining humidity levels way below 90% to squash their growth and development. To prevent ticks from attacking your body, maintain a clean armpit and check for signs of ticks when you shower.
Add the Citronella Plant to Your Garden
With citronella in your yard, mosquitoes may deem the space inhabitable and rush to seek new spaces to continue their reign of terror. Most bug repellents available in the store contain citronella oil as a key ingredient with a strong odor to disguise mosquito attractants.
The citronella plant may be a tiny plant at the start, but it can potentially grow to a height of five to six feet. You can plant citronella in large pots in spacious parts of the garden to ensure access to light and other essential growth factors it needs to thrive.
Experience the Magic of Baby Powder
The mother of every newborn and toddler needs baby powder to maintain the baby’s skin quality. You may shy away from purchasing baby powder at the store, fearing that folks will judge you wrong, or refrain from the task of cleaning areas with baby powder more closely.
Unlike most products for killing ants, baby powder is free of Borax, making it safer and more humane for your children and pets. Sprinkle tiny bits of baby powder in areas infested with ants in or around the house for immediate results.
Add Cinnamon to Your Arsenal for Ant Extermination
Ants may raid your home in the pursuit of food and shelter. Unfortunately, ants don’t knock or seek your invitation before entering your home. If you spot ants in your house or backyard, you can use cinnamon essential oil to break up their procession.
Add half a teaspoon of cinnamon essential oil to a cup of water and shake well to mix. Soak cotton balls in the mixture and swab areas with the highest population of ants and wait for the magic. You may also place cinnamon pieces in entry points like the door and windows.
Use Vinegar on the Ants
Vinegar has several uses in your kitchen and other parts of the house. Considering vinegar’s long list of uses and benefits, every house should have at least a bottle on standby. Ants will stay away from the parts with vinegar due to the fear of its smell.
Other than baby powder and cinnamon oil extracts, you can reduce the ant population using vinegar. Mix water and distilled vinegar in equal amounts and add the mixture into a spray bottle. Spray points of entry and parts they frequent most inside your house.
Starve the Pests
Most pests will enter your home in search of food and shelter. If you have poor waste management and disposal, the pests like ants may take advantage of the situation to set up a permanent base for their colonies.
Keep any food and extra food covered to limit the pests from gaining access to your delicacy that will, in turn, prolong their lives. If you dine outside, remember to clean up your spoons, grill tongs, forks, and other types of kitchenware needed for a successful determent of pests.
Use Borax to Eliminate Ants
To get rid of all ants in your garden or compound, you should target the entire colony. Worker ants feed on liquids while queens and babies prefer solids, making your work easier. With the right ingredients, you can rid the compound of notorious ants growing bolder under your nose.
When preparing solid ant bait for the queen and her babies, add a mixture of powdered sugar and Borax to the food and let worker ants deliver your trojan horse. For liquid bait, combine maple syrup or honey with Borax to attract the scavenging group of worker ants.
Use Borax to Annihilate Cockroaches
Roaches are hardcore survivors able to thrive in the least expected conditions. Without the right approach, cockroaches will multiply to fill your house. Fortunately, with the help of Borax, you can eradicate roaches before they damage furniture, food, clothes, and other essentials.
Boil six eggs and extract the yolks and mash them up. Add 2.5 ounces of Borax to the mashed-up yolks, then add sugar bit by bit until it assumes a dough-like consistency. Divide the dough into tiny balls and place them strategically to allow the roaches to take bites of death.
Use Borax to Rid your Home of Fleas
Homes with pets like dogs and cats are more vulnerable to flea infestations. In this case, pet owners need Borax to make the eradication of fleas much simpler. You can spray Borax onto the carpet, couch, furniture, and areas that your pet hangs out most of the time.
After sprinkling the borax powder in flea-infested areas, let it sit overnight or throughout the day to ensure that it makes maximum contact with eggs and adult fleas. Use your vacuum cleaner to eliminate fleas, flea eggs, and other pests vulnerable to Borax to regain control of your house.
Use Heat To Get Rid Of Bedbugs
When it comes to pests, bedbugs are among the most stubborn. An infestation translates to a complete nightmare. So, to be safe, we recommend drying clothes in high heat especially if you’ve just bought them or if you use public laundromats.
When we say high heat, we mean exactly that. As we said, these bugs are stubborn so normal heat doesn’t really bother them. A temperature of about 120 degrees Fahrenheit is sufficient to kill any bedbugs that might be lurking in your clothes.
Declare War on Stagnant Water
Mosquitoes lay more eggs in bushy areas and those with chunks of stagnant water. Pools of water may accumulate in different parts of your home before and during the rainy season. Avoid junk that may collect water and pools that form due to poor drainage systems.
Allocate time, especially over the weekend, to clear bushes, cut grass, and take care of accumulating water to destroy mosquito breeding grounds or seek professional assistance. You can also help the neighbors find more sense to maintain a clean compound.
Clean Food and Drink Garbage Before Disposal
The chances are likely that pests will sniff out leftover foods and drinks in your garbage. The result is that they will flock in numbers to maximize the available food. Keeping pests fed constantly may result in challenges like constant multiplication and growth in numbers.
Consider reusing food leftovers in a compost pit that generates natural fertilizers for your plants if you have a garden. When disposing of trash bags into the trash can, ensure that each is tightly locked and free of damages to limit the entry of large and tiny bugs.
Always Carry Dryer Sheets
In the summer, spending more time in the company of friends and family outdoors helps you grow closer and build long-lasting memories. You may engage in BBQ parties or small gatherings to reflect on what you have missed over the past year. Given that you don’t know what to expect, dryer sheets should be your friend.
With dryer sheets safely tucked in your pocket, you are more protected from pests like beetles, mites, cockroaches, and weevils. You can toggle between different scents and ingredients, targeting the most notorious bugs in your compound at night, thanks to custom dryer sheets.
Go for Clear Plates and Cups
When using non-clear plates and cups, you may not notice the presence of bugs invading your food or drink. When organizing an outdoor event for the summer, you can give guests a rare treat of allowing them to use clear tumblers and plates, allowing them to spot bugs from a distance.
Most clear tumblers feature a unique top preventing bugs from making their way inside. You can also use plates with lids or improvise foils to protect the food and keep it warm. If possible, you can reuse or recycle the clear tumblers and plates.
Limit Scents When Outdoors
What cologne do you wear before venturing outdoors? You will realize that unique scents will draw the attention of colleagues and strangers as they try to figure out your secret. Unfortunately, the beautiful fragrance may be your undoing in the presence of some pests.
Bugs like yellow jackets and pollinators like bees may be attracted to fruity and floral fragrances from perfumes, soaps, and scented candles. If you need peace of mind, let your natural body odor mask your presence, and you will be watching the bugs from a distance.
Use Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth comprises fossilized phytoplankton residues in powder form for the extermination of ants. The piece is very lethal to ants and other bugs. It contains sharp edges that cut through the exoskeletons of ants and dries them up in a relentless execution.
Identify ant-infested areas to plan their extermination. Sprinkle the diatomaceous earth in entry points like the door and windowsills. You can also target hang-out joints like cabinets, around the garbage, and under the refrigerator to form a thin layer of mass destruction.
Use Silica Gel
You know the little bags of silica gel that you find in new bags and shoes that you never know what to do with? Well, believe us when we tell you they are vicious bedbug killers. This chemical acts as a desiccant, and that’s the same property that makes it deadly for pests.
When you spot a bedbug, the best thing you can do is act immediately. Since these bugs have a tendency to hide in small crevices, you can sprinkle a bit of silica gel in such places. A report showed it has a 97% mortality rate within 24 hours!