Each season comes with its own swarms of pests. I’m plagued by sugar ants all spring. At some point every summer, my rooms are buzzing with houseflies. During particularly crappy winters, pantry moths tend to proliferate. And mosquitos hunt me like it’s open season.
There are all kinds of anecdotal methods to get rid of these pests—hang a ziplock bag filled with water in the door to deter flies, draw a line on the floor and ants won’t cross it—but ultimately, the pests come back. So you need a solution that works.
I once thought it was a sign of maturity get regular visits from pest control pros, bfter a few years of Terminix, I decided I needed to tackle things on my own, and that’s when I discovered that commercially available plugin traps actually work..
Plugin traps can keep your home free of all flying pests
There’s a secret ingredient to dealing with pests: pheromones. A small amount of pheromones placed in the right kind of trap can attract and contain whatever you’re dealing with (they make specific traps for all kinds of pests).
Plugin flying bug traps continuously release these pheromones, while providing a sticky pad or receptacle to grab the bugs. You just need to replace the pad or receptacle occasionally, when it fills up (gross). Even better, newer plugin traps don’t focus on one type of pest, but all flying pests, including pantry moths, houseflies, gnats, and fruit flies. And they actually work—you’ll see the evidence right there on the sticky pad.
I’ve tried a few brands of plugin traps and have found Zevo to be the most effective, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only one out there that works.
Keep flying outdoor pests out of the way too
It feels offensive when the bugs invade my space. Outside, however, I am the interloper, and so I’ve never really indulged in doodads to prevent pests from bothering me in my yard. Zappers seem silly and overly intrusive, and those mosquito prevention things you clip to your hip don’t work.
But if you want a more serene outdoor space, effective pheromone traps can also control pests outside. Where I live, it’s been a bad year for yellow jackets, and flies are always a bother, but I’d never considered using traps for them since they tend to be unwieldy and obvious.
Enter the Dynatrap—a small footprint device that captures wasps, flies, mosquitos, yellow jackets, but, mysteriously, not bees. (Bees were a big concern since I spend so much time luring them into my garden; apparently it has something to do with C02, and the fact that they’re pollinators.) These outdoor units are more expensive, and I can’t swear that one unit covers an acre as promised, but mine has kept my backyard impressively clear of pests,
Keep pests at bay with these pheromone-based traps:
Plugin repellants can help with roaches, mice, and ants
Separately, there’s a class of plugin pest tools that work to repel bugs rather than trap them. These tend to use sonic waves or noise to discourage pests. Two in particular have worked for me.
These ultrasonic pest repellers have legitimately helped clear my home of ants, and unlike Terro baits, which are also highly effective, I don’t have to repeat treatment again and again. (I haven’t had a roach issue myself, but the reviews seem to confirm they work for these critters too.)
I also needed a defense against rodents, which tend to like my outdoor tool workshop. For this, I rely on Loraffe repellants, which emit light and noise when they detect movement, and it’s been a quiet, rodent-free six months. I like that you can install them in your car too, as that’s where squirrels like to take cover when I park outside.
While all of these solutions are more expensive than, say, putting apple cider vinegar in a cup to attract fruit flies or putting down cedar chips to deter mice, they actually work consistently, and seem able to kill the pests you don’t want, while not harming the ones you like (hello, bees!).
