In many a kitchen cabinet, behind baseboards, in the basement and under mattresses they swarm, crawl and eat: Mites, cockroaches, rats and mice, beetles, moths, ants and bedbugs – they and many others are uninvited house guests that are best gotten rid of as quickly as possible before they cause major damage. Because some of these pests transmit diseases. But you don’t always have to use chemicals: There are a number of simple means and tricks that work quickly and almost always reliably.
Vermin in the apartment
Sometimes you see them, at night, quite fleeting, and if you look closely they are gone again – because most shy away from daylight: the speech is cockroaches, also called cockroaches. Silverfish and bedbugs, rats and mice are also rarely seen. Moths and food bugs, on the other hand, occasionally fly out of the kitchen cupboard towards you – but by then they have already spread enormously and you can assume that several generations are colonizing the apartment in the joints, cracks, cupboards, carpets and clothing. This is disgusting and unpleasant, but does not necessarily have anything to do with a lack of hygiene. Many a vacationer has brought in a cockroach unnoticed from faraway countries in his luggage, and not infrequently tiny beetle larvae hide in flour, cereals or nuts and begin their mischief secretly and unnoticed for a long time.
Flies
As soon as it gets warmer outside, the flies and ants come in. The house fly is particularly annoying: the “Musca domestica” grows to 8 mm in length, is gray in color, and its thorax is decorated with four dark longitudinal stripes. The females lay 2000 eggs mainly in manure, feces, compost heaps and garbage dumps, i.e. anywhere where organic matter decomposes. The fly loves human and animal excreta such as feces or even festering wounds. It is magically attracted to food and leaves pathogens there – it transmits the pathogens of typhoid, cholera, dysentery and polio. Therefore, the very best thing is to close the windows with fly screens and hang sticky traps or glue tape catchers.
Ants
They are still the most harmless of the house guests: the path ant and lawn ant are common in northern latitudes. They have a brown body and prefer to build their nests in sandy and sunny places in gardens or along roadsides, often under stones and slabs. The path ant prefers to nest in gardens, under stones, tree bark, in lawns or in wall crevices. Both ant species live on sugary substances and meat. In dwellings and storerooms they are attracted by fruits and honey as well as fresh meat. The quickly formed ant trails lead directly to the nests. In old buildings, ants can additionally infest wood. As bait, the exterminators’ website recommends, place a plate with a sweet liquid such as honey water or raspberry water. A mixture of borax and powdered sugar is said to destroy ant brood. Another remedy is baking soda: half a packet is enough for a trail about 4 meters long. It bloats the animals, they burst. Less brutal is to drive away ants by adding lemon juice, lavender oil, lavender flowers, marjoram, cinnamon or tomato leaves to the ant trail.
Cockroaches
Cockroaches (the “common cockroach”) are the messengers from prehistoric times: already more than 300 million years ago they populated the earth, survived ice ages, earthquakes, droughts, and even numerous poisons can not do much to them. In our latitudes the yellow-brown Blattella germanica is found, it is about 13 mm in size, has wings, but does not fly. The females carry around packets of 20 to 40 eggs for four weeks, which they then drop in all sorts of places. These egg packets are very resistant because of their chitin shell. The larvae hatch shortly after dropping the eggs. They molt several times, and after two to three months they reproduce. Their abilities are amazing: they can climb walls and jump up to 10 cm. There are about 3500 species of cockroaches. In the meantime, even the American cockroach “Periplaneta americanadie”, which measures more than five centimeters and can fly well, is said to occur in Southern Europe. The fact that they eat just about anything, preferably food scraps of course – their favorite environment is kitchens, especially commercial kitchens – has saved them over millions of years.They eat organic material of all kinds such as fabric, leather and paper, but are particularly fond of moist, soft and rotten food. Cockroaches, however, can survive for about 40 days without food. But quite some time passes before you see them, and there are guaranteed to be several generations if you happen to catch sight of a cockroach. Cockroaches, the medical journal writes, can transmit many bacteria, viruses and fungi. “Contact with them can lead to diarrhea, colonic catharrhea, hepatitis A, anthrax, salmonella or tuberculosis. They can also cause allergies due to skinning debris. In rural areas, cockroaches are especially feared because they can cause foot-and-mouth disease in stables.”
