Going Green on Pesticides

Every year we spend a lot of money to pollute our environment with poisons. Every year we spend more money on doctors and medicines to treat asthma and allergies. If you are a do it yourself person or if you hire someone to treat your home for pests, the results are the same. You have just put harmful chemicals in the same living space as our children, pets, ourselves and the area we prepare the food we eat everyday. There are some alternatives to pesticides I would like to share with you.

Ant problems? Try sprinkling cornmeal around the anthill or where ever you see the annoying little guys. They will pick it up and take some home but they cannot digest it properly and die. It will not work over night but it will not hurt anything but the ants.

Puppy dog come in from a romp in the woods with fleas? Put a few drops of Dawn dish detergent in puppy's bath water and the fleas will drop right off. In addition, puppy dog will smell good too. Be sure to rinse well. Also, if your dog comes in with that wet dog smell try wiping him or her down with a dryer sheet.

If those fleas get on you go green. Really, supposedly fleas do not like the dye that makes soap green. Also, if they are indoors remember fleas look for a heat source to feed on. So set up a drop light before you go to bed. Position it so the light is a foot or so above a pan full of soapy water. And positioned so the light falls over the pan. Be sure to turn off all other lights. Rinse out the fleas and soapy water in the morning.

Wasps, hornets, or yellow jackets get inside your home? Try some 409. Spray it at them and they are goners. Much better than aerosol pesticides in the air.

To get rid of fruit flies try pouring apple cider in a glass or jar with a drop of dish detergent. Mix well and watch as they crawl in and cannot get back out. That is the end of the fruit flies. The purpose of the dish detergent is that it breaks the surface tension of the liquid allowing the insect to sink and become trapped. This works on houseflies as well.

These are just a few little tricks you can try on pests around your home. Eliminating the wide spread use of pesticides will play a major role in saving your health as well as the health of the planet.