Miller Moths

[mffarmall]

One day you see two, the next their are 50. How do you keep them away from your house. Not inside but outside:

Ideas:

Yellow bug lights to help not attract them
cut grass and weeds
moth balls in garden/ helps with snakes
bug zapper move around house to get numbers down
power wash brick side of house to get smell off
cider wood by doors.

Any other ideas or changes to list that really work?

[Pat]

Like moths to a flame, moths are attracted to LIGHTS. Turn your lights off and they will not gather at your house. Alternatively, place much brighter lights some distance from your house to give them a better target. Use low wattage bug lights in your porch lights or better yet turn them off. Don't put bug zappers next to the house but out a ways to attract the bugs away from the house and kill them there.

Male moths will come from miles away following thte scent of a female moth (pheremones don't you know?) so you don't want to attract and kill female moths near you house and have males come from miles away followinf the scent trail looking for them.

A good strategy is to put up GOOD blackout curtains to prevent your indoor lighting from attracting the critters and then use lightsout a ways from the house if you really need to illuminate a yard.

Some loss prevention experts claim that NOT LIGHTING THE NIGHT so as to be invisible at night is as or more effective in a rural area for security purposes. A good compromise is motion detector lights. You'll get plenty of "detection events" from such critters as coons etc that will set the lights off but you can adjust the lights to go out fairly soon after the detected motion ceases so bug attraction is minimized while still making potential thieves uncomfortable.

And finally... isn't one of the reasons you moved out in the country was to be closer to or to be able to observe nature or some such reason? Bright lights tend to spoil your own environment as well as that of others. There is all together too much light polution. Too many outdoor light fixtures waste much of the expensive electricity running them by allowing much of the light to go out sideways or up into the sky instead of staying where you you need it.

www.darkskysociety.org This site is worth a visit.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[mffarmall]

That's a good idea about the lights and about the moths. I can see how a male would come for miles.