How to Get rid of Insects crawling around your Lights?

After the initial downpour of the rainy season, we find ourselves face to face with a new problem, Moths. Many people would have noticed an increase in the number of insects hovering around their lights after evening. These moths can hamper your daily living in a number of ways. Be it, committing suicide by jumping into your drinking water and food or just flying around and crawling up your skin. If you also find this frustrating, there is a very simple to trick to avoid them. However, before finding out about this wonderful hack you should consider professional help also, like:

1. Tinting the Glass

Yu can try tinting the glass of your windows. This will not allow much light to pass through, and your house will appear darker than others from the outside. And it would attract less bugs than it would normally.

2. Homemade Solution

Citronella candles are popular and have been in use for chasing away insects, and they’re fairly easy to make at home. If you don’t know how to make these candles just buy them from a local store. Placing them under your lights and at windows and doors will repel bugs, moths and to an extent, mosquitoes.

Garlic sprays are also very effective in this case. All you’ll need to do is soak a handful of garlic in hot water for 20 minutes then pour the garlic mixture into a spray bottle. Spraying it onto your bulbs every few days after they’re turned on and heated up will emit a faint smell of garlic that drives insects away.

3. Changing the Lights

Heat and brightness factor the most in case of moths. A hotter and brighter bulb is bound to attract more insects. You should as a rule, avoid buying bulbs with high wattage and especially those that use glowing filaments.

Almost like humans, insects also can’t detect the entire spectrum of light. Colours like yellow, orange and red have very high wavelengths and make them kind of blind. Purchasing bulbs that emit a yellow light will probably be best bet i.e. yellow compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are generally better because they create more illumination without attracting the usual swarm. If you are not a fan of yellow light, white LEDs are your best bet, and are just as effective.

4. Calling the Pest Control

Sometimes, these bugs make a nest inside your home. You can have pest control take a look and conduct regular checks to ensure the absence of any nests in ypur home. Insects love dark, musty and secluded corners which can be easily removed if you keep your home clutter free.

In any case, these solutions are usually messy, smelly, expensive or simply ineffective a lot of times. Whatever may be the reasons, if you are looking for simple solution to the moth problems, try using one of the following methods.

• Use a Bug zapper: Just hang one at the window and watch the insects crackle and burn.

And now we come to our final weapon. This is the most simple and most effective way to get rid of these insects.

• Place a bucket of water as close the light as possible: Hold a bucket of water about 1 30cm away and directly below the swarm of insects that’s crowding at a light source. The bright reflection of light on the water would attract the moths and they will miraculously commit suicide by drowning in the water. Sound simple? It really is simple. Just place some water directly below the light, as near to it as possible. You might have to hold it up for a few minutes, but it works magnificently, and afterwards you can drain your insect-soup down the drain.

-Archit Upadhyay