Is the use of Raid insect spray any good?

Factual Questions
1

What is the best way for me to try to fight the insect population in my home?

First and foremost, I try to keep my home clean. In my experience, nothing seems to attract insects like dirty floors and garbage that has not been cleaned up. But, once all the garbage is removed and the home is fairly clean, what kind of product is best for me to use in order to keep my home insect free?

Are spray insecticides the best? Or is there some other kind of product that works as well or better and may be safer for my health?

I have always used Raid and other similar products. But lately, I am concerned that since it is produced by a large chemical corporation, maybe there might be some alternative that just might be safer. Would anyone have an opinion on this? I’d love to know if I might be missing out on a better product.

Moreover, could it be that insect sprays are themselves, a bad choice? Could there be a better choice? Better for my health? Better for the health of the planet? Better overall from an ecological point of view?

I have never researched this issue and I would truly love to know the answers to this question. Thank you all very much in advance.

2

Diatomacious Earth. Put it behind and under things, can be swept/vacuumed up and reapplied. If your baseboards are a little above the floor, it can be swept under those, too. Sometimes just spreading it around for a couple weeks and then vacuuming it all up lasts for a while. I used to get ants in the kitchen - used the DE and those little borax trap thingies and worked for two years at a time. Silverfish in the bedroom around the windowsills, the DE worked on those. Centipedes and spiders, while they’re still around here and there, they’re not nearly as populous as when I first moved in. Plus, they’re beneficial so I haven’t gone after them with any verve. When I spotted a cockroach, I let the professional come in and place that bait paste in and under the cabinets, and I also did a light dusting of DE in the cabinets which the professional approved. Haven’t seen any since.

3

Find where they are coming in. Seal it with latex caulk or spray foam insulation or whatever else is appropriate.

What insect species is/are bothering you? Ant trails can be disrupted with vinegar.

We should all be aware of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder and be very careful with insecticides. Neonicotinoid insecticides were connected to BCCD by a Harvard study released in May.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/study-strengthens-link-between-neonicotinoids-and-collapse-of-honey-bee-colonies/

Neonicotinoids include acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam.

If you use an insecticide read and follow the directions!!!

4

You have to be specific about insects.

I use Raid’s spray for bees on my deck and their spray for spiders around my foundation. Those are two different sprays. For ants, my parents use Raid traps, and I have too.

For fruit flies, I’ve never used a spray. Just get rid of trash, lysol the can, keep perishables in the fridge and put out a trap of vinegar and dish soap. I can’t imagine how or why to use a Raid spray against them.

5

Forgot to mention we need bees to pollinate food crops. We would all get stung if the bees disappeared.

6

I hear they have a lot of opinions in IMHO.

7

Mostly, they are flying insects. Not flies. Much smaller than flies. I’ve got really good screens on my windows and in order for them to get past the screens, they have to be extremelly small. They are less than about ten percent of the size of a fly and they fly very slowly - until I try to swat them - and then, they seem to have excellent reflexes and avoid getting swatted.

8

Thanks. But I thought this was more of a factual question.

9

I don’t like insect poisons. Especially the sprays. They smell bad, even the “perfumed” ones (in fact, I think it’s the “perfume” that smells bad), and I never really trusted that they’re safe for me either.

When I lived way out here (photo), where they have a name for rain and wind and fire, there were flying and crawling insects and other little critters galore. My choice was to just live with them, with certain exceptions.

There were Argentine ants by the bazillions all around, but they only rarely came inside. When they did, I used Terro II, a liquid syrup type of bait. The ants glommed onto it and it took really good care of them (for certain values of “took really good care”).

There were carpenter ants around who also didn’t come inside much. Once I left a squished cockroach on a paper towel on the kitchen counter. A few hours later, there was a trail of carpenter ants going to that. Fast forward a few more hours, and they were gone – cockroach carcass and all. There was nothing left but a little hole in the paper towel where the roach had been.

So good on the carpenter ants! They came with a defined mission (Cockroach carcass! Yum!), did their thing with it (munch munch) and then they left. Well done!

There were swarms of tiny flying moths and other winged critters that mostly came in at night. My solution: Leave a light on in the living room at night, so they all flew out of the bedroom and left me alone.