Moths
There are numerous species of moths and beetles that are particularly fond of feeding on food, including the grain moth, the flour moth, and the dried fruit moth. The caterpillars of the flour moth eat, distort and contaminate flour products, baked goods and dried fruit. They are usually not discovered until webs have formed – this is how many other moth species are recognized. An open bottle of vinegar between foods is said to drive moths away. You can also use sticky traps with sex attractants (pheromones) to control dried fruit, storage and flour moths. These scents attract males over long distances to the females or even to the glue. Particularly during the moth flight season – May to September – it is important to make sure that windows are closed with fly gauze, as the males are first lured into the house by the traps. Clothes moths do not like cedar oil, they also despise lavender, sage, thyme and camphor. A bag of dried orange peel or dried sweet clover should also help. They also do not like printer’s ink. A tip, e.g. for stored winter clothes: wrap clothes first in fine paper and then in newspaper. You wrap already infested clothes in plastic and put them in the freezer for a day or two.
Beetles
It is common to find the grain weevil in the house, the most widespread grain pest in Europe. Like the rice weevil, it has been introduced and multiplies especially rapidly in warm weather. The brown, sometimes black grain weevil cannot fly, but it also causes enormous damage by crawling. The light-shy animals prefer to nest inside a pile of grain. It prefers to attack stored grain. Like the rice weevil, it reproduces by laying eggs in grains and pasta. The larvae completely eat cereal grains from the inside. Even smaller and completely flexible in its feeding is also the 3 mm small bread beetle, which is often not recognized by the farsighted – in addition to bakery products, it also eats soup cubes, chocolate, pet food or dried fish. Even salt dough cookies and chili seasoning, paper or cardboard is not safe from them. All food that has been infested by the pests must be disposed of immediately. Everything that was not in sealed containers should be examined. Clean the cupboards and closets thoroughly, such as by vacuuming them out and blow-drying them hot – this is especially true of the cracks and crevices. The hot air will kill the voracious larvae. It is important not to store loose food in cupboards: tightly closing screw-top jars for cereals, rice and pasta have proved best. Too much moisture and heat always attracts pests, so you should always look for damp spots behind cabinets as well.
Drive away rats and mice
That rats and mice carry diseases everyone knows, the most common are salmonellosis and cholera. Mice destroy and contaminate food and feed stocks in animal barns, they nibble their way through paper, cardboard, loose plaster, textiles, plastic insulation, floors, doors and cables, causing significant property damage. Rats will eat anything, but are very picky about it. Thanks to their highly developed sense of smell and taste, they react to the unknown with suspicion. Thus, they may associate the discomfort and death of their conspecifics with a poisoned bait; they spurn the bait. Worldwide, around ten billion rats destroy about one-fifth of all food and feed each year through feeding and contamination. Through their feces and urine, they transmit the pathogens of salmonellosis, foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever, typhoid fever, cholera and many other diseases to domestic livestock, farm animals and humans.Prevention is the best protection: rats and mice usually enter the house through basement windows, drains and other access points; they must be locked with grates and flaps, food and food or waste such as the organic waste garbage can should be well closed. Food should never be disposed of through the toilet, this will attract rats through the drains and they will enter the house through the pipes. Mice are driven away with a ball soaked in turpentine and placed in the mice holes. The smell of chamomile, camphor or peppermint is said to drive mice away. Mice also do not like it if you mix dried, very finely crushed oleander leaves with dry sand and sprinkle this deep into their holes. Mice holes are sealed with a cork dipped in turpentine or cayenne pepper. Cayenne pepper spread on shelves also drives them away. Peanut butter is most effective as bait for rat and mouse traps. Pest controllers also recommend that if you have a large infestation of rats in your basement, paint the basement with yellow lime each spring and add iron vitriol (ferrous sulfate) to the lime paint. And finally, a cat in the house is still the best protection!
Who helps with vermin in the house?
Expert contacts on the subject of pest control are the local health departments, the German Pest Control Association e. V. (DSV), the Verbund Regionaler Schädlingsbekämpfer e. V. or the Federal Institute for Consumer Health Protection and Veterinary Medicine. Incidentally, sensitive people or allergy sufferers should avoid direct contact with insect repellents, which are commercially available as sprays or electric vaporizers, for example. This may result in skin irritation, tingling or coughing. Against flying insects in the bedroom, mosquito nets over the bed for mosquito repellent are therefore an option for people severely affected by allergies. Bait boxes or sticky traps are usually harmless, but advice should be sought from a specialist retailer in any case.