The common indoor bugs we see anywhere in the world are flies, spiders, fleas and beetles. No-one likes to see insects indoors, so most people go to almost any extremes to get rid of these common indoor bugs. Less common indoor bugs may be woodlice, earwigs, scorpions and millipedes or centipedes, although they are no less unwelcome.

It does not matter where you live in the world, it can be very hard to keep these common indoor bugs outside, unless you go to the extremes of keeping all your windows and doors shut all of the time, which is quite impossible. I live in Thailand and I know that this is not an option.

So, what on Earth can you do? Well, let’s deal with all the flying bugs first, because of all the common indoor bugs, I find them the most unpleasant indoor bug. They are very annoying, buzzing around your head and mosquitoes and other flies can create irritating sores and besides that, all flies spread disease. I hate to see them strutting about on food, knowing that they have probably just come off some dung heap somewhere and now they are spitting on my food to taste it with their stinking feet!

My first line of defence is fine-mesh door and widow screens. They are not dear and can be added retrospectively to any window. My window meshes slide, so they can cover only one half of a window at a time, but I do not find that a problem. You can still set up cross-winds, by opening two or more windows at opposing sides of a room. I just love to see the flies on the mesh trying to get in by day and the mosquitoes doing the same by night. At night, it is wise to burn as little light indoors as possible so as not to attract these common indoor insects.

My second line of defence is natural predators – lizards, like Geckos (Jin Jok, in Thai). Some people don’t like them in the house much either and I can’t say that I’m all that keen on them indoors myself, but they are difficult to keep outside and they do consume hundreds, if not thousands, of indoor bugs every day. I particularly like to see them lying in wait on the outside of the mesh, ready to jump on any bug trying to struggle its way through the wires.

My third line of defence is an indoor bug zapper. You know, the electric, handheld bug zapper that looks like a child’s tennis racquet. The come in two forms: battery and rechargeable kinds. They are brilliant at trapping and destroying any flying bug. The bug literally explodes and vaporizes on contact with the fully-charged wires of the indoor bug zapper. If you haven’t tried using one, you really ought to. They are most gratifying. These three defences will keep your house pretty much free of flying insects.

The crawling common indoor bugs are not so much of a problem really. Door screens on springs will keep 99% of them out and the Geckos will help too. Spiders can get in fairly easily, but then, I don’t mind them too much as long as they keep away from me, as they eat other insects too. They are on our side to be honest. However, for those who can not bear to trap them and put them outside, the handheld indoor bug zapper works well on spiders too.

Sometimes, Fleas can be a problem, if you keep cats or dogs, but then if you wash or dust the animal once a month, you should be able to keep these common indoor bugs under control quite easily. However, there are two final methods that we employ. Every week, before we go out for the day, we spray every room with fly killer and every six-months we spray any rugs or carpets with an insect killer containing permethrin, which will survive washing and vacuuming for that long without losing its ability to kill common indoor bugs on contact. If you follow these methods, you should be able to keep your home or office quite free of the most common indoor bugs and the less common indoor bug as well.

Have you ever heard of an indoor bug zapper? If you haven’t, or if you want to get an indoor bug zapper, please click one of the links to our website or blog. Also published at Common Indoor Bugs.