How to keep bugs off porch light

How To Keep Bugs Away From Porch Light (15 Ways)

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Wondering how to keep bugs away from a porch light?

We all know that bugs are everywhere, but they’re especially bad around porch lights. The worst part about having a porch light is the swarms of annoying insects it attracts.

Mosquitoes and other pests can be really frustrating to deal with, but there are solutions for keeping them away from your home.

Luckily for you, we’ve found a few easy and affordable ways to keep those pesky bugs away from your porch light! Don’t let annoying bugs ruin your porch light experience!

Follow these easy tips for how to keep bugs away from porch lights and you’ll be good-to-go in no time.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

1. Switch Out Your Porch Light

Changing the porch light is the best way to keep bugs away from them. Most people use incandescent bulbs which emit a great amount of heat and attract bugs.

Try switching your porch light to LED lights which still look great while giving off less heat. LED lights will help decrease the number of bugs around your home!

2. Change To A Yellow Bulb

Another great way to keep bugs away from your lights is to switch to “bug” bulbs. This type of bulb produces a wide spectrum of yellow light and is meant to repel insects by generating the greatest possible amount of light in the visible color range, making them difficult for insects to see.

Although yellow lightbulbs are an excellent method to keep bugs from your porch light, they are not always the most attractive. Some people like to switch out their porch light colors to support a certain cause. If you don’t like how yellow lights look, don’t worry there are other options you can try!

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3.

Burn The Bugs Away With Bug Zapper

Another effective way to keep bugs away from outside lights is to use a bug zapper like this one. These “zappers” are a highly successful technique of attracting and controlling insects.

However, as appealing as this may appear, there are a few drawbacks as you’ll be left with lots of dead insects lying beneath the bug zapper as well as a lingering smell of burnt bugs.

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4. Install A Ceiling Fan

If your home has a wrap-around style porch with an overhang, one or more fans might be just what you need.

Not only will they help reduce the number of airborne critters by literally blowing them away, but they’ll also keep your surroundings cooler and more hospitable during the sultry summer months.

5. Use Candles

Believe it or not, you can actually keep bugs away with candles. All you have to do is light up a couple of scented candles around your porch’s perimeter and watch the bugs disappear!

Citronella candles work extremely well. A few other good options are lemongrass, rosemary, lavender, peppermint & eucalyptus.

Using candles is a great short-term solution if you are hosting a party, but they aren’t the greatest long-term solution.

Not only are candles expensive, but they can also be a fire hazard. Also, if your porch is large, or windy, this method probably won’t work well.

6. Add Some Insect Repelling Plants

Mosquitoes and other bugs will be naturally repelled by certain fragrances found in common plants.

By planting some of these near your porch, you will be able to drastically cut down on those pesky bugs near your porch lights.

There are many great bug-repelling plants you can use to keep bugs away from your porch lights. Some of these include:

Rosemary
Lavender Mint
Basil
Citronella grass
Sage
Lemon Balm
Bay Leaves
Thyme
Mint

7. Hang Spice Pouches

Another great way to keep those insects away from your lights is to use spice pouches.

You can buy some or even use coffee filters instead. Simply fill them with herbs such as catnip, mint, thyme, bay leaves, or rosemary. Then, hang them around your light fixtures or set them somewhere near them. This will repel most bugs that would normally come near.

8. Spray Your Porch And Lights With A Bug-Repellent

There are many essential oils that are a natural turn-off for bugs. Simply add a small amount of soapy water and some essential oils to a spray bottle, and spray around your porch lights.

Some of the best oils to use are rosemary, mint, clove oil, lavender, citronella, lemongrass & peppermint.

The problem with this method is that you will have to reapply daily to keep the bugs away.

9. Keep Porch Lights Turned Off

The best way to keep bugs away from porch lights is simply to turn them off. If you don’t need the light, there’s no point in turning it on.

While this isn’t a permanent solution, it certainly will help if you’re trying to host an outdoor function and want as little activity as possible around your lighting.

10. Get Rid Of Standing Water

The more standing water you have, the more bugs you will find around your porch lights. By removing any standing water sources, you will drastically cut down on the number of bugs in your vicinity.

Some common areas of standing water are in birdbaths, pet dishes, water bowls, outdoor fountains, and ponds. Take some time to check for any other areas that might have standing water and eliminate them. This will drastically help you keep bugs away from your porch lights.

11. Consider Screening In Your Porch

If you really want to keep bugs away, consider installing screens on your porch. This method is also the most expensive but is definitely one of the most effective. Screens create a barrier that is too small for bugs to fit through.

