According to Wikipedia, “A gnat is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the Dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae.” Uh huh. All I know is that they are damn annoying! Earlier this year, we decided to plant several tropical houseplants that like standing water in their leaves. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when our house was suddenly taken over by what seemed like countless, highly aggressive gnats, often inaccurately referred to as fruit flys. They were thriving in the delightful breeding ground we provided for them in our houseplants, although they love hanging out around fruit too. Maybe they’re like mosquitos and are attracted to the CO2 we exhale; they just couldn’t stop flying around our faces. Normally I’m all Buddhist about pest control, as you may have learned from our review of the Fly Goodbye. But when there’s no reasonable way to escort them outside, the gloves were coming off. Plus, two of them attempted to fly up my wife’s nose. Nobody puts baby in a corner, and NOBODY flies up my wife’s nose and gets away with it. This, my annoying little Mycetophili-whatever friends, means WAR! [click to continue…]
Pest Control
Okay, so it’s not technically a true split rail, but it’s a sturdier alternative. This split rail looking fence with wire mesh was a necessity for us since the arrival of two puppies not long ago. The “Dog Whisperer” I am not, and I was clearly delusional in thinking I could have them trained to stay on command by the age of four months. Whether you need to keep puppies in or pests out, this just might be an appealing alternative to the traditional split rail fence. [click to continue…]
It’s spring and fly hunting season is just around the corner. Why not get in touch with your inner Buddha and start shooting some bugs! By “shooting”, we actually mean vacuuming them up with the Swiss-invented Fly-Googbye. This isn’t your ordinary flyswatter, and it’s 100 times more fun to use. For those times when you don’t want to gear up and hunt for wildlife in the great outdoors, just grab your Fly-Goodbye and starting hunting right inside your home. You might consider closing your blinds first though, or your neighbors may think you’ve finally gone completely off the deep end as they watch you stalking around windows, gun in hand. Once unwelcome flies now become an excuse to grab your gun and go hunting (just make sure it’s the Fly-Goodbye and not your 9mm). [click to continue…]
My wife has been hearing things. At first I was alarmed. Then she told me it wasn’t voices telling her to kill me in my sleep. Instead, it was thumps, dragging and scratching sounds. “Did we forget to take our daughter out of timeout in the closet again?” I asked nervously. My wife then informed me the sounds were coming from the crawl space and inside the walls. I breathed a sigh of relief. That eliminated timeout as the issue, and saved us from an awkward talk with Child Protective Services. Since our house wasn’t known to be haunted, I ruled out a poltergeist too. Given how small the access is to the wall with the scratching sounds, I settled on mice as the likely culprit. What follows is our semi-definitive guide to catching mice humanely. [click to continue…]
Image Source: GreenLeaf Pest Control
We can’t win, can we? In the summer, it’s ants and spiders and other creepy crawlies I prefer not to think about trying to get into the house. In the winter, it’s bigger game: particularly raccoons and squirrels. While you might think squirrels are mighty cute, you’d think differently if you discovered one was crawling up your wall, threatening to spastically fly across the room at any moment. Barf! That’s almost worse than having a cat in the house! Unfortunately, for some people, this is a real threat in the cooler months when these animals take any opportunity they can find to move in where there’s warmth and food. Hopefully with these tips you can avoid giving these pests a home for the holidays. [click to continue…]
