Harper's Household Handbook: A guide to easy ways of doing woman's work

by Martha McCulloch-Williams

For Flies and Mosquitoes: Stop the beginnings. Burn or bury garbage. Spray all possible fly beds well with copperas water daily. Be prodigal of whitewash wherever it will stick. Flush drains well with boiling soda water and use copperas water or carbolic suds to spray earth on which waste water discharges. Keep manure piles covered with fresh earth, also wet daily with copperas water. Set fly traps outdoors wherever the pests congregate. Fill a tumbler two-thirds with suds and lay a cardboard over with a hole in the middle. Smear syrup on the underside for bait. Empty twice a day, burning the drowned flies. Boil together two ounces ground black pepper, four ounces sugar, and a cup of sweet milk, set the syrup shallowly in plates—the flies will do the rest. The mixture kills them, but is harmless to anything else. Oil of lavender sprayed will drive out flies temporarily. So will rose geranium bruised to smell strongly. Screen every opening with wire gauze or cheesecloth, make cheesecloth covers, rounds with wire in the hems, to protect hot food, be diligent with fly paddles, and avoid slopping, also throwing out slops on the ground.

Mosquitoes, say the wise men, are a local issue, bred in standing water. Wherefore leave no water standing, not even a rusty canful. Cover rain barrels with screen wire, pour crude kerosene upon ponds and pools. Begin early, before buds swell. Keep it up until frost. Examine cellars, especially barn cellars. Mosquitoes winter in them. Kill all such lingerers with thick smoke—tobacco smoke or from pyrethrum powder or by touching off a little gunpowder on a plate. Concussion makes the mosquitoes drop; sweep up and burn. Concerted action is imperative. If no man liveth or dieth unto himself, how much less so any man’s crop of mosquitoes! Screens and smoke from punk sticks, pyrethrum, and dry pennyroyal are the best weapons against attack. Oil of pennyroyal likewise helps. Smear lightly on forehead, hands, and arms before going to sleep. Wilting leaves of the stately castor bean, also tender branches, hung about will drive out mosquitoes.

Fleas harbor in light litter—hay, straw, leaves, most of all shed hair. Flea-bearing animals have each their own species, which fight to the death. There are also sand fleas. Fight with fire, smoke, water, oil of pennyroyal, and fresh black-walnut leaves. Sprinkle kerosene on the litter suspected; sweep up and burn. Oil sand beds likewise, else drench with copperas water. Wet manure heaps with bichloride solution or bisulphide of mercury. Gather walnut leaves in armfuls and crowd them into places unsafe for oil or fire, as under piazzas, bungalow floors, or low sheds. Put them also about rooms where fleas abound, tied in thick bunches, and laid under beds or in closets. Gasolene where safe is a mighty help. Paint floors and baseboard with it, in default of bichloride solution. Painting with turpentine is also fairly effective. Success is impossible, however, unless the flea-fighting extends to animals as well.

Bed Bugs: Bed bugs demand eternal vigilance, especially in apartments. Make bedrooms and closets as nearly as possible bug proof by washing, after cleaning thoroughly, with bichloride solution, then filling every crack, cranny, and crevice with soft putty. Lay a thin rope of putty along the baseboard on the floor and crowd down upon it quarter-round molding cut to fit. Nail fast, and paint to match the baseboard. This is an effectual seal for dividing wall on a common floor. Set collars of the stiffest putty around steam pipes where they go in and out. Renew them as often as they crack and crumble, but do not trust to them entirely. Examine everything monthly—bed, furnishings, chairs, boxes, the backs of pictures, books, and stacked papers. Paper in mass is a favorite lurking place. Have white slips for mattresses; remove, turn, examine seams, and wet corners with bichloride. Paint the mattress over lightly with bichloride; it neither stains nor smells. Wipe the bedstead and springs with a cloth wet in it, and drench crannies unwipable. Wipe the backs of pictures and of dressers, in fact, any sheltered and static space. Wipe the floor with bichloride, if bare, and wax or oil afterward. Sprinkle a carpet or rugs well with bichloride, then sweep with a broom dipped in very hot water. Empty closets, wipe over, examine all accumulations of paper, boxes, etc. A bug overlooked will in a month’s space infest a whole house. Couches of rattan, wicker, or upholstered are strongholds of the blood-suckers. Set in air and drench with benzine or gasolene, leave standing a day, and drench again, shaking, brushing, and beating between drenchings.