These screens can be installed by a professional in as little as one day for only a few hundred dollars, or you can attempt to install screens yourself and save some money.

12. Hang A Bird House Near Your Porch Lights

If you have a birdhouse in your yard, hang it near your porch lights. Birds eat bugs naturally so by inviting them into the location you are allowing nature to take its course.

13. Use Vinegar & Water

For a natural solution, simply mix equal parts vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Mix well until the solution is consistent throughout. Spray around your porch lights and areas where you have seen bugs congregate before.

For an added effect, add a few drops of essential oil to this mixture for a more powerful repelling effect.

14. Keep Your Porch Clean

To help keep bugs away from your porch lights, make sure to keep your porch clean. Wipe any spilled liquids immediately and sweep the porch regularly.

15. Call Pest Control Services

In extreme cases, it might make more sense to hire a pest control company. These professionals have access to chemicals that you cannot buy yourself and will rid your porch of any potential invaders quickly.

Conclusion

Porch lights are a great way to illuminate your home, but they also attract bugs. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to keep bugs away from your porch lights.

The best way to eliminate this problem is to use a yellow bulb. However, if that is not an option for you, there are many other ways. Try using a birdhouse and some essential oils and spices to keep the bugs away from your porch lights.

If all else fails, call a pest control company to keep the insects out of the area.

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The 5 Best Ways To Keep Bugs Away From Your Porch Lights

Hendrickson Photography/Shutterstock

By Natalie Francisco/July 21, 2022 10:27 am EST

Are there swarms of bugs every time you turn on your porch light? No one wants to relax on their porch when bugs are constantly flying around them. This is especially true when mosquitos leave everyone covered in itchy bug bites. Getting rid of mosquitos is about more than annoying bites. According to the Center for Disease Control, mosquitoes can spread viruses like Zika and Malaria.

Luckily, there are some changes that can be made to keep bugs away from your porch lights. There are natural cleaners that you can make with products you likely already have in your home and even certain plants you can add to your garden that will repel insects. Or you can make changes to your home by eliminating any standing water or changing the type of light bulbs you use on your porch. The method that makes the most immediate difference is installing a bug zapper near your porch.

1. Change the light bulb

Breadmaker/Shutterstock

Changing the lightbulb you use for your porch light is one of the simplest changes you can make to prevent bugs from swarming your porch. Normally bugs are attracted to light and heat, but if you use an LED light bulb, it will actually repel bugs. According to LED Lights Unlimited, LED lights won't attract bugs like normal incandescent light bulbs because they don't emit as much heat. Using yellow or red LED lights will repel bugs even more because these colors make it hard for bugs to see. However, cool-white and warm-white LED lights will also repel bugs.

While this method is good at stopping bugs from swarming the lights on your porch, it won't completely get rid of all the bugs that visit while you're trying to relax out there. If there are still too many bugs, use this method in conjunction with others.

2. Don't leave standing water around your home

Evelyn Joubert/Shutterstock

Standing water is the perfect breeding ground for bugs like mosquitos. To help stop so many bugs from swarming your porch, you should find the source of all the bugs and remove it. With mosquitos specifically, they lay eggs in and around standing water, so you can reduce the number of mosquitoes near your home if there is no standing water. Standing water is water that doesn't flow or move, which can often be found in bird baths, ponds, and rain barrels.

To get rid of standing water Breda Pest Management recommends a couple of places to make changes. First, look around your home for any buckets and overturn them. You can also get rid of bird baths and bring inside any pet bowls that are left outside. If you have a fountain, either drain and cover it or turn it on so that the water is running. If there are any ponds near your home, you can fill them with fish like koi that will eat mosquito larvae. If you want to keep bird baths and ponds, integrate running water in them to keep things moving and fresh.

3. Install a bug zapper

Yuri_Photo_Stock/Shutterstock

Bug zappers are another way to redirect where bugs go by attracting them to something that will help get rid of them. By installing a zapper on or near your porch, the bugs will be attracted to it instead of you or the lights. However, having one of these nifty gadgets comes with a few downsides. They work by attracting bugs with a blue UV-A light and then zapping them with electricity so that they die, according to Thanos. The downside to this method is that every time a bug is zapped, you will hear it, and if enough bugs are electrocuted, you will smell it too. Depending on the type of machine you purchase, there may even be a pile of dead bugs on the ground around the bug zapper or in it (that you'll have to empty out from time to time).

