Killing Common Indoor Bugs

Some of the commonest bugs we encounter indoors anywhere in the world are flies, spiders, fleas and beetles. Nobody likes to have a bug in the house, so most people will go to almost any extremes to get rid of these common indoor bugs. The less common indoor bugs may be woodlice, earwigs, scorpions and millipedes or centipedes, although they are not less wanted.

No matter where you are in the world, it can be very difficult to keep these common indoor bugs outside, unless you go to the extremes of keeping all your windows and doors closed all of the time, which is quite impossible. I now live in Thailand and I know for certain that this is not possible.

So, just what can you do about it? Well, let’s sort out all the flying bugs first, as of all the common indoor bugs, I find them the most obnoxious indoor bug. They are very annoying, buzzing around your head and mosquitoes and other flies can create painful sores and besides that, all flies spread disease. I cannot bear to see them strutting about on food, knowing that they have probably just come off some dung heap somewhere and now they are spitting on my food in order to taste it with their dirty feet!

My first line of defence is fine-mesh door and widow screens. They are not expensive and can be fitted retrospectively to any window. My window meshes slide, so they will cover only one half of a window at a time, but I do not think that’s a problem. You can still set up cross-winds, by opening two or more windows at opposing sides of a room. I just love to see the flies on the mesh trying to get in by day and the mosquitoes doing the same by night. At night, it is wise to burn as little light indoors as possible so as not to draw these common indoor insects.

My second line of defence is natural predators – lizards, like Geckos (Jin Jok, in Thai). Some people don’t like them in the house either. I can’t say I’m all that keen on them indoors myself, but they are hard to keep out and they do consume hundreds, if not thousands, of indoor bugs every day. I like to see them lying in wait on the outside of the mesh, ready to pounce on any bug trying to wriggle its way through the mesh.

My third line of defence is an indoor bug zapper. You know, the electric, handheld bug zapper that looks like a child’s tennis racquet. The come in two forms: battery and rechargeable kinds. They are brilliant at trapping and annihilating any flying indoor bug. The inset literally explodes and vaporizes on contact with the fully-charged wires of the indoor bug zapper. If you haven’t tried using one, you really should. They are most gratifying. These three defences keep our house pretty much free of flying insects.

The crawling common indoor bugs are less of a problem really. Door screens on springs will keep 99% of them out and the Geckos will help too. Spiders can get in fairly very easily, but then, I don’t mind them too much as long as they keep out of my way, as they consume other bugs too. They are on our side to be honest. However, for those who can not bear to trap them and put them outside, the handheld indoor bug zapper works well on spiders too.

Sometimes, Fleas can be a problem, if you keep cats or dogs, but then if you wash or dust the animal once a month, you should be able to keep these common indoor bugs under control quite easily. However, there are two final methods that we use. Every week, before we go out for the day, we spray every room with fly killer and every six-months we spray any rugs or carpets with a bug killer containing permethrin, which will survive washing and vacuuming for that long without losing its ability to kill common indoor bugs on contact. If you stick with these measures, you should be able to keep your home or office quite free of the most common indoor bugs and any less common indoor bug as well.

Have you ever heard of an indoor bug zapper? If you haven’t, or if you want to get an indoor bug zapper, please click one of the links to our web site or blog.