Insects

Ants

• Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. To kill ants in your home without using insecticide, sprinkle Arm & Hammer Baking Soda in cracks, corners, and crevices. Baking soda is poison to ants.

• Crayola Chalk. Draw a thick line of Crayola Chalk around windows and doors outside your home, and around water pipes inside your home. Ants will not cross chalk lines. You can also draw mazes on the patio floor to keep those ants entertained for hours.

• Cream of Wheat. Sprinkle uncooked Cream of Wheat wherever ants are giving you a problem. The ants take the farina back to their nest, and when they eat it, the farina swells in their stomachs, killing them without insecticide.

• Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. For a nontoxic way to kill ants, pour one teaspoon Dawn Dishwashing Liquid into a sixteen-ounce plastic trigger-spray bottle, fill the rest of the bottle with water, shake well, and spray the ants with the soapy solution. They die instantly. The soap penetrates their exoskeleton, and you just wipe them up with a sponge. So you're cleaning the countertop while you're getting rid of ants.

• Formula 409. Spray ants with Formula 409 instead of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid (see above) and wipe clean, giving you clean walls and countertops at the same time.

• Gillette Foamy. In a pinch, you can kill ants by spraying them with Gillette Foamy shaving cream. The condensed soap in the shaving cream penetrates the ants' exoskeleton and kills them.

• Gold Medal Flour. Fill cracks and make a line with Gold Medal Flour wherever ants enter your home. Ants will not walk through flour.

• Heinz White Vinegar. To repel ants, mix equal parts Heinz White Vinegar and water in a trigger-spray bottle and mist the solution around door jambs, window sills, water pipes, and foundation cracks. The acetic acid in vinegar kills ants.

• Johnson's Baby Powder. Sprinkle Johnson's Baby Powder in cracks, along a windowsill, or under doors where ants enter. Ants will not walk through baby powder.

• Lysol Disinfectant. To exterminate ants, spray them with Lysol Disinfectant.

• Maxwell House Coffee. Sprinkle dried Maxwell House Coffee grounds outside doors and cracks or around the outside perimeter of your home along the foundation. Coffee fertilizes the soil and simultaneously deters ants.

• McCormick Black Pepper. Sprinkle McCormick Black Pepper in cracks and crevices. Pepper repels ants.

• McCormick Chili Powder. To repel ants, sprinkle McCormick Chili Powder around the outside perimeter of your home along the foundation. The fiery spice repulses ants.

• McCormick Cream of Tartar. Sprinkle McCormick Cream of Tartar into cracks and crevices. When ants ingest Cream of Tartar, they die, unable to digest it.

• McCormick Ground Cinnamon. Keep ants far away by sprinkling cracks and crevices with McCormick Ground Cinnamon, which gives your home a nice smell.

• Morton Salt. To repel ants, sprinkle the problem area with Morton Salt. Ants hate salt and will not walk across it.

• Scotch Packaging Tape. Wrap a strip of Scotch Packaging Tape adhesive side out around your hand and use it to pick up an advancing line of ants.

• 20 Mule Team Borax. Sprinkle a thin trail of 20 Mule Team Borax around the outside perimeter of your house along the wall near the foundation. This also kills carpenter ants.

• 20 Mule Team Borax, Domino Sugar, and Johnson & Johnson Cotton Balls. Mix one cup 20 Mule Team Borax, ⅔ cup Domino Sugar, and one cup water. Dip Johnson & Johnson Cotton Balls in the solution and place them around the house, wherever ants are giving you trouble. The ants eat the sugar-coated borax and quickly kick the bucket.

• Windex. To exterminate ants, spray the invading insects with Windex. The soapy window cleanser kills ants on contact.

Bees and Wasps

• Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. To kill bees or wasps, spray the creature with Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. The fixatives in the hair spray immobilize the insect.

• Con-Tact Paper and Domino Sugar. Sprinkle a very light coat Domino Sugar over the sticky side of a sheet of Con-Tact Paper and hang or place the sugary adhesive strip wherever you wish to capture bees or wasps.

• Formula 409. One quick squirt of Formula 409 kills wasps and bees almost instantly.

• Parsons' Ammonia. To get rid of a wasp nest, fill a trigger-spray bottle with equal parts Parsons' Ammonia and water and carefully saturate the nest with the solution. Wait 24 hours, check the nest to make sure all the wasps are dead, and knock down the nest and discard.

• WD-40. To get rid of a wasp nest, carefully spray the nest with WD-40. Wait 24 hours, check the nest to make sure all the wasps are dead, and knock down the nest and discard.

• Windex. To kill a bees or wasp in your home without using insecticide, spray the intruder with a quick blast of Windex. The soap in the window cleanser kills insects.

Cobwebs

• Wilson Tennis Balls. To remove cobwebs from unreachable places, wrap a Wilson Tennis Ball inside a dust cloth secured with a few rubber bands, then toss it at the distant cobweb.

Cockroaches

• Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. To freeze cockroaches in their tracks, spray the insects with Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. The fixatives in the hair spray immobilize insects.