There are a couple of different types of bug zappers available. The most well-known one has metal bars around it. Other variations of bug attractants inside these machines include fans that help suck bugs in and sticky tape that they get stuck to when they're attracted inside by the pretty lights.

4. Clean with vinegar and burn citronella candles

Olga Miltsova/Shutterstock

Keeping your porch clean is an important step when trying to get rid of bugs. If cleaned regularly, fewer bugs will be drawn to this area. Any spills should be wiped as soon as possible, and the porch should be swept as well. When cleaning this area, a cleaning solution that includes vinegar will help to repel certain types of bugs. According to Medicine Net, vinegar will repel bugs, including ants, mosquitoes, and fruit flies. To use vinegar as a cleanser, mix it in a spray bottle with water in a one-to-one ratio. Use this to wipe down surfaces and spray it around your porch lights or any place you notice large groups of bugs.

Burning citronella candles is another way to repel bugs from any outdoor area you want to enjoy time in. It's a short-term solution, as it only works for a couple of hours, according to Today, but is beneficial when used along with other bug repelling methods. Citronella candles work to repel mosquitoes by emitting a strong smell that covers up the scent of humans so that mosquitoes aren't attracted to the area.

5.

Plant insect repelling plants

Shironagasukujira/Shutterstock

Planting certain types of plants in your garden or on your porch can help fight against swarms of bugs around your home. Choosing to create a small herb garden on your porch can even help repel bugs if you don't want to invest a lot of time or money to maintain a garden or needy landscaping. Herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme, parsley, fennel, and oregano will repel insects, according to Maggie's Farm. These herbs are particularly good at repelling mosquitoes and house flies. They can be planted in small pots, will need to be watered about once a week, and should receive plenty of sunlight. Along with repelling bugs, a plus to this method is that you will have fresh herbs to cook with.

Peppermint and lavender are other plants that will repel bugs. Peppermint will repel ants, mosquitoes, spiders, and aphids. Other than preventing bugs, peppermint will also leave your porch smelling wonderful. To care for peppermint, it will need partial sun and to be watered at least twice a week. This plant grows quickly and will take over your yard if you are not careful, so it should be kept in a pot. Lavender will also leave your porch smelling beautifully while repelling mosquitos, moths, flies, fleas, and scorpions. Lavender is a hardy plant that likes a lot of sun and to be watered at least once a week.

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Author Louise Clark June 3, 2022

Various flying insects are not the best neighbors for lovers of country work. They bite, annoy, spread infection. Of course, there are also useful representatives of the insect world, such as pollinating bees. But today we’ll talk about how to get rid of annoying wasps and beetles using tricky methods.

It would seem that the easiest way to protect against unpleasant neighbors is insecticides, which the chemical industry offers in abundance. But what is the point of growing an environmentally friendly crop, if poisons were used on the site?

Therefore, we turn to country life hacks. The first of these will protect the house from wasps, who love to make nests in secluded places, such as under the porch. Often it remains invisible to gardeners for a long time, and then dangerous to harvest.

To get rid of stinging insects, painting the ceiling on the porch in blue or blue tones will help.

Surprisingly, insects mistake the roof for the sky and prefer to choose another place to settle. Another plus is that you will update the porch.

The second trick will help those who prefer to spend time outside at night and want to get rid of the unwanted neighborhood of swarming beetles.

To do this, it is enough to install lamps with warm yellow light, rather than cold white, in street lamps or lanterns.

And the problem will be solved!

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How to get rid of the OS in the dacha

Content

when you need to get rid of the OS
than the WASS
are dangerous how to scare away OS
How to effectively destroy OS
How to remove the nest
insecticides against OS
Nationals

It is important for owners of summer cottages to know how to get rid of wasps in their summer cottages. The bites of these insects can be not only unpleasant, but also dangerous, especially for people prone to allergies.

When to get rid of wasps

Sometimes you can peacefully coexist with wasps, especially since they destroy pests: various beetles, caterpillars and larvae, including the Colorado potato beetle. But in some cases, wasps need to be destroyed. These are the cases when they settled:

under the slope of the roof
on the balcony
in the attic

- Anywhere close to a person or movement on the site.

Protecting the nest, wasps can attack a person, even if he did not touch the hive, but only came close to it.

Why wasps are dangerous

For allergy sufferers, children, animals, bites can be deadly, especially if they are applied to the head and neck.

Wasps often feed on landfills, compost heaps, so when sitting on food, they can carry bacteria. Wasps attack honey bees, damage fruits (apples, pears, grapes), gnawing holes in them.

