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.
5. BURNS AND STINGS
Keep in the kitchen a few soft, old white rags for wrapping burns, cuts, bruises and other injuries. Keep also for these hurts a bottle containing two teaspoonfuls of borax dissolved in one quart of water; or two ounces boracic acid dissolved in one quart of water. Either of these mixtures is healing, soothing and antiseptic. Always wrap burns; air aggravates them. Keep them wet with one of these solutions and the pain will soon be allayed. Wrap burned fingers separately, or they will stick together.
An excellent remedy for scalds is always at hand in the kitchen—the flour dredger. Cover the scalded place thick with flour and keep it covered.