How to do pest control at home by yourself?

Man does not live alone. His habitation becomes the haunting place of insects, birds and beasts. The household pests are dreadful ones, against which man has to guard to live a healthy, peaceful life.

The common household pests are categorised into four groups:

Blood Suckers –

Mosquitoes Sand fly, ticks, mite fleas and lies.

Food Polluters –

Housefly, and and cockroach.

Property destroyers –

Clothes moth, weevils, silverfish, rodents.

Miscellaneous –

Spider, scorpion, snake and toad.

These annoying pests should be eradicated on a war footing, as it directly and indirectly causes suffering to human beings.

General Measures for the control of pests

1. The house and its surrounding should be clean and dry.

2. Have all doors and windows in the home screened with wire gauze or mesh. If the entire house is not possible to be screened, do it for the kitchen and bathrooms only.

3. Fill all cracks and holes in the walls, ceilings and floors. Lime washes the kitchen as often as possible.

4. Regularly, spray insecticides like DDT and gammacine in cupboards, drawers, behind furniture and in dark corner areas.

5. All food should be covered in the kitchen. Dry grains should be stored in air-tight containers.

6. Old tins, bottles and other unwanted articles should not be allowed to accumulate around the house to collect water and become the breeding place for mosquitoes, flies etc.

7. Any accumulated water in the drains, pools and containers must be sprayed with Kerosene oil emulsions.

8. Regularly, air and sun all beddings, mattresses, upholstered furniture’s, rugs and heavy clothing’s.

9. Stables and cowsheds should be kept clean and dry.

10. Dustbins should be kept closed with tight fitting lids.

11. Fumigate all rooms with sulphur at least once a year.

THE BLOOD SUCKERS

1. Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are those who suck our blood and inject disease germs into our body. Only the female mosquitoes are blood suckers and spread disease like malaria, filaria and yellow fever.

Control

1. Eliminate breeding places:

Water should not be allowed to accumulate near the house. Broken pots, tins, old cane or any article that can hold water, should not be allowed lie around. Drains should be properly covered and Kerosene oil sprayed in the surface of stagnant water.

2. Destruction of larvae:

Mosquito larvae should be destroyed by spraying Kerosene oil and larve consuming fish should be bred in them.

3. Personal protection:

Mosquito net should be used at night. Use of incense and other repellants at night will help to keep away the mosquitoes.

4. Destruction of adult mosquitoes:

If the house is badly infested by mosquitoes, the best method is to trap them inside the room by closing all the doors and windows and fumigating the room. Even D.D.T. can be used to kill them.

2. Fleas

Fleas are deadly, blood sucking parasites, which live on animals before coming to live on human bodies. There are different kinds of fleas as the ratflea, dogflea and catflea they transmit diseases like plague etc. from animal to man and from man to pi generally, the breeding places of fleas are the rubbish on the ground and cracks a floors.

Control

1. Sanitation of the house and its surrounding is of utmost importance.

2. Cracks and crevices must be cemented or plastered.

3. Insecticides like D.D.T. should be sprayed in the infected area.

4. Pet animals should be washed with a solution of kerosene oil emulsion or carbolic soap.

5. Rats should be trapped and destroyed.

6. Since direct sunlight kills fleas, infected pets, linens and beddings should exposed to the sun.

3. Bed Bugs

Bed Bugs are the most unpleasant, annoying little creatures who live in the era’ of the furniture, walls, floors and in beddings. They feed at night time, sucking blood from exposed surfaces of the skin. Besides being blood suckers, bedbugs may also transmit certain disease germs like kala-azar from one person to another.

Control

1. All the cracks and crevices on ceilings, walls, and floors should be plastered sealed.

2. Furniture’s bed steads and boxes should be wiped with kerosene oil and kerosene oil emulsions.

3. All infected furniture’s quilts, rugs, pillows and mattresses should be aired a sunned properly.

4. Fumigation with sulphur dioxides, or hydrocyanic acid is useful.

5. In the destructions of both the eggs and the adult bed bugs pouring boiling water over them is very effective.

4. Sand flies

These are small, slender, hairy insects, which suck blood. They cause a viral disease called sand fly fever, which resembles dengue fever and influenza.

Control

1. Since, they are very small and can pass through a mosquito net, fine mesh Sand fly net may be used.

2. Use mosquito coil or spray insecticides to keep them away.

5. Lice

Lice are small, disgusting insects found on the head and body of human beings. They spread diseases like typhus fever and skin infections.

