I recently moved out to the rural countryside and I wasn’t financially secure enough to get a pest control place come and spray my home, so, after months of trial and error (and much misery and terror!), I created a natural, organic, DIY insect repellant and bug spray that is incredibly effective.
I had an infestation of clicking beetles, stink bugs, spiders, and even carpenter ants. This spray completely wiped them out. And its potency doesn’t require a sacrifice of quality.
The ingredients I used are nine, all together. The eight essential oils I use in this blend control spiders, mosquitos, stink bugs, some flies, and I will give you a neat tip at the end to mitigate clicking beetles 🙂
Thus, without further ado:
Country Pest Repellant and Control Spray:
Or, follow my blog, to get an update if I decide to simply sell my spray by the bottle 🙂
This recipe is for a 10-fuild-ounce spray bottle:
40 drops of Peppermint oil (for spiders and stink bungs)
25 drops of Rosemary oil (for various pests, including fleas)
20 drops Eucalyptus (for fleas, nits, and various others)
20 drops Cinnamon bark (for ants)
10 drops Tea Tree (for mosquitos and fleas– use more if you like the smell. I only use so little because the smell is masked at this dilution).
8-10 drops Lavendar (various. Lavendar is also good for depression and anxiety, and it smells lovely)
8-10 drops Clove (optional- this adds a little extra pungency and offers a nice smell. It helps to sanitize and immunize, also. I generally love clove)
10 drops Lemon (various. Lemon is also a great cleaning agent and room freshener. At this dilution, I don’t really smell it, though.)
Be sure to tighten the lid well.
Shake well before use so that the oils are mixed at the bottom where the spray tube will catch it.
Spray around doors and windows inside. I spray it around my bedroom windows about once every week or two, and others in the house maybe once or twice a month and I still see nothing in those areas nonetheless. You do not have to do it outside to secure the inside, but I have used it on outdoor patio furniture and it has worked well there, also.
I do use this spray nightly around my bedroom door, but that is because I am quite paranoid. Thus, this spray lasts for only a week or two (with nightly use).
Do not use on plants. I am an organic, indoor gardener and my plants are my prized possessions. I have used this spray around them, careful to not get it in their pot, water supply, or on their leaves and they have not been affected at all by it. In fact, my plants are thriving. Thus, you can use it around plants, just not on them.
Do not spray too heavily in an unventilated room. This is purely because of the raw alcohol content and the amount of raw oils used. Thus, about 3-4 sprays should be a maximum in a closed room that will be used in less than four hours after spraying. Otherwise, I happily coexist with it and the smell is delightful. (when I go gung-ho and use maybe 6-8 sprays in my 2-300sq ft room is when I have to leave for a few hours to let it air out. In that case, I leave the door open with the fan on and it is fine in about 4-5 hours.
The way I protect my bedroom at night is I spray about 4 sprays outside of the door as I go in for the night, and then I do tiny sprays around the opening of it. However, I also do a “lights routine” as I call it, and these two are incredibly effective together.
I will admit that I still find the straggler stink bug, every now and again, but this spray kills them within 1-5 minutes if you get it on their belly (which can be quite easy to do, because, for some reason, they stand up when you spray them, and they don’t tend to move or fly away).
If your Stink bugs are not immune, you can also use the Dawn dish spray. This used to work very well–killing them nearly immediately, even if you only get it on their back–until they became immune and only responded to the alcohol spray. The ones in my area somehow became immune to Dawn within only a few months (maybe around 5-7 months). However, be careful with dawn spray around plants–it kills pretty much anything and everything natural in only a few seconds to a few minutes.
Bonus Tips: The Lights Routine for Clicking Beetles and Stink bugs
Although this is most effective against clicking beetles, stink bugs have responded well once I started using the spray.
As much as these beetles cannot be eradicated without spray, this trick should mitigate problems with most nocturnal beetles in areas you particularly want them away from.
Personally, I mostly wanted them kept from my bedroom and my indoor garden (clicking beetles can destroy crops). Thus, I chose a space I’d rather they be in and I turn on a light there that can be indirectly found from the room I wanted them away from. For some reason, they prefer white light rather than yellow light, so LEDs can be effective here.
I turn off lights in all rooms that I want them away from once the sun starts going down, and I turn on the “hub” light at the same time. At the latest, I do this an hour before bedtime. I will leave the doors to the dark rooms open so that any that migrated in there during the day will be attracted out to the light.
If you have an infestation of them, it can take about three hours for them all to migrate out, I had found.
After that, if I absolutely need to use a light in my room (or in any of the dark/safe rooms) I try to use a yellow light, out of sight from the door, and I also block the bottom of the door so that it cannot attract anything.
This was helpful when I had an infestation of clicking beetles–often, before I used the spray, I often would have 7 migrate out of my room that I would then attempt to catch under cups before they hid. Terrifying, but the lights trick worked. Thus, I still use this method as a companion to the spray.
I will say this, however, the lights method most likely will not cure your infestation. The lights only cause the beetles to move to a different area; thus, whatever your “hub” area is will be their new favorite place and they will be seen there.
The thing about clicking beetles is this: They love light at nighttime and dark in the daytime, thus, I also keep my curtains open in my room and garden all day long so it is nice and bright, to prevent them from being attracted there in the first place.
So, here’s the rule: safe rooms (nocturnal beetle free spaces) must be light in the daytime and dark at nighttime.
Asian Lady Beetles
Thus far, I have not found a fool-proof 100% treatment for “Invasive lady bugs”. You can tell the difference between harmless lady bugs and the invasive asian lady beetles, by the markings between their head and shell. Asian lady bugs have an “m” on their “neck” area, whereas regular lady bugs do not. Regular lady bugs also do not tend to invade homes, but asian lady beetles do. They look exactly the same other than the “m” marking. Asian Lady beetles are harmful to crops, and annoying, that’s really mostly the issue with them. They can also come in droves and hang around windows.
My spray has helped immensely with them, but is has not eradicated them. It does kill them on contact, however, but it doesn’t seem to 100% prevent them.
Thus, stay tuned for more natural pest control remedies for country folk!
Good luck out there!
Alyssa McClure
Popp!nTalk 