How to scare away wasps

If there are not very many insects, you can scare them away. To do this, in the country, where nests are most likely to appear, their dummies are hung - wasps will not settle where there are already competitors. You can buy ready-made, or you can just fill a paper bag with plastic bags. Lemon and cloves are also used to scare away. The lemon is cut in half and clove buds are stuck into it.

How to kill wasps effectively

To deal with these insects in the country, you need to find out where their nest is. Sometimes it hangs in plain sight, but often hidden in inconspicuous places. This is how wasps hide their hives in nature: in the thick of branches, in hollows of trees. In the dacha, a hornet's nest can be found:

in utility rooms (attics, sheds, toilets),
in hedges,
in niches under slate,
behind the cladding,
in piles of rubbish,
in downpipes.

What is the safest way to get rid of wasps in the country? You can use the services of experts in pest control. However, such a procedure costs a lot and it is not always possible to resort to it.

If it is not possible to find the hive, traps can be used. Any sweet liquids, preferably odorous ones, are suitable as baits: a solution of honey, jam, syrup, fermented juice, beer. Liquids must be poured into containers from which insects cannot escape, for example, into bottles.

Good traps are made from plastic bottles that have holes 1 cm in diameter through which the wasps can climb in but cannot get out.

You can also cut off the top of the bottle, turn it over and insert it into the bottom to make a funnel. Parts of the bottle are glued together with adhesive tape, a sweet liquid is poured inside and hung in places where wasps accumulate in the country. Flies also fall into such traps. The design looks like this:

You can add a gastrointestinal insecticide to the water, such are used against Colorado beetles. You can take melon or watermelon peels and moisten them with an odorless insecticide, such as Intavir, Sherpa. With the same means, you can process the compost heap on which the wasps feed.

By making bait, you can also track insects and find a nest.

How to remove the nest

In winter or early spring, it is not difficult to remove the hive, but there are no insects in the nests at this time, and in summer they can return to their old place.

It's different if you need to get rid of it in the summer. It is best to do this at night when the insects are not active.

In the spring, when the hives are still small, but there are already wasps in them, it is easier to destroy them.

You can lower the nest into a container with water, that is, bring it to the nest from below and put it on it. After some time (7-10 minutes), the nest will dissolve and the insects will drown. However, it is difficult to hold a bucket or pot of water for such a time.

Another way is to put a tight plastic bag over the nest, squeezing it well at the hive leg. Having unhooked it from the support, tightly seal the entrance to the bag with adhesive tape. Next, you can use an aerosol insecticide - to do this, cut a small hole in the corner, insert the cylinder tube into it and sprinkle the poison inside, then seal the hole and leave the nest for 30 minutes. You can simply leave the sealed bag in a closed container for a few days. After that, the hive is burned.

It is possible to burn the hive immediately after removal, but this must be done on a high fire so that the wasps that fly out immediately burn out, or in a closed barrel.

Attention! Before dealing with wasps in the country, you need to take precautions. Wear thick leather gloves, thick thick clothing that wasps can't sting through. Be sure to protect your face and eyes. The ideal option is a beekeeper's protective suit.

After removing the nest, clean the place where it was hanging. To do this, the attachment site is wiped with a solution of potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide, used engine oil, kerosene, and insecticides. If you do not let the insects build a nest in the old place, after a while they will fly away and never return.

Insecticides against wasps

Various chemicals can be used to kill or repel wasps in the country house.

Nests are treated with Mosquitol - protection against wasps, Troapsil, Prima, Dichlorvos. Processing is carried out early in the morning or at night. After two days, the insects die or fly away. For treatment with aerosol preparations, a rag is wound around the tube to block its entrance to the nest. Then the tube is inserted into the nest, the rag is pressed against the entrance so that the insects do not scatter, the drug is injected. After about 10 minutes, the wasps will die. After that, the nest is removed, the room is ventilated. You can also spray the nest with a strong jet of the product. The video shows the use of the drug "Mosquitol - protection against wasps".

Chlorpyrifos microcapsules are also available. Such insecticides are used to treat wasp congestion sites or make baits using them. The capsules stick to the paws and abdomen of the insect, and it takes them to the nest. These drugs include "insect exterminator Get", "Empire20", "Smelnet", "Xulat-C25".

It is possible to spray the nests with insecticides used against pests in the garden and orchard: Sipaz, Tsimbush, Aktellik, Karbofos.

The nest is treated with insecticidal dust such as Sevin 5 Garden Dust.