/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[scroton !SW7uh6H3p. No.45770]

Anyone else have DIY pest control experiences?

Since moving to OK I've exterminated:

--Bed Bugs (in crappy apartment we rented for 3 months)
--White Mold (left by previous slumlord owner of duplex we bought)
--Fleas (left by slumlord previous owner of duplex we bought)
--Mice (left by previous slumlord owner of duplex we bought)
--Rats (left by previous slumlord owner of duplex we bought)
--German Cockroaches (left by previous slumlord owner of duplex we bought)

Then last Saturday working under my crawlspace I found out I had termites, so I finally said fuck it and called Orkin.

[Anonymous No.45784]

Had a huge ant problem once, a friend suggested baby powder. I put a thin layer over everything. I don't know how it worked, but they stopped showing up.

[Anonymous No.45789]

bedbugs. it took only $20 to stop them. vaseline, tape, dust mite mattress covers.

vaseline: bedbugs cant crawl across that, put it around the legs of your bed

tape: bedbugs can still climb up walls and drop down on you from the sealing. a strip of clear packing tape running around the room at waist level, rub vaseline all over it. make sure the tape is around the doorframe and shit too.

dust mite mattress covers: $11 at walmart for queen size vs hundreds of dollars for special bedbug mattress covers. dust mites are smaller then bedbugs if it can stop a dust mite it can stop a bedbug. use an extra thick sheet on top of that and it wont be able to drive its proboscis into you at all.

and then make sure they dont follow you on to the bed by clinginf to your clothes. always take off your clothes and visually inspect yourself before crawling into bed.

wash your sheets in hot water and leave them in the dryer for a bit of extra time on a regular basis.

there are 6 people living in the same house as me in 3 seperate apartment units. i am the only one in the house without bedbugs. because the day i saw one in my bed i erected my defenses and it was the last bedbug i saw. everyone else in this house is crawling.

[Anonymous No.45795]

>>45789
if you already have a thick infestation feeding on you though that probably wont be enough. but it can be used if you put it in place asap the moment you first notice them. it can also be used in addition to getting your place bug sprayed as an additional stopping measure (since many times professionals are ineffective against bedbugs these days).

and i personally suggest that if you have no bedbugs to put up these defenses. bed bugs can happen to anyone these days and are spreading like wildfire. be proactive and put up $20 worth of defenses and you wont have to worry.

[Anonymous No.45797]

>>45795
although as a sidenote if you dont want mattress covers and you dont yet have bed bugs. at the very least spend the $4 on a tub of vaseline and a roll of packing tape. its totally worth it

[scroton !SW7uh6H3p. No.45861]

>>45789

This really only works if there are other people in the house they can feed on, then they'll leave you alone. We tried something similar at first, but about a week in they started crawling up on us any time we stood still long enough for them to do so. If they get hungry enough, all of that "nocturnal' stuff is put on hold.

Ours was pretty bad, the people upstairs and next to us had them, and the people in the apartment before us a raging infection. We ended up buying concentrated permethrin and mixing it at about a 30% mixture (highest you can get in the store is maybe 3-5%) We sprayed everything down, caulked every entrance point/crevice in the walls and laundered every piece of fabric we had. Then diatomaceous earth everywhere. Luckily we had a futon rather than a couch, so we were able to protect that by using a mattress cover. Would have been tons easier if we didn't have carpet.

All told, about $150 was spent. We were renting at the time, so it was really the landlord's responsibility to take care of it, but in practice it came down to "spend the money and deal with it yourself" or "let the landlord do the bare, ineffectual minimum and live with them and risk dragging them to your friends' houses and wherever you move after this."

[Anonymous No.45881]

Massive ant attack in my old apt. Had to buy some ant spray from home depot and it worked pretty well. The main issue is finding every little nook and cranny they could get in. I would spray that place up and down and the fuckers would still find a spot I missed somehow and barge right back in.

I swear that building must have been so overridden that if I punched a hole in the wall, ants would come pouring out.

[Anonymous No.45883]

Any idea how to get rid of spiders and keep them out for good?

inb4 spiders are useful since they kill insects

Nope! Spiders are the sneakiest and most horrid little monsters I can think of in my area.
I don't even have other insects in my freaking room, what do they even expect to feed on in here!?

[Anonymous No.45900]

>>45883

Most household spiders actively hunt. They cover a lot of territory. If you have a house, you have spiders. Just get used to it.

How do you feel about House Fluffies?

[Anonymous No.45947]

>>45900
>How do you feel about House Fluffies?

[Anonymous No.45957]

>>45900
i get a surge of adreneline everytime i see one. it's like something deep and primal inside the human psyche sees all them legs and screams "thats some creepy shit there nigga get the fuck out". i enjoy it, there's not much excitment in my life i'll take what i can get. so i like them. also maybe they eat bedbugs thus protecting me, i like to think so

[Anonymous No.45963]

>>45900

The only think I don't like about them is the crunching noise they make when the dog eats them.