Wicker clothes hampers and baskets, also baby carriages, are other strongholds. Scald hampers and baskets with boiling-hot soda water, then paint over with turpentine and a little sweet oil. Use gasolene on the carriages, applying with a thick brush rather than drenching. Repeat twice in succession, wash everything washable, and sun for a week.

Moths: Moths in upholstered things must be got rid of the same as bed bugs (see preceding paragraph). Clean rugs thoroughly, spray on both sides with gasolene or strong black-pepper tea, sun well, then roll up between newspapers, tie fast, wrap spirally with stiff paper, fold ends neatly, slip over them paper bags fitting accurately, paste down edges, paste a strip of paper over the edge of the wrapping. Clean heavy coats with gasolene or benzine, crowd newspaper into the sleeves, crumple more newspaper thickly over the hanger, fasten the coat, slip over it a bag of pasted newspapers, pass the hanger hook up through it, crumple the paper tight around the shank and tie, then fold over the bottom of the paper several times, and fasten with stout wire clips. Moth balls may be slipped in coat pockets, but will hardly be needed if they are hung in a light place.

Store and protect tailor suits much the same. After cleaning fold the skirt belt in six and fasten with a big safety pin to lower bend of the hanger shank, then slip on its newspaper bag and fasten. Put on the coat, then over all a bigger newspaper bag. Put inside wisps of cotton tied up in net, and wet with oil of cedar. One-piece cloth frocks should be hung the same as long coats, but have the skirts folded upward over a roll of newspapers about midway and pinned or basted to the waist. Store fur coats the same way after cleaning and sunning for several days. Put mothaline bags outside over those of newspaper and sachets of sandalwood in the sleeves. If moths have touched them before storing, lay them for several days on a slat tray in a trunk with a big sponge saturated in gasolene below. Keep the trunk outside and shut tight; gasolene vapor ought to kill the moth eggs. Clean small furs as muffs, tippets, cuffs, sun, sew up tight in old linen, sprinkle well with black-pepper tea, then wrap in newspaper, wipe out their boxes with a cloth dipped in gasolene, put in the wrapped furs, wrap boxes, and slip in paper bags, then fold and paste together the bag ends. If no moth nor egg was inside none will come out.

Fine things, such as camel’s-hair shawls, moth-infested should be brushed and sunned, then wrapped in clean linen, over that thick wet towels, over that paper, and laid in a hot oven until the paper scorches. This is equal to superheated steam for moth and egg destruction, but does no harm to the finest fabric. Sew up in linen and store same as small furs. Steam is also sovereign for moths in carpets where it is unsafe to use gasolene or benzine. Cover the infected spots with thick wet towels, letting them lie a good bit over and iron first around the edges, then all over with blazing-hot irons, changing them as they cease to hiss. Repeat at weekly intervals for a month. After ironing go along the edges, wetting the carpet well with bichloride solution. A carpet to be stored should be sprayed with gasolene after cleaning, then folded over double newspapers, and sprayed at each doubling over with black-pepper tea. A long, narrow bag of moth balls in the deepest fold adds something to insect insurance. Store in light and off the floor. A discarded bed spring is fine to lay such things on. Stand rolled rugs on end if not too long, and a little apart.

A Blanket Box: Make blankets clean and whole, fold in three, lengthwise, roll up over a core of moth balls, sew in old linen, and pack. Fill all crevices in a big packing-case with putty or plaster wet with egg, paper with plain manila paper, let dry, then paint the paper with oil of cedar. Give two coats. Put over the bottom a sachet of cedar twigs or shavings laid on wadding and tacked between cheesecloth. Pack blankets and woolens on this, tucking smaller cedar sachets into crevices, also moth balls tied in cheesecloth. Put in white things first, lay paper over them, then pack colored ones. Cover with another cedar sachet, tuck paper snugly over it, then shut—the top must be hinged on—and paste paper over the edges. As long as it is unbroken the contents are safe.

Where storage space is lacking use a box couch, making sure with bichloride and gasolene that neither moth nor bed bug lurks inside. Use oil of lavender and pine twigs rather than cedar, omit the sealing with paper, but examine now and then; if you discover the enemy do not halt until he is forever and completely yours.