There were also field mice rather regularly. I put snap-traps in several places, mostly underneath, and inspected them regularly and replaced as needed. Once, though, there was one mouse who somehow got wise to snap-traps and refused to take the bait. As much as I hated to do it, I eventually resorted to a glue trap to catch that one, which succeeded. Poor mouse. It got its whole belly side stuck all the way to the very point of its chin. When I picked it up, it was still alive and it looked up at me with a looked that just seemed to be begging me: Oh please, kind monster raptor or whatever you are, just kill me and eat me right now and put me out of my misery!

OTOH, once a mouse died under the bathroom sink. Usually, dead mice just dry up. This one, however, putrefied and stank up the whole place. I had to sop it up with a whole bunch of paper towels, maggots and all, and douse the whole shelf with bleach and let it soak.

Don’t even get me started about the time a squirrel, or something, died somewhere under the floor.

10

You have fruit flies. Are you spraying them with Raid??

See the last sentence in my last post. You gotta trap them, and also remove their food source. Store all your food that might be on the counter in the fridge until they are gone.

11

These flying insects seem a lot like fruit flies to me. But I can’t be certain. They usually appear only when I buy some cantelope or watermelon and leave the rinds in the garbage for a few hours before I take them out.

That’s it. Just a few hours in the garbage and I get these flies. I never imagined they could be so effective. They have a real good intelligence system if they can come in after only a few hours of the fruit rinds being in the garbage.

12

OK. I think you are correct. I thank you very much.

13

Gnats? No-see-ums? Moths? As I noted above, I had swarms of itty bitty teeny tiny moths. They get in around the edges of the screens. I got some masking tape or duck tape and taped up around the edges of the screens, and that cut the numbers down considerably. (It definitely kept all the ducks out.)

I’ll repeat also: Keep a light on at night in some room away from your bedroom (with doors open in between), and the flying insects will head there instead of harassing you in your bedroom at night.

Did I mention the little green tree frogs that were all over everything when I first moved in there? You would not belieeeeeeeeve how LOUD those little buggers are when they croak! And then, when you hear one croaking in the middle of the night, shaking the plaster out of the ceiling, just try finding where it is!

There was also a creek just 40 feet away, just brimming with regular frog tadpoles in the spring. Apparently only a scant few of them survive to become adult frogs, and apparently most of those hop away to someplace elsewhere. They never came inside, but made a lot of noise until they all eventually went away.

14

Then why did you ask for opinions?:confused:

15

Indeed.

16

Yeah, them’s sounding like fruit flies fer sure.

Their eggs are already in and all over the melon and banana rinds when you bring them home from the store, I believe.

Solution: Put ALL your wet garbage (fruit cores and rinds, steak trimmings, bones, plate scrapings, etc.) in a plastic bag and keep in the freezer until garbage day. Then tie the bag shut and put it, bag and all, into the trash can. Save all your empty plastic bread bags, they are ideal for this.

I’ve been doing this for years and years. I learned it from my folks. It works absolutely well!

17

One man’s opinion is another man’s absolute God-given inviolable eternal TRUTH!

Don’t knock the eternal verities. They might be right.

18

I do this, too. Keeps other bugs, especially houseflies, at bay as well.

I do put fruit on the counter. Can’t do anything else with bananas, and some needs to ripen before I refrigerate it. For the occasions where it’s ripe enough to attract fruit flies before I get it into the fridge, I keep a jar with apple cider vinegar on the kitchen table. Plastic wrap over top with a rubber band and a few holes punched in, and no fruit flies. Well, they show up, but apparently that apple cider vinegar is much more attractive than the fruit. I keep a sheet of paper wrapped around it so the flies in vinegar graveyard isn’t easily visible when sitting at the table.

19

Because opinions, good ones at least, can be based on facts; based on what (little) information is available.

I assumed he wasn’t asking for wild or uninformed guesses but rather for the informed opinion of those with some experience or knowledge. What did you think?

Are you less confused now?

Jeez.

ETA: GQ is an absolutely appropriate forum when you want knowledgeable opinion (IMO)

In any case, “opinion” doesn’t imply that the answer isn’t based on fact.

20

Really.

You don’t think this is asking for opinions?