Isn’t it so annoying when you find those sneaky little brown bugs wandering around your home? Thankfully, there are several ways you can get rid of these tiny pests.
For many of these options, you will probably have the basic items already laying around your home. However, we will also mention other ways that include you purchasing some essential products.
Read this article to find out more about how to get rid of those little brown bugs in your home on a budget, what products you might need to purchase and where and how you can find a professional to take care of this duty for you.
Free
Lavender
This beautifully smelling flower is great for repelling pests from your home, as well as being natural and harmless to children and pets.
You can use dried or fresh lavender as this plant keeps its fragrance for a long time. Simply add pieces of the fresh lavender, or fabric bags of the dried lavender, around your home to keep bugs away.
You can also put some lavender into the water in a spray bottle, leave it for 24 hours for the water to be infused, and then spray it around your home.
Washing Up Liquid
As well as being pretty handy for washing your plates and bowls, washing up liquid is a great option in pest control.
The best way to use this is to add some washing-up liquid to a spray bottle and top it up with water. Give it a little shake and then go around your home spraying the areas where you notice the bugs most.
More often than not, the kitchen will need more attention than the rest of your home.
Citrus fruits
It might seem odd to use sweet-smelling fruits to repel pests, but it does work. Most of the small brown bugs in your home won’t enjoy the smell of lemon and lime as much as we do.
Add some fresh juice from either of these fruits into a bottle of water and spray it around your home.
Concentrate on the places in the home where you’ve seen the bugs come in as the juice won’t kill them while they are already in the home, it will just put them off entering your home in the first place.
Olive Oil ; Syrup
Another option often used to kill larger bugs, can also be used to kill tiny pests too. Making a trap out of cooking oil and syrup, seems odd, doesn’t it?
But it’s extremely effective. Take an empty bottle, preferably glass, like a used wine bottle. Add some syrup into the bottom of the bottle, only about 2cm worth.
Then line the top of the bottle with cooking oil. This trap together entices the bugs by the smell of the syrup, when they come into contact with the oil they slide into the bottle and then become trapped at the bottom by the syrup.
Baking Soda
This is often used to kill bed bugs, but it has also been known to kill small bugs that wander around any corner of your home.
It’s harmless to humans and children so this is another great option if you have a family. Use a few sachets of baking soda to sprinkle around your home.
When the bugs eat the baking soda, it bubbles inside them and is fatal.
It also can kill bugs without being ingested, bugs can simply touch the soda with their body and it sucks up the moisture from their skin, untimely dehydrating and killing them.
Salt
This is best used for small bugs that are even smaller than salt grains. Simply sprinkle salt down where you have seen the bugs, or even on top of them and the salt dehydrates them, ultimately killing them.
You can put this around entry points in your home and use it as an indicator as to where the pests are coming from.
Once they come into contact with the salt they will begin to die there so you can see where most of the bugs are coming from.
Vinegar
This household product can do pretty much anything; cleaning, stain removal, glass cleaner and insect removal.
Its strong smell is extremely efficient in deterring many pests, especially the little brown ones that wander around your kitchen cupboards.
Many small bugs, similar to ants, leave a trail of where they have been so they can find their way back to their ‘home’.
Vinegar removes that trail so the bugs become lost and then you are more likely to notice them in weird places, allowing you to kill them.
Cayenne Pepper
Another preventative treatment is some simple Cayenne pepper. You are likely to have this spice already in your home but if not you can easily purchase a packet of it for almost nothing at the supermarket.
You can sprinkle some pepper in places where you have seen the bugs and places where you want them to stay away from, such as inside the kitchen cupboards.
These bugs hate the smell of this pepper and therefore, avoid it. If you use it around doorways and windows it can be a great way to stop them from entering your home.
Low Cost
Peppermint Oil
Peppermint oil smells amazing and it has a great effect on reducing the number of pests that come into your home.
You can find peppermint oil in pharmacies and supermarkets and it’s very cheap. All you need to do is mix 3-5 drops of the oil with some water in a spray bottle and go around your home spraying the places where the pests tend to enter.
This oil won’t kill them but it will make them less likely to want to enter your house.
Neem Oil
This might not be something you have laying around, but it’s easy to buy from a pharmacy or large supermarket.
It is produced from the oil of the neem tree and is absolutely harmless to animals and humans. You simply mix some of the oil with water in a spray bottle and spray it around your home.
You can also find ready-made mixtures at garden centers. Neem oil is effective in killing over 200 types of bugs and pests that might visit you so it’s very useful to have under the kitchen sink!
Catnip
Unless you have a cat, you are likely to not have a bottle of catnip lying around your home but don’t worry it’s not expensive to purchase.
Of course, this isn’t even a desired method if you do have cats in your home. Mix some catnip with water and sprays it in all corners of your home, wherever you have seen the bugs or where you think they may appear next.
You can also buy catnip sachets, these can be placed near doors or windows and even in your kitchen cupboards to prevent these pests from entering.
Petroleum Jelly
Take a blog of petroleum jelly and place it in the corners of your doors or windows, wherever you suspect the bugs come in.
The jelly literally traps them from moving, as soon as they come into contact with it, they aren’t going anywhere.
Eventually, they will die there and this is a great indicator of where the bugs are entering your home.
You may see them in many places but finding the entry point is essential. If you have a blob of jelly that is full of bugs, you’ve found its way in.
Insect traps
Easily found in supermarkets and garden centres this option might be the most obvious, but you need to get the right trap for them to be useful at all.
There are 10s of different insect traps but the one that will be the most effective for these small bigs in your home will be a scent and trap sticky method.
These strips of tape have a scent on them that attracts the bugs and then the stickiness means they are unable to leave and will effectively die while stuck to the trap.
This method is best used alongside other preventative methods for the best result. The tape will kill the current critters that are roaming around and the preventative method will stop any more from coming in.
Mint
Fresh mint or even mint tea bags can be useful in deterring pests from your house. Take a pinch of mint, or a few leaves if it’s fresh, and place it around your home.
Not only will it give off a lovely smell for us humans, it will also prevent critters from coming into your home.
Note that it won’t kill them, so mint should be used as a preventative treatment alongside some insect traps that can kill the current bugs that are strolling around your home.
Professional
Depending on where you live, it’s pretty easy to find someone who does pest control.
Simply call one up and explain your issue and they can either offer advice or arrange to come and visit your home to take care of it for you.
These professionals use a range of strong chemicals to kill the bigs that are already in your home, quite often they can also offer advice on preventative treatment to stop more bugs from entering.
The two main options that they use are:
Pyrethrin
The extract used in this chemical is from a chrysanthemum flower and this is what affects the bug nervous system.
The chemical isn’t dangerous for humans or pets so it can be used in your home while you are there.
The only downside to this is that it shouldn’t be sprayed in your home if you own fish, the chemical can become very dangerous to fish when it comes into contact with the water.
If you have a professional coming to clean your home of these bugs, you should cover the fish tank or even better, remove it from the property of the affected room for several days after the exterminators have been.
Piperonyl Butoxide
This chemical needs to be mixed with Pyrethrin to become effective in removing pests from the home. Depending on the pest it may also need to be mixed with other chemicals for it to have the ability to kill bugs.
It’s used sparingly as it is mildly toxic to humans and animals and if you need this to be used throughout your home, professionals may advise that you leave the home empty for several hours after extermination has been completed.
Alright, that’s it for this article, here are a few hand-selected articles that you might also find interesting reads:
How To Get Rid Of CockRoaches FOREVER – YES SERIOUSLY!!How to Get Rid of Spiders Naturally?
11 Simple Ways to Get Rid of Ants Fast
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