Super Eco

Photo credit: ubecupcake, flickr

I swear I'm not a scumbag, so please don't judge me by the rat lodging in my couch-bed and the cockroaches raiding my utensil tray.

Scout's Honor, I (lightly) clean once a week, dust on the off-chance that I remember to and vacuum under the beds every third ... year. Fine. Maybe I'm not that clean. But that doesn't mean I'm dirty enough to willingly cohabitate with creepy, crawly (crunchy!) critters. Between the roaches, rats and a gnarly bout of head lice in the not too distant past, I fear we're becoming that family. The scuzzy bunch down the block.

Not if our very own (and handsomely paid) Terminix serial killer has his toxic way in 12 hours. Normally I wouldn't let my precious progeny toddle within a football field of this caliber of pesticides, but I'm beyond desperate. A three-inch-long American cockroach (palmetto bug or water bug, my foot!) skittering up my bare thigh marked mama's last straw. At this point Mr. Milton, our strapping Bug Butcher For Hire, could all but drop an atomic bomb on my house and I'd probably kiss him ... under his face mask.

Chances are you're nowhere near as eager as I am (did I mention DESPERATE?!) to aid and abet in such shock-and-awe-style rodent-roach genocide. If you're a SuperEco regular, you'd likely opt for a greener, cleaner approach. So, for you kinder, gentler greenies, I give you 5 nice, natural ways to send cucarachas and ratoncitos packing for the next door neighbor's, at least until the next heat wave.Your conscience should remain in tact, and, if you're lucky, your couch bed might too.

Each tactic is chemical free and inexpensive. The most some will cost is a ton of elbow grease, a couple of bucks, a few decent blocks of time and, let's be honest, infinitesimal patience.

Here we (and hopefully those disgusting vermin) go:

1. Gut the place. That means emptying every single hard-to-reach (unless you're a nasty pest) nook and cranny in your space (cupboards, bookshelves, medicine cabinets, etc.). I'm knee-deep into this process right now and, believe me, it's well worth the sweat. Less clutter equals less chaos and cockroaches and more calm. Don't forget to shake out all linens, clothes and books, where roaches often nest. When you're done gagging, carefully dispose of any egg pods that turn up. Here's how to deep clean just about anywhere, as if any of us have the time. Get busy! 

2. Wipe clean and green. After clearing out the gazillion places pests instinctively love to lurk, you must, must, MUST scrub every last freed-up inch squeaky clean! Even the teeniest morsel of flour or even the most minute grease splatter easily provide a week's worth of munchies for roaches, not to mention an appetizing midnight snack for rats.

To scour the kitchen cupboards yesterday, I broke down and broke out the big guns: Clorox Green Works and more "immediately call Poison Control if ingested" chem-bombs than I care to come clean with. You can lean on the old, natural standby, Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Liquid Soap ($2.49 for 2 oz.). Drip a few fragrant drops into a bucket of as-hot-as-you-can-stand water and get sponging. Be sure to obliterate every gnarly scrap of roach, er, droppings, because the freaky buggers eat those leftovers too (wretch!). Bonus: All Dr. Bronner's liquid suds are now USDA National Organic Program approved  and certified fair trade. It's about time. 

3. Suck up some serious heavy lifting. Yes, I'm afraid it's also time to move those whopper appliances (fridge, washer/dryer, oven) and brave what lies beneath. You wouldn't believe what I found behind my fridge: a box of who-knows-how-many-years-old Kellog's Cracklin' Oat Bran that a marauding squirrel-sized rat (NOT a cute, fuzzy mouse) had gnawed a tennis ball-sized hole into before going ape fiber footloose. Of course what goes in, must come out, so I had plenty of spindly droppings to contend with (HEPA vacuum).

Next came a healthy on-hands-and-knees bleach boogie. Add in the societal shame of playing host to roaches and rats in the first place and you've got a hardy work out on your guilty gloved hands. Since you're skipping the bleach, try these 5 Basics for Non-Toxic Cleaning care of care2 instead. Baking soda is my favorite bleach alternative. Any leftover Arm & Hammer can be exiled to the fridge to keep it fresh. Fridge freak out post coming soon. Don't even get me started.  

4. Break out the bay leaves. For whatever reason, scattering bay laurel leaves (fresh or dried) in dark corners and inside cupboards sends roaches skedaddling. Raid your soon-to-be-empty spice cabinet or buy a bay leaf plant at your local nursery.

Rats hate catnip, peppermint and tea tree oil. Pick one (they don't mix well) and sprinkle a few drops in the spaces where you've seen or heard Ratatouille doing his devilish deeds, or soak a cotton ball with whichever scented oil and cleverly place it like a landmine.

When sugar and spice and every thing nice fails, trap the sucker. Humane traps are sweet (and heavy and pricey), but, sorry, PETA, these old-school two-buck jobbies terminally did the trick for us in just one quick snap. RIP Geronimo Stilton. (My 8-year-old son, Aiden, touchingly offered to sacrifice his allowance for a cruelty-free trap, but his idea didn't stick as well as the sticky trap did.)

5. Kill a roach, save a gecko. It's pretty safe to say to no one loves hanging around cockroaches or rats, except for those fearless (oddball?) souls who keep them for pets. But if you can stomach molting reptilian critters up-close, consider adopting an insect-munching gecko or a monitor lizard. They conveniently feast on roaches and rodents for lunch, right? The upside: you don't have to pay them to do the dirty work and you can feed them practically for free. The downside: lizards poop much more and much bigger than the unwanted visitors you're trying to eradicate. Forget felines. I'm still too angry at my lazy, wuss bag cats to advocate felines as effective pest hunters. They're still in time-out.

Speaking of my 'fraidy cats, they can't come near the house they failed to protect, nor my kids three, for a minimum of four hours post-Terminix chem-ocide. T minus 12 hours and counting. Stay tuned for a full report on the toxic fallout. You bet I'll be happily keeping a bug body count.

Now where's my 100 percent organic face mask? Yeah, right.