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Most people have an exaggerated hatred of insects. In particular people who live in towns and cities. People who live in the country are a little more tolerant of them. But why are we like that with insects?

Why are we forever squashing them and poisoning them? Ok, we do not like to share our homes with them, I think that is fair enough, but I also think that we go too far usually.

As an alternative to just destroying them on sight, it may be better to try to prevent them getting into the house in the first place. A lot of people seem to assume that all insects are troublesome, but this is simply not the case.

Just imagine how many more flies we would have flying around us and settling on our food, if it were not for spiders, but I do not know anybody who really likes spiders. They do not appear to receive a lot of credit for doing a good job. We are on the same side against flies.

But then flies help to speed up the decomposing of dead animals as well. Their maggots eat the decomposing flesh of dead animals, which keeps infection and bad smells under control.

Ants do the same for dead insects and cockroaches do it for scraps of food left lying about. I have not discovered a good reason for mosquitoes, fleas or ticks yet though.

One thing is for certain, this congenital or learned hatred or fear of insects does not do the makers of pesticides any damage money-wise.

Perhaps it is time to take a step back from our paranoia about insects. It is well past time to become more judicious in our slaughter of insects.

For example, when you spray your gorgeous rose bushes with a chemical insecticide, you would like to get rid of greenfly (aphids), but you are also destroying the ants, the ladybirds, the spiders and possibly any bees or butterflies that come to feed and pollinate. Whereas, if you had sprayed the bushes with old, filtered washing up water, you would only have killed the greenfly.

Where would we all be if everyone killed all the pollinators? Cropless? In fact, the shortage of bees is already a global crisis. Although the reason for their rapidly declining numbers is not fairly clear, it will not help having their immune system or nervous system attacked by the deposit of pesticides whenever they take a drink of nectar.

Similarly with butterflies. Gardeners do not like caterpillars, but everyone like butterflies and where would we be without them? In a far duller place, I am sure.

Some species of wasps kill thousands of caterpillars. so, it is better to encourage them rather than kill the caterpillars yourself with a nuclear bomb of a chemical spray.

Some handy natural ways of controlling insects are the use of washes containing Neem, Tobacco or Pyrethrum. These natural treatments deter them in small doses but will kill if used in a strong mixture.

Look out for products containing them and read the directions judiciously to see if they suit your requirements. Borax will help control insect pests that consume their way around your household and so will corn flour.

There are numerous ways that people can become more selective whilst attacking insects. The main problem is that it is much easier to go get a spray, but if you do some research, you will find loads of methods of attacking insects with natural insecticides.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on numerous subjects, but is currently involved with Insect Removal. If you want to know more, please go over to our website now at Pest Management at Home.

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