Homemade Bug Killer: Fun with Spray Guns

If there’s one thing upon which all humans should agree it is this: bugs are the enemy! Did you know that the most deadly animal on Earth is not a predator, or a hungry, hungry hippo, but a bug: mosquitoes kill more people every year by spreading malaria than all the attacks by every other animal on the planet yearly combined? This is not to villainize all bugs; after all, our ecology would collapse without bugs and most insects and arachnids are actually very beneficial to humans by eating the more troublesome bugs, pollinating our crops and producing honey. But while the good bugs are doing that, the bad ones are stinging, biting or otherwise annoying us and always getting into our food. Recognizing that few bugs carry bacteria or viruses that can cause health problems, are high in protein and in some cases don’t taste bad at all, it’s still disgusting.

Infestations of the home can only be treated by professionals. There are many methods of insect eradication, some of which even smell good (orange oil works like crazy on termites and leaves your home smelling wonderfully citrusy), all of which require vacating the premises during the treatment. This article does not concern such wide scale infestations. But even homes that are not infested can have an aggravating number of buzzing pests, and if you’re like me, you want them as dead as a doornail. Many insect repellant sprays are toxic to humans; even the ones that aren’t often have powerfully unpleasant odors that can hang around for hours. My spray is safe and has a strong odor that leaves your place smelling like a doctor’s office—but only briefly, because my bug repellant is alcohol, and that stuff evaporates very quickly.

Here’s what you do: go buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol (what type doesn’t matter; just remember not to drink the stuff), then buy an empty spray bottle (like those used to mist house plants) and pour the former into the latter. Buy a spray bottle with an adjustable stream (I think this is available on all types), then have at the bugs.

A narrow stream is perfect for crawling insects and arachnids: you can have target practice from the comfort of your own seat will slaughtering bugs in your free time. Flying insects are harder to hit with a stream, even when they land, because if you miss, they fly off and hide. So adjust the bottle to mist, preferably not a fine mist because that will only travel a foot or two, but a combination of mist and stream that will carry a ways. If the bug flies to escape, it will fly through the mist.

I have no proof of this, but I believe that alcohol makes bugs suffocate. All bugs respire passively through miniscule holes in their carapaces (the shells), rather than breath in and out with lungs. If these holes become clogged, the bug smothers. If you are one who feels guilt very easily, don’t try this, because considering the death spasms that wrack sprayed bugs, it’s not an easy or painless death… but the little bugger sure do die, and that’s what matters.

This should work on all sizes of insect. But keep in mind that if a three foot-long scorpion comes after you it’ll take one hell of a lot of alcohol to kill the thing, so run like hell!