# How to manage pests

Some natural pesticides have universal applications:

- Mix two cups water with a cup of vinegar in a spray bottle.
- Sprinkle Epsom salt wherever you don't want pests.
- Put dryer sheets in shoes, pockets, and drawers.
- If you have too many bugs around your porch lights, upgrade them to LED bulbs.

Ants:

- Stop them from going near your food or from walking on their paths:
  - Sprinkle leftover coffee grounds.
  - Sprinkle baking soda.
  - Sprinkle cayenne pepper.
  - Spray vinegar.
  - Draw a line of chalk.
  - Place a cottonball dipped in peppermint oil near windows.
- Kill them to keep them from coming back:
  - Spray with window cleaner.
  - Spray with room freshener.
  - Set out small piles of cornmeal.
  - Spray with a mixture of three parts water and one part salt.
  - Mix 4 parts syrup and 1 part borax, heat until warm, then place on paper plates near their nest.

Birds:

- If a bird gets into the house, turn off all the lights and open the windows.

Fleas:

- Spread walnut leaves around the affected areas.
- Clean all affected areas with Dawn dish soap.

Flies:

- Guide them out of the windows by leading them with bright lights.
- Mix cloves, eucalyptus, and clover blossoms in a sachet and place them somewhere to keep them away.
- Sprinkle borax on the bottom of trash cans.
- Spray directly with window cleaner to kill them.
- Sprinkle cinnamon and cayenne pepper on the bottom of trash cans.

Fruit flies:

- Mix four ounces of apple cider vinegar and two drops of dishwashing liquid and set them out where they gather.
- Flytrap:
  1. Put 1-2 ounces of apple cider vinegar in a glass.
  2. Cover it with plastic wrap fastened with a rubber band.
  3. Poke holes in the plastic wrap and leave it where fruit flies congregate.

Mice:

- Sprinkle cinnamon and cayenne pepper on the bottom of trash cans.

Mosquitoes:

- Mix four ounces witch hazel, twenty drops of citronella oil, and twenty drops of eucalyptus oil into a spray bottle and spray all over the house.
- Use catnip.
- Use peppermint or peppermint oil.
- Use garlic.

Moths:

- Place bay leaves in areas you don't want them.

Rodents:

- Mix a tablespoon of peppermint, castile soap, and 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper into 8 cups of water, then spray on baseboards.
- Rodents avoid peppermint oil.
- Mice avoid black pepper.

Spiders:

- Spray a mixture of peppermint oil and water wherever you don't want spiders.
- Place a cottonball dipped in peppermint oil near windows.

Ticks:

- Mix four ounces of witch hazel and thirty drops of rose geranium oil into a spray bottle and spray on areas where ticks will infest.
- Put clothes in the dryer on high heat for fifteen minutes before washing.

Wasps/bees:

- Spray hairspray on them.
- Ball up grocery bags and wrap them with weather-resistant duct tape, then hang them outside.
- Cut the top off a plastic bottle, invert the top and secure it, then pour sugar water into the bottom.

Weevils:

- Place bay leaves in areas you don't want them.