To Keep out Mosquitoes and Bats
If a bottle of the oil of pennyroyal is left uncorked in a room at night, not a mosquito, nor any other blood-sucker, will be found there in the morning. Mix potash with powdered meal, and throw it into the rat-holes of a cellar, and the rats will depart. If a rat or a mouse get into your pantry, stuff into its hole a rag saturated with a solution of cayenne pepper, and no rat or mouse will touch the rag for the purpose of opening communication with a depot of supplies.
Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette
A Safe Rat and Mouse Poison
Take two pounds corn meal and one pound Plaster of Paris.
Mix thoroughly and place where they congregate.
The above is very effective and is less dangerous than any other I know of.
Source: Tested Formulas and Useful House and Farm Recipes, T. Kenny
Filed under Remedy | Tags: corn, corn meal, cornmeal, kenny, mouse, plaster, plaster of paris, poison, rat, rodent | Comment (0)To destroy Cockroaches, Ants, and other household Vermin
Hellebore, rubbed over with molasses, and put round the places that cockroaches frequent, is a very effectual poison for them. Arsenic, spread on bread and butter, and placed round rat or mouse holes, will soon put a stop to their ravages. Quicksilver and the white of an egg, beat together, and laid with a feather round the crevices of the bedsteads and the sacking, is very effectual in destroying bugs in them. To kill flies, when so numerous as to be troublesome, keep cobalt, wet with spirit, in a large shallow plate. The spirit will attract the flies, and the cobalt will kill them very soon. Black pepper is said to be good to destroy them — it should be mixed, so as to be very strong, with a little cream and sugar. Great care is necessary in using the above poisons, where there are any children, as they are so apt to eat any thing that comes in their way, and these poisons will prove as fatal to them as to vermin, (excepting the pepper.) The flour of sulphur is said to be good to drive ants away, if sprinkled round the places that they frequent. Sage is also good. Weak brine will kill worms in gravel walks, if kept moist with it a week in the spring, and three or four days in the fall.
Source: The American Housewife