Some of the commonest bugs we encounter indoors anywhere in the world are flies, spiders, fleas and beetles. Nobody likes to have insects in the house, so most people will go to almost any extremes to eradicate these common indoor bugs. The less common indoor bugs may be woodlice, earwigs, scorpions and millipedes or centipedes, although they are not less wanted.
It does not matter where you are in the world, it is very hard to keep these common indoor bugs outside, unless you go to the extremes of keeping all your windows and doors closed all of the time, which is quite impossible. I now live in Thailand and I know for sure that this is not possible.
So, just what can you do about it? Well, let’s deal with all the flying insects first, as of all the common indoor bugs, I think they are the most unpleasant indoor bug. They are very annoying, buzzing around your head and mosquitoes and other flies can produce irritating sores and besides that, all flies spread disease. I hate to see them walking on food, knowing that they have more than likely just come off some dung heap somewhere and now they are spitting on my food in order to taste it with their grubby feet!
My first line of defence is fine-mesh door and widow screens. They are not expensive and can be added retrospectively to any window. My window meshes slide, so they can cover only one half of the window at a any one time, but I do not find that a problem. You can still set up cross-winds, by opening two or more windows at opposite ends of a room. I love to see the flies on the mesh struggling to get in by day and the mosquitoes doing the same by night. At night, it is wise to turn on as little light indoors as possible in order not to attract these common indoor bugs.
My second line of defence is natural predators – lizards, like Geckos (Jin Jok, in Thai). Some people don’t like them in the house much either and I can’t say that I’m all that keen on them indoors myself, but they are hard to keep outside and they do consume hundreds, if not thousands, of indoor bugs every day. I especially like to see them lying in wait on the outside of the mesh, ready to jump on any bug trying to wriggle its way through the wires.
My third line of defence is an indoor bug zapper. You know, the electric, handheld bug zapper that looks like a child’s tennis racquet. They are fantastic at trapping and destroying any flying indoor bug. The bug literally explodes and vaporizes on contact with the fully-charged wires of the indoor bug zapper. If you haven’t tried using one, you really should. They are most satisfying. These three defences keep our house pretty much free of flying insects.
The crawling common indoor bugs are less of a problem really. Door screens on self-closers will keep 99% of them out and the Geckos will help too. Spiders can get in pretty easily, but then, I don’t mind them too much as long as they stay away from me, as they consume other bugs too. They are on our side really. However, for those who can not bear to trap them and put them outside, the handheld indoor bug zapper works well on spiders too.
Sometimes, Fleas can be a problem, if you have cats or dogs, but then if you wash or dust the animal once a month, you should be able to keep these common indoor bugs under control quite easily. However, there are two final methods that we employ. Every week, before we go out for the day, we spray every room with fly killer and every six-months we spray any rugs or carpets with an insect killer containing permethrin, which will survive washing and vacuuming for that long without losing its ability to kill common indoor bugs on contact. If you stick with these measures, you will be able to keep your home or office quite free of the most common indoor bugs and any less common indoor bug too.
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