Tips for Chemical Free Mosquito Repellent
Mosquitoes tend to dwell in hot and humid weather and now since summer is approaching it is very important to prevent your home and family from mosquitoes. Now a day’s many mosquito repellent are available in the market.To reduce the chemical exposure you can also use homemade mosquito repellents. These homemade repellant if used with precautions to keep away mosquitoesare quite effective.
Learn how to keep mosquitoes away from your home by taking certain precautionary measures and using homemade repellent:
- Examine your exterior doors and windows properly. Check if any screen is broken to replace them. Checks if you can see sunlight coming from the bottom of your door, if yes in that case install a door sweep to prevent the mosquitoes entering your house. Use chalk to fill any gaps or crack to seal proof ever thing. Also keep your window screens properly shut and minimize the opening of doors to not provide them room to enter the house.
- Mix garlic juice with water in the proportion of 4:1 and pore it in a spray bottle and spray the solution on the curtains of the window. This will repel the mosquitoes to enter the house. One can also use Neem oil( a vegetable oil with unpleasant smell) in the place of garlic water solution and spray it on the curtains to repel the mosquitoes.
- Thai lemon grass contains citronella oil, which is very effective in repelling the mosquitoes. So, planting the Thai lemon grass plants inside your house, near the windows and doors or other openings canacts as natural repellant to the mosquitoes.Scent of Marigold repels the mosquitoes, so planting it in your garden, underneath your window and outside your door can help in repelling the mosquitoes.
- While entering in the house from outside you should check your clothes, skin and carry bag before entering, since mosquitoes enter the house hanging on the human host or the articles he is bringing inside.
- Try to keep every food item sealed of covered. Mosquitoes gets attracted towards anything that has high sugar content so never leave grapes, rotten banana, peeled oranges or an open can of soda laying inside the house. Use covered dustbins as they can become attraction for mosquitoes and other airborne pests.
- Should avoid using sweet smelling air freshener, you may burn citronella candles to freshen up your room.
Lemons sent repel the mosquitoes so you should clean the furniture, floor or other hard surfaces with the lemon scented cleaner. To avoid harsh chemicals you may use lemon balm or lemon basil to clean the hard surfaces. - If you have a pet in your house then you should clean their food and water serving bowls at least twice a week and check if there is no standing water in their bowl. Standing water attracts mosquitoes as they can multiply sooner by laying eggs in water. One should also take care if some standing water is left on the floor after taking the shower, or in the washing sink or standing water in potted plants. One can also place sand near the plants to absorb excess of water moisture.
- One can also install a trap called Zappers. These are electrical instruments which can be placed in the required areas. Since they are electric they don’t use any harsh chemicals and are quite effective. Some people find the noise of mosquito flying into the zappers but this is one inexpensive and efficient way. If you have kids in the house you need to keep it out of the reach of the kid.
- Mosquitoes don’t travel far from their birth place, so treat the areas outside your home first as this is where mosquitoes breed. If the area around your house is treated well then you need not to worry about mosquitoes. Consult a pest control firm to recommend the best spray or fogger to be used in your area.
- You should inspect the areas around your house to find if there is any source of standing water like water in old tires, or in pit holes. Do check if your drainage is properly covered and make sure that your rain gutters do not have standing water due to blockage.
Also Read:
Green approach for Mosquito Control
