Central Florida Green Guide

Have a problem with bugs and just don’t know what to do? If you’re searching for a more natural, eco-friendly way to get rid of the little critters that you don’t want in your home and yard, then you must have a copy of Bug Busters by Bernice Lifton in your personal library of how-to books.

Bug Busters:  Poison-Free Pest Controls for Your House and Garden is now in its third edition, a sort of testimonial to how effective the advice is in this fact-filled book.

With nearly 300 pages, there’s a lot of reading to be done with this book and it’s filled with research and facts and helpful tips.  The easiest way to digest it is to pick your problem, read that chapter and keep the book on hand for future questions.

Bug Busters starts with chapters explaining why it’s so important to choose non-chemical pest control options for your home and garden.  I appreciated the matter-of-fact explanations of how insecticides are damaging our environment and our health, and then the common sense guidelines that clearing clutter and storing food properly, as well as other simple and helpful tips, should always be your first line of defense….not a bottle of Raid.

Bug Busters then goes on to profile each category of bugs that most people are searching to get rid of.  The list includes:

• Cockroach
• Food Bugs
• Flies
• Rats and Mice
• Mosquitoes
• Fleas and Ticks
• Lice and Bedbugs
• Moths, Carpet Beetles and Silverfish
• Termites and Carpenter Ants
• Plant Pests

Each chapter explains a little more about the pest, characteristics of their problems, then ways to either Shut Them Out (preventing the pest from coming in in the first place), Starve Them Out (eliminating what the pests thrive on) or Wipe Them Out (how to eliminate the survivors).

And even though this book is about chemical-free pest controls, Lifton does realize that sometimes you do need to actually use a toxic form of pest control to take care of some problems if more natural remedies don’t work.  She highlights these controls in a special section so that you know you are reading about toxic pest control options and what the pros and cons might be.

If you’ve got pests, and you don’t want your family or pets to suffer negative health effects from toxic pest controls, Bug Busters is a great resource of earth-friendly, family-friendly, non-toxic ways to control the critters that might be invading your home and garden.

Kimberly Button is a green consultant with greenWell, an eco-wellness company that helps families create healthier, non-toxic homes by providing eco-wellness house calls, green nursery consultations, in-home presentations and professional speaking engagements.