Control

1. Absolute cleanliness of body and clothing is essential.

2. For head lice, the hair should be washed with certain commercially prepared chemicals as ‘Necko’ and ‘Licel’.

3. Hair may be cut short in case of children.

FOOD POLLUTERS

1. The House Fly

The housefly is probably the most dangerous of all the pests found in the house. They not only cause annoyance but spread many diseases like Cholera, Dysentery, Typhoid and diarrhea. They sit and walk on the food, thereby causing contamination.

Control

1. Destroy all breeding ground much before the flies lay eggs on it.

2. Garbage bins should be kept tightly covered, and the contents disposed off hygienically.

3. All food stuffs should be properly covered.

4. Doors and windows of kitchen and dining room should be covered with fine gauze or net.

5. Children should not be allowed to pass motion around the house.

6. Stables and cowsheds should be kept clean.

7. Fly flaps, fly traps and D.D.T. may be used.

8. During season, when flies are numerous, the rooms should be sprayed with disinfectant.

9. Besides, general cleanliness of the home should be maintained.

2. Cockroaches

Cockroaches are small disgusting insects that come to the homes in sea food. They are mostly found in the kitchen store and dining room. They love warm and places and make their appearance at night time. Cockroaches leave behind an offensive odour and contaminate food by living excreta on it. They attack not only foods, but damage clothes, old papers, binding of books, etc.

Control

1. Thorough cleaning of the house, especially the kitchen and drains should be out regularly. At least once a week, pour boiling water down the drain after kerosene or a strong disinfectant in it.

2. Spray borax, sulphur and other insecticides.

3. Food should be covered and not be left scattered around.

4. Scatter some repellants in bookshelves, to prevent their attack on books.

3. The Ant

Ants are troublesome little creatures, spoils food by crawling over it.

Control

1. Keep the house absolutely clean.

2. Sprinkle borax or turmeric power or kerosene around their haunted place.

3. Food safes should have their legs placed in small containers of water.

4. Grain Weevils

These resemble bettles and attack rice, pulses and flours. Control

1. Cleanliness of the grain and the container is important. Grains should be dry stored in air tight containers.

2. D.D.T. can be used around the place where the grains are stored to prevent the attack of weevils. However, care has to be exercised in the use of pesticide it may poison the food stuffs.

THE PROPERTY DAMAGERS

1. The Cloth Moth

Moths are very common pests that attack clothing and soft furnishings and great deal of damage in a very short time. The adult moths are harmless, but the lie on clothes, develop into destructive larvae, which feed on the garments, le them riddled with holes. Not only woolen clothes, but also rugs, blankets, hangings, stuffed articles, upholstered furniture, feathers and furs can be damaged by moths.

Control

1. Clothes must be washed, cleaned and brushed to get rid off the deposited before they are stored away.

2. Woolen should be stored in air-tight, tin-lined boxes after wrapping in newspaper.

3. Camphor and naphthalene balls should also be used.

4. Cupboards, chests and other storage places can be sprayed with kerosene emulsions or any other commercial insecticides like D.D.T.

2. Silver Fish

This is a small, wingless, silver-white insect, which is fond of glue and starch. So, are found in houses behind photo frames, among books and clothes.

Control

1. Clean the cupboards, shelves and boxes frequently.

2. Books and stored clothes should be examined regularly.

3. Spray D.D.T. on books, boxes etc.

3. Termites (White Ants)

Termites or white ants live in colonies and cause damage to wood and wooden furniture. They eat away the heart of the wood, making the structure empty and hollow. This may even cause the collapse of a building.

Control

1. The galleries or mounds of termites should be destroyed with boiling water and kerosene.

2. Holes, cracks and crevices should be cemented.

3. Cowan’s white ant powder available in Chemist’s shop can be used.

4. Carpet Bettles

These are found chiefly in the under part of the carpets. They cause damage to carpets, woolen, silky or leather goods.

Control

1. Carpet should be kept clean and free from dust.

2. Naphthalene balls can be kept underneath.

3. Spray insecticide, if infected.

5. Rodents

These are considered to be the most destructive pests. They cause damage to goods bringing loss of money and pose many health hazards. They spread diseases like typhus, plague and rat-bite fever. They eat away grains very rapidly causing loss of money and goods.

Control

1. Use rat trap to catch and kill them. The dead rats should be burnt/buried immediately.

2. Rat holes should be plastered.

3. Open drains and pipes may be covered with strong, fine, wire-mesh.

4. All doors and windows should fit well to prevent the entry of rats.

5. Use naphthalene flakes, as its odour repels them.