Varmints and Crawly Things

Controlling the Little Pests

One of the most difficult challenges for the Canadian housewife during the Victorian Era, both in town and rural homes, was the control of bugs and other vermin.  Most almanacs and domestic magazines and books offered advice, and the 'de-bugging' of a home became a preoccupation.

One of the most common househeld pest was the bedbug, which had almost reached epidemic proportion, brought over on the many immigrant ships, and finding new homes in the comfort of a straw or feather bed.  The Cook Not Mad, published in Kingston, Ontario in 1831, offered this advice: "To keep clear of Buggs for one night. Take the leaves of Kidney Beans and lay them under your Bolster, it will draw all the Buggs to them. To get entirely quit of them, rub all the Bedstead with Spirits of Turpentine". Or... "Take the white of four eggs, ten cents worth of quicksilver, put them into a bowl, beat them until perfect froth, take a feather and dip in and apply it to every part of your bedstead where bugs ever conceal themselves, do this but once a year, and you will never see a bedbug in your house".  Or from The White House Cookbook, published in Toronto in 1899:  "Take Varnish and thoroughly paint your bedstead, ten cents' worth will do for one bedstead, easily used and safe, the application must, however, be thorough, the slats, sides, and every crack and corner receiving attention".

To Keep Free From Vermin The Ladies Receipt Book - 1847

CRICKETS - "Scotch snuff upon the holes where they come out of or powdered arsenic on a roasted apple." BEETLES -  "use the paring's of cucumber near their holes." CATERPILLARS - "put a tallow candle in storage trunks."

RATS AND MICE - "use a trap, or a good cat is the best remedy or equal quantities of old cheese and hemlock will poison them but this renders the house liable to the inconvenience of a bad smell." MOTHS - "use pepper, red cedar chips,tobacco or indeed any strong spicy smell but nothing is so good as camphor." ANTS - "put green sage in the closet or grease a plate with lard and set it where they are troublesome, then place a few sticks around the plate for the ants to climb upon."

Flies were kept under control by placing saucers around the room with a mixture of cream, brown sugar and black pepper, and cedar boughs hung from the ceiling were a common fly trap. Travellers kept muslin bags filled with pennroyal to ward off fleas, or used heavy perfume to ward off just about anything (or anyone). If a bee or wasp was accidentally swallowed, the cure was a drink of salty water.  If the bees swarmed around your head, the smoke from a cigarette or pipe would deter them, and the little guys would buzz away hacking and coughing. (Not really, but that image does come to mind).

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