The Best Ways to Get Rid of Indoor Bugs

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House pests crop up during any season, but spring and summer are when I am particularly bothered. Constantly going in and out of the house and leaving windows open leads to house flies and mosquitos, and the part of the country I live in is under ceaseless attack by sugar ants that infiltrate your home absolutely everywhere. The produce and fruit that is in abundance and tends to sit on your counter can often lead to fruit flies. Keeping all of these pests in check without a lot of chemicals has become a summer obsession. I’ve tested a whole bunch of products recently and although I was skeptical, it turns out many of them legitimately work. 

For houseflies, get a sticky trap

Man, do flies bother me—there is something about them that screams “dirty home." For many years, I thought swatting them was the best, if the most labor-intensive, solution. Hanging fly traps always seemed like a disgusting solution for a slightly less disgusting problem. Last summer, though, I found these clear fly traps that you affix to your window. They’re invisible (until covered in bugs) but easy to remove and hide behind a window shade. I even added one to my bathroom mirror when i had a stubborn fly who refused to abandon the lighting fixture. I change them out every few days, and they eliminate the fly problem.

For other flying insects, UV light traps do the trick

Zevo sent me a bunch of products to try earlier this year, and these UV light traps have become the workhorses of my household maintenance plan. It’s not rocket science, it’s a plug in UV light with a purple hue that is surrounded by a replaceable sticky trap. The upside is that the bugs it catches are well hidden from sight, and the trap subdues how purple the light looks, so it’s really just an innocuous light you don’t notice much. All the while, it is great for flying insects. Every few years they skip spraying for mosquitoes here, and last year was particularly bad. The Zevo traps really helped to manage the problem inside, accomplishing most of the work overnight. 

Immediate relief from ants

If I had to guess, 80% of the Terro sold in the U.S. comes to the PNW. The ants are everywhere. Terro is a clear gel you can apply directly to spots the ants are going to encounter (along a floor, underneath a cabinet, etc) or you can fill ant traps with it. It’s a sticky gel, and you don’t want kids or pets eating it, so it's a good idea to use traps. It's a good way to get some long-term relief, if you stay consistent—but it takes time. The ants swarm the Terro, and then bring it back to their queen, and then the poison kicks in and they all die. But if you want immediate relief, Zevo’s Flying Insect Spray is shockingly effective. It’s pet and kid safe, and smells like mint. Though it’s technically labeled for flies, roaches and ants, I never tried it on anything but ants, and a light spray will kill the ants on contact and buy you a day or two without return. In particular, I use it around my dog’s food station and my sink. 

Upgrade your DIY fruit fly traps

Everyone knows you can just wrap a dish of vinegar with plastic wrap, poke some small holes with a skewer and wait for the fruit flies to fly in and drown in the vinegar. The system is imperfect, because you can see the dead fruit flies and if you make the holes too big, they can just fly back out. Last year I tried these commercial fruit fly traps, which are just a manufactured version of the DIY home trap. They look like little red plastic apples. They’re in two parts, so you can dump and refill the vinegar every few days, and they’re small and unintrusive. The holes are exactly the right size, and the plastic hides the death pool within. Toss them in the dishwasher when the problem is gone.