Ants, Fleas, Flies, Mosquitoes, Cockroaches, Anay, Rats, Mice: Kitchen Pests Exterminated
Some of the common kitchen pests are ants, fleas, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, anay, rats, and mice.These pests endanger your health and destroy property.They live in dark, damp, and dirty places.Some live in pools of stagnant water, piles of garbage, decaying bodies of dead animals and empty cans.Cleanliness and sunshine will help keep them away.
The flies are the most dangerous of these pests.They carry typhoid, cholera, and other intestinal disease germs to your food.
Food and food odors attract flies.Keep all food where flies cannot reach them, or at least cover them.Swat the flies or trap them.A good trap is the fly paper.
Fogging is another method of getting rid of flies.This is sometimes undertaken by the government.large areas are fogged at a time, usually at night.
Ants are attracted by food.The little red ants crawl through seams of tables or cupboards and swarm over food and especially sweets.The best way to get rid of ants is to find their nest and destroy the eggs.Pour insecticide or boiling water where they breed or stick cotton pads soaked with petroleum in the cracks.
Keep them away from food by setting the legs of tables or cupboards in tin cans filled with a 50-50 mixture of water and kerosene.Sprinkling the ant's line of travel with salt also helps drive them away.
Cockroaches carry disease and dirt wherever they go.They give off an offensive odor which they leave on food and the places they infest.They roam and look for food at night.During the day, they hide in cracks, behind shelves and built-in cabinets that are seldom aired.They are attracted to dirty brushes, dishcloths, and wet rags.
Protect all food by covering them well or keeping them in insect-proof cabinets.Use food covers made of fine mess wire.
Mosquito bites cause annoying itchiness, besides transmitting disease germs.Mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant water in tins, water tanks, bamboo fence posts, and dirty water from your kitchen drain that collect under your house.The eggs of the mosquito are hatched into wrigglers in 24 hours.They swim under the water for food, but come up to the surface to breathe.
To kill the wrigglers, pour kerosene on all surface and stagnant water.This will form a filmy layer on the surface of the water and thus prevent the wrigglers from breathing.Without air they die.
Destroy all breeding places of mosquitoes.Drain or fill up pools of stagnant water, barrels, and broken tanks where water stands.Or fill ponds with goldfish, tilapia, minnows, and other fish of the same type.These will eat up the wrigglers.Rid your surroundings of dead plants, weeds, and tall grass which are good hiding places for mosquitoes.
Fleas are carried into the house by household pets, like cats and dogs.They are also carried by rats and mice.They are carriers of germs of the bubonic plague.When a flea bites a diseased rat, the germs are taken in with the blood.When this same flea bites a person, the germs are then transmitted.The germs multiply rapidly until the person bitten suffers the disease.
House cats and dogs should be bathed often and their hair brushed.The rags on which these pets sleep should be dipped in boiling water.Naphthalene balls will help drive fleas away.
White ants or anay are pests that eat up the inside of posts, joists, and other timber of the house.Before you know it, your house is ready to fall.These termites work underground in colonies.they reach the wood through tunnels.Look for these tunnels and scrape them away.Scrape also the runs through which they crawl and rub them with petroleum or black tar.The part of the house that touches the ground is set house posts on concrete or adobe foundation.Exterminators will rid your house of white ants for a fee.
Rats and mice are very dirty and destructive.They eat food and clothing and gnaw holes in the wood.All holes and openings in the house should be rat-proffed.Keep food beyond their reach.Bits of food and crumbs attract them and these should be swept away.
To get rid of rats and mice, use rat traps.These traps are baited with food.Sometimes rat poison is mixed with some food.This kind of bait should be placed where children cannot reach it.A good cat will help drive rats and mice away.
Utmost cleanliness and plenty of sunshine in the house and surroundings will help in controlling thse pests.