Dealing with Insects at Your Log Home

With summer upon us, the time is ripe for all manner of outdoor activity, from grilling for a summer party to hiking in the wilderness. The arrival of summer also brings biting insects like mosquitoes and chiggers, unfortunately. There are, however, many ways to conquer the menace of biting insects. In this post, we will share some of the ways to ward off pesky insects and enjoy your log home and its environs in the summertime.

Screen Porch

A great way to enjoy the outdoors bug-free is to build an enclosed screen porch for your log home.  A screen porch will allow you to enjoy the wonderful outdoor weather regardless of how bad the bugs may be. With an appropriate layout and furniture, the patio can become an outdoor room that both expands the floor space of your log home and makes you feel a part of nature, all while maintaining your comfort. And since money spent on patio space has the highest resale value of any home addition, you will be adding great value to your log home should you ever decide to sell it.

Yard Sprays

For yard space that is not enclosed, a yard spray with an insect repellant or insecticide is a good way to reduce the number of biting insects. You can buy yard foggers in a can, but the sprays that attach to a garden hose are usually more cost effective. These sprays contain chemicals that will kill or repel mosquitoes and other insects for up to two weeks before needing to be reapplied. If you have pets and are concerned about using pesticides, then more natural sprays are available. These sprays also work well and use sodium lauryl sulfate (like shampoo) and use natural oils like cedarwood oil and peppermint oil to repel insects. You can also buy mosquito dunks to put in any standing water, which contain a larvaecide that kill mosquito larvae before they become an issue.

Lasers

Yes, using lasers to kill bugs in your yard is a bit farfetched. However, a TED talk from 2010 seriously proposed (and demonstrated!) using lasers to shoot mosquitoes out of the sky in order to control malaria in Africa. Perhaps, then, in a few years’ time you will be able to buy a laser bug zapper for your yard. Until then, the previous methods should suffice to keep the bugs down.