[Anonymous No.46089]

I know the very best way to get rid of german cockroaches. This requires you be in a climate that has a freezing winter. Vacate the house and turn off the electrical service for two weeks.
They cannot handle the cold and will die. It is important to turn off the electricity to the house because they will use the heat to survive.

[Anonymous No.46099]

>>45900

fuuuck so thats what i've seen in my apartment building. only seen 2-3 in the 2 months i've lived here, but god damn they freak me out.

[Anonymous No.46128]

>House Fluffies

Or Silverfish, if you're not trying to be cute. They're more a creepy nuisance, even though they eat paper (so watch your books and wallpaper). You just have to kill them when you see them.

[Anonymous No.46138]

>>46128

House Fluffies are centipedes. Silverfish are something else entirely.

FTR, centipedes are insectivores that eat several insect pests and don't leave cobwebs everywhere like spiders.

[Anonymous No.46146]

Buy praying mantises.
Release praying mantises.

[Anonymous No.46153]

No, but I have probably thrown sand at people in my childhood.

[Anonymous No.46211]

Here's a mousetrap, don't know if it works.

[Anonymous No.46259]

>>46089
The burst pipes are probably much more expensive.

[Anonymous No.46272]

I learned how to catch mice and rats last year.

For mice, a regular mouse trap is fine. You need to bait it with Peanut Butter by making a small ball and wedging it firmly onto the trap trigger end. If you don't fix it firmly, the mouse can just lift it off and scurry away. They are not stupid, and will do exactly this.

Place the trap somewhere secluded and down an edge where a mouse is likely to run. Imagine you're a mouse and a complete pussy, you're not going to go investigate some shit out in the open, you're gonna go check out that delicious smelling shit under the fridge. Put the trap in that kind of place.

Leave the trap the fuck alone for several weeks. Don't even change the bait, mice don't give a fuck about the expiry date, but they do give a fuck about 'wasn't there yesterday, not gonna touch it'.

Rats are a bit different because regular traps won't work. They recognize them, and they're not strong enough to do any lasting damage.

These things work: http://www.nooski.com/
Again, place in a 'safe' location. Bait and leave it alone for weeks.

[Anonymous No.46273]

>>46211
Would this work on shrews?
Also, would it be safe to capture a single MALE shrew and release it in a house as pest control? I have alot of bugs and that's what they feed on. I say male shrew since releasing a female that is potentially pregnant would not be a good way to go.
Seems cheaper but borderline risky/stupid.

[Anonymous No.46277]

>>46272
On yeah and move absolutely every other potential food source into locations where they can't possibly be accessed. This is pretty much the inside of your fridge, and any cupboards that are definitely air tight. The top of the fridge? Rodents can get up there. Surfaces? Same story. Table? Yep, fuckers climb up the legs.

The first indication I had a rat was when the remains of a corn cob I'd left out next to the sink had moved onto the floor overnight.

[Anonymous No.46281]

It's gonna piss and shit on all your stuff and potentially bring in disease.

[Anonymous No.46283]

Get a cat and a spider. Pests should vanish. You can exchange the cat for a non-retarded terrier. Yorkshire and West Highland terriers are fine, pitbulls and Staffordshire races are out.

[Anonymous No.46295]

>>46283
Accidentally brought in a large wood spider. Hope it doesn't hibernate all winter, lots of flies around.

[Anonymous No.46369]

>>45900
Honestly, spiders are pretty cool dudes. But those fucking webs get to you. I just hate walking into that shit. I'm also not a bugologist and I live in an area that has some native poisonous spiders, so you can never be too careful.

[Anonymous No.46434]

this kills everything in the house for 6 months down here in DFW

and I used to live behind a grocery store and had two dogs (roaches love dog food and grocery stores)

[Anonymous No.46451]

>>46434
Fellow DFW resident here (Fort Worth).
Do you use this indoors or sprinkle it outdoors?

[Anonymous No.46493]

This reminds me of my grandpa and his DYI pest control stories. I remember him telling how he used DDT on everything inside and outside the house, he even sprinkled it on bed sheaths and on clothing. Fantastic man.

[Anonymous No.47397]

Sprinkling used kitty litter around a house/shed will make your woodchuck/chipmunk problem go away overnight. once the used litter is down, they take the fuck off. I don't know why, but it's worked at two different houses for me.

[Anonymous No.47456]

Ok so my story takes place outside not in the house but whatever. Dad and I were chopping logs for firewood and apparently this tree was infested with a big motherfucking ant colony (no they were not termites). Long story short, I used a spray can of wd-40 and a lighter to burn the fuck out of several thousand ants. Kill it with fire<-Always effective

[Anonymous No.47468]

>>45770
super heating your house will kill off insects, if you can raise the temperature to 120-140 degrees you can kill off all of the insects. This is done professionally by air tight sealing the house (roughly) and then using tubing and a heater outside to heat up the inside. Pretty cost effective, sort of dangerous but it works 100%,

[Anonymous No.47473]

>get agent orange
>bomb your crawlspace

also, i love raid. I actually enjoy wasp season just because i bombard their nests with the shit and i like to see their legs log up and then fall to the ground petrified

[Anonymous No.47484]

>>47473
Serial killer detected