The How to Get Rid of Things Blog

Things have been a bit hectic for me as of late, and I haven’t been as diligent in my attention to household cleaning as I should. Well, after finding a writhing, living garbage bag in my garage, I made a solemn vow to change. If I hadn’t left a rancid trash bag in ninety-degree heat for a week, I wouldn’t have had to get rid of maggots. Flies are drawn to the odor of decay and neglect, and they found just that at my place. Luckily, my maggot infestation was small and relatively easy to cope with. In my latest article, you can learn how to get rid of maggots with or without the use of chemicals, but you’ll find that dealing with them is mostly about prevention.

If there is such a thing as an ugly tree, I’m quite certain that every opossum in the world has climbed it to the very top with the intent of throwing itself off the highest limb in order to hit every branch on the way down. It’s just the only explanation. And unfortunately, it has done them no good at all. In fact, their creepy looks are one of the prime reasons for people wanting to know how to get rid of possums. That and the fact that they have a tendency to eat things they aren’t supposed to and to get into places where they don’t belong. So even though they can be beneficial to gardeners in that they eat bugs, slugs and other things that might otherwise eat your garden, I can understand why someone might want to Get Rid of Opossum. And from that understanding comes this article.

I think my fear of ghosts took hold when I was a kid and spent a lot of nights at my grandparents’ Civil War-era farmhouse. There’s just nothing like an old house with a dank cellar, a seldom-used second story, picture-window views of dark fields, and a few volumes of ghost stories on the bookshelves to foster a fear of the unknown. It also didn’t help that my aunt told me the place was haunted.

In the end I never actually experienced anything convincingly ghost-like there or anywhere else, so I’ve been able to mostly convince myself that ghosts aren’t real. I hope I’m right, but if you think your house is haunted, I’ll probably believe you in spite of myself. I’ll also offer you tips for getting rid of a ghost. Because I know all about it, now that I’ve combed through several books and websites by paranormal researchers, looking for the best ways to get rid of a ghost. I put the most common suggestions in my latest article: check it out.

Like Amber’s recent article on Asian Beetles, this article is a little sequel to the ever popular “How to Get Rid of Beetles” article. Japanese Beetles are quickly spreading across the United States, from East to West, destroying gardens, trees, shrubs, hedges, and just about anything else that’s green. On top of the insatiable appetite of the adult Japanese Beetle, the Japanese Beetle grub is also a concern for homeowners with large lawns and people who have recently put down turf. The Japanese Beetle grub loves to eat the chewy, young roots of lawn grasses and turf. It’s like an all you can eat sushi bar down there when the grass is lush and conditions are right, turning your once beautiful lawn into a patchwork of dead and dying grasses.

Want to know how to get rid of Japanese Beetles? Well, you’ve come to the right place my friend.

An introduced species is rarely an entirely good thing, even if its introduction was intentional. When you take an animal or plant out of the habitat it evolved in and put it somewhere else, bad things usually happen, often to other species that live in the new habitat. Take, for example, Asian lady beetles, which were introduced intentionally in America to control aphids and other garden pests. Mostly they do their job, each one spending the summer snacking on thousands of aphids that would otherwise conspire to destroy crops. And then October comes, the weather cools down, and suddenly Asian beetles cluster en masse on and in our houses, looking for a warm place to spend the winter. This is one of those bad things introduced species do to other species around them. They annoy us. So if you have getting rid of Asian beetles on your mind, I understand. I also want to help; my new article, How to Get Rid of Asian Beetles, is full of tips for keeping these beneficial but pesky insects out of your personal space.

Someone in the forums inspired me to write an article about getting rid of beetles. The question was about Asian beetles. Now, there are a couple of beetles that come up when searching for Asian beetles, but I had no idea how many species of beetles there were. Almost 25% of all known life forms on earth are of the order Coleoptera, which are beetles. Can you believe that? Now, can you believe that I wrote an article about how to get rid of all 350,000 of those species? Well, you’re right. I didn’t. I wrote an article that barely does the topic justice. It’s not a bad article, but it’s limited in its scope–and it has to be. I will say this, though: I covered most of the major beetle pests that plague our houses, gardens, and communities.

This is just the beginning of what I hope will be a six-part series covering the topic of how to get rid of beetles. I have already written an article about lady beetles, and I believe Japanese Beetles are next.

I know we’re starting to move past the gardening season up here in Minnesota and the rest of the north. But hey, just because our gardens are dying out already doesn’t mean the rest of the world is ready to call it quits. Even up here though, we’ve still got our perennials out there and we’d rather not see them become deer hors d’oeuvres. Those walking venison buffets can go find their own fodder. Preferably something that we didn’t spend time and money on. Getting rid of deer is no easy task. Some even say it’s down right impossible to completely get rid of deer. There are ways, however, to put a serious damper on their destructive ways and protect our landscaping. If you’re ready for a little deer deterring know how, I just happen to know where to find it. Check out my latest article: How to Get Rid of Deer.

While I was writing this article, I came to wondering why black flies are called black flies, and why such a fly that is native to regions populated mostly by white people is named such a thing when almost every fly you ever see is black! It got me to thinking about Michael Moore’s film, Bowling for Columbine, and that small part where he talks about fear and the somewhat dubious names given to invasive or pestiferous species of insects–the Africanized honeybee for instance.

Anyway. That’s not why I’m writing to you today. Today I’m here to tell you that I’ve finally finished up the series about flies, ending with and article about getting rid of black flies. It took me a very long time to organize this particular article because it’s not easy to get rid of black flies. It’s very difficult, in fact, and a lot of local governments are spending a lot of tax money dumping BTis (a biological larvicide) into lakes and rivers. Why? Because black flies are terrible little beasties. They’ll scurry up your pant legs and bite you in places I can’t mention here. They’ll even ignore bug repellent altogether, if they’re hungry enough. If enough of them swarm you, and you’re allergic to other bug bites, you may end up breathing one in, causing your bronchial tubes to become irritated, and they close up on you, and then the next thing you know you’re in the emergency room because you fainted during an anaphylactic episode–and, and, and! This is just a hypothetical situation, but it’s a very real one.

And that’s why white people up north are so scared of black flies.

As if you want to read another article about rodents; well, you don’t have much of a choice. We’re talking about chipmunks here, devilish little creatures who will, if given the chance, eat baby birds. You thought I was joking about Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, but I’m not! Chipmunks really will hunt hatchlings and bird eggs when they really need a meal. Who knew? I didn’t. But now we both do! Isn’t the internet a blessing? Well, that’s not the only reason you’re probably wanted to get rid of chipmunks. Chipmunks love bird seed. Chipmunks also love newly planted bulbs. In our article, How to Get Rid of Chipmunks, we’ll teach you how to manage both large and small chipmunk populations.

This article is the last in our series about how to get rid of rodents.

Getting rid of cockroaches is the newest pest control article to be revised with the new layout and design. This time around, I gave the article the research and organization the topic deserved. The get rid of cockroaches article before this one was inadequate to say the least. Here, we cover the five main roaches: American, German, Brownbanded, Oriental, and Smokybrown. The information for each is general, but tailored to the behaviors and preferences of each species. On the right is a comprehensive control regiment that should solve any cockroach problem, no matter where you’re living.

At the moment I’m working on revising the pest control topic page, which will give you easier access to the pest control articles you’re looking for as well as a plethora of online and print resources that should help you solve your bug problem if we can’t.