4. ANNOYING CREATURES
Ants.—Powdered borax sprinkled on shelves and along baseboards and door sills will keep ants away.
Ants will not walk over broad, thick chalk lines. Such lines drawn round boxes and jars some distance above the shelf or floor on which they stand will protect them from ants.
Ants and other crawling insects may be kept out of a cupboard which stands on legs, if its legs are set in bowls or cans of water.
To wash cupboards and shelves with a strong solution of alum and water (1 lb. to 2 qts.) is a protection against any kind of insect.
Mice.—An excellent defense against mice is a velvet-footed, self-possessed, Epicurean Philosopher in the shape of a cat.
Traps are good if one may not have a cat.
Seek diligently for holes large enough to admit mice and have them stopped. If you discover one unexpectedly and have nothing else at hand, thrust a piece of yellow soap into the hole. I have not yet found among mice the counterpart of the gentleman who cleaned his teeth with yellow soap for the sake of self-discipline.
Poison is a poor expedient for ridding the house of mice. Whatever may be said in the advertisements, poisoned rats and mice frequently die in the walls or in the cellar and make life miserable in the neighbourhood.
It is with reluctance that I suggest attacks upon mice. I must hasten to finish them, for a little later in the evening a tiny, palpitating, silken, gray ball with bright eyes will come and sit on my desk and eat crumbs. What if he should sit down on this page and see what my housewifely conscience compels me to write, but not always to act upon!
Moths.—Gum-camphor, tar-camphor, turpentine, pepper, a large collection of patent substances, extreme cold and extreme heat are all objectionable to moths.
Ways of packing articles to protect them from moths have been given in the chapter on house cleaning.
Careful sweeping and dusting, and frequent airing of clothing and hangings are excellent and natural preventatives of moths.
Water-bugs and cockroaches.—Keep places where they congregate dry and clean. Practically all the well-known roach foods and roach salts effectually prevent these creatures, but none are effectual in places which are allowed to be dirty or damp.
Bedbugs.—If a housewife has ever had the least trouble with these creatures there is one warning to take to heart and constantly obey: Watch! Complete extermination is extremely difficult. Sometimes after two or three years of absence they appear again. Besides there is always danger that they may be brought into the house from a street car or a laundry or some such place.
If one finds a few of these creatures, apply creosote, or corrosive sublimate, or some patent poison to the bed or cracks where they were found. Apply the poison with a feather or a squirt. Be sure to mark the bottles containing it with the word "Poison" and keep them where they will not easily be found by others than the housewife.
If one makes the horrifying discovery that a room is really infested with these creatures, then indeed one must fight hard and unceasingly. Paint and varnish are a great help in such cases. If the room is papered, remove the paper, fill every crack first with poison, then with plaster of Paris. Paint or calcimine the walls instead of papering them again. Fill every crack in the woodwork with putty, have a moulding put over the place where the baseboards meet the floor, and paint or varnish all the woodwork so thick that there are no cracks. Wash the bed and the furniture in the room and varnish all their underneath and unfinished parts. Then, every day when the room is put in order, seek these flat, brown creatures everywhere.