• Arm & Hammer Baking Sodaand Domino Sugar. Mix ½ cup Arm & Hammer Baking Soda and one tablespoon Domino Sugar and sprinkle the mixture in tight corners, cracks, and crevices. Lured by the sugar, the cockroaches walk through the baking soda, lick it off their legs, and, unable to digest it, leave this world.

• Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. Mix one teaspoon Dawn Dishwashing Liquid in a trigger-spray bottle filled with water, shake well, and spray the sudsy solution to kill cockroaches. The soap penetrates the insects' exoskeletons almost instantly, killing the bugs.

• Kingsford's Corn Starch. To kill cockroaches, mix equal parts Kingsford's Corn Starch and plaster of Paris. Sprinkle the mixture in cracks and crevices. Lured by the cornstarch, the cockroaches ingest the powdered concoction and "petrify." You'll have plaster statues of cockroaches, which can be used to decorate your home.

• Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner. Spraying a cockroach with Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner kills the insect instantly. After discarding the roach, wipe the puddle of Lysol clean, which conveniently disinfects the area.

• Scrubbing Bubbles. A quick spritz of Scrubbing Bubbles kills roaches dead in their tracks immediately.

• 20 Mule Team Borax and Domino Sugar. Mix equal parts 20 Mule Team Borax and Domino Sugar and sprinkle the mixture in cracks and crevices where cockroaches are invading your home. Attracted by the sugar, the roaches ingest the borax, which kills them.

• WD-40. Spraying a little WD-40 on a cockroach kills the insect.

Crickets

• Grandma's Molasses. To capture crickets in a basement or garage, mix ¼ cup of Grandma's Molasses with two cups of water. Place the mixture in a bowl and set it on the floor. Place some strips of cardboard as ramps from the floor to the edge of the bowl. The molasses attracts the crickets, which drown in the water.

Earwigs

• Wesson Corn Oil. To get rid of earwigs, fill a saucer with Wesson Corn Oil and sit it out in your backyard. Earwigs love oil, crawl into the saucer, and drown.

Flies

• Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. If you're unable to hit flies with a flyswatter, spray the pesky insects with Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. The fixative in the hair spray freezes their wings, and the flies fall to the floor, immobilized.

Insect Repellent

• Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. To prevent insects from entering your home, squeeze out a line of Dawn Dishwashing Liquid around the jamb of an entry door or the frame of a window. Invading insects—such as beetles, ants, and silverfish—will crawl into and get stuck in the soap.

• Formula 409. To kill invading insects quickly and cleanly, give them a quick spritz of Formula 409 all-purpose cleaner.

• Skin So Soft Body Lotion. To prevent insects from entering your home, put a tablespoon of Skin So Soft Body Lotion in a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle, fill the rest of the bottle with water, shake well, and spray window screens, screen doors, and around door jambs.

• WD-40. To prevent insects and spiders from entering your house through windows and door, spray your doorjambs, windowsills and frames, and screens with WD-40. (Do not spray doors and windows with WD-40 if you have small children who might wipe their hands on it.)

Moths

• McCormick Black Peppercorns and L'eggs Sheer Energy Panty Hose. Use McCormick Black Peppercorns as an alternative to mothballs. Cut off the foot of a clean, used pair of L'eggs Sheer Energy Panty Hose, fill it with peppercorns, and use it as a sachet. Pepper repels moths and has a much more pleasant aroma.

Slugs

• Budweiser. To kill slugs, fill jar lids with Budweiser beer and place them in your garden or wherever slugs are invading. Slugs love beer. They climb into the lid, drink the beer, and drown in it.

• Crayola Chalk. Draw a thick line of Crayola Chalk around windows and doors outside your home, and around water pipes inside your home. Slugs will not cross chalk lines.

• Morton Salt. Sprinkle Morton Salt on the sidewalk close to the grass. When slugs try to approach your house, the salt will kill them by reverse osmosis.

Snails

• Budweiser. Fill a saucer with Budweiser beer and set it in the garden or wherever snails are giving you problems. Snails love the taste of beer. They crawl in, get drunk, and drown.

• Morton Salt. To repel snails without hurting the environment, sprinkle salt lightly around your garden or by making a line of salt on the sidewalk close to the grass. Salt kills snails by reverse osmosis.

Spiders

• Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. If spiders have invaded your home, spray the arachnids with a little Alberto VO5 Hair Spray. The fixative in the hair spray freezes them in their tracks (or webs—whatever the case may be).

• Formula 409. To kill a spider, spray the creepy-crawly with Formula 409, which kills it on the spot.

Weevils

• Rubbermaid. To prevent weevils from getting into open packages of flour, noodles, macaroni, or spaghetti, store the foodstuffs in airtight, resealable Rubbermaid containers.

• Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. Place a few sticks of wrapped Wrigley's Spearmint Gum on the shelves in your panty near open packages of flour, noodles, macaroni, or spaghetti. The smell of spearmint repels these household pests.