Home measures only go so far for pest control

Don’t burn down house – let experts handle critter invasions

It is shocking the extremes that people are willing to go to in order to get rid of an unwanted critter in their homes.

My dislike of insects in the house is welldocumented, but in my experience, many situations can be handled with a broom, a mousetrap or a good stout shoe.

However, people will go to crazy lengths to try and solve insect home invasions. I saw an article on Mental Floss the other day about people who have accidentally burnt their houses to the ground trying a home remedy to get rid of bed bugs.

This caught my attention — were these people trying to light individual bed bugs on fire? I could not fathom how that would possibly work out.

I’ve seen news reports of people trying to do that with spiders, as if setting a creature with eight legs on fire is a good idea. Of course, the flaming spider darts away, and poof — up goes the house.

It turns out, there is a home remedy that calls for dousing bed bugs with rubbing alcohol. However, in multiple published news reports, people have tried this approach, only to have a candle too close to the alcohol, which then ignited the alcohol and suddenly, the house is in flames.

Bed bugs are ridiculously hard to get rid of, a modern plague of sorts that presents all sorts of challenges. They are easy to bring home, and once they settle in, well, get ready to be annoyed. They are growing resistant to pesticides, so unlike fleas, which can be bombed out of existence, bed bugs require a little more thought.

But rather than burn down the house, why not call in an expert? I’m all about handling issues on my own and saving some money, but at some point, one has to admit when the critter has the upper hand.

We called in an exterminator to deal with ants and a really enthusiastic gopher in the front yard, after my efforts to wipe out said creatures were unsuccessful. The exterminator handled the problem, I did not have to worry about it, and my yard is now recovering from its gopher experience.

Maybe the rule of thumb should be if you can’t kill it safely with a shoe, and you can’t flush it out with a garden hose, then it’s time to call in the experts.

Unsigned editorials represent the viewpoint of this newspaper rather than an individual. Columns and letters to the editor represent the viewpoints of the persons writing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the Yuma Sun.