Get the best of pests: homemade traps for ants and moths

You don't have to live with pests infesting your home. These easy moth and ant traps will help you reclaim your territory.

• Moths dislike the strong fragrance of certain herbs.
• They also avoid cupboards that are regularly aired out, so every once in a while leave your closet or dresser drawers cracked open for a day, and make an herbal repellent.

• 1 small bundle southernwood, camphor, tansy or sweet woodruff
• 1 rubber band
• String
• 1 coat hanger

1. Bind together a small bundle of fresh herbs (one kind or a blend) by fastening a rubber band around the stems.

2. Tie a bundle to an empty coat hanger and hang it in the closet among woolen clothes, or tuck it under drawer-liner paper in a drawer containing woolens.

This sachet containing lavender and elder flowers makes a nice gift, and will also keep your drawers fragrant and moth-free.

• 25 cm (10 in) fine material, such as silk or nylon netting
• Dried lavender flowers
• Dried elder flowers

1. Fold the fabric with right sides together and cut to create a 20 x 20-centimetre (eight x eight-inch) square plus a one centimetre (1/2 inch) seam allowance on all four sides. Sew three seams.

2. Turn the pouch right side out and fill with flowers. Tuck the remaining seams inside and stitch the bag closed by hand.

3. Place in drawers or chests with woolens to repel moths.

Here's an easy, inexpensive way to round up the ants that begin to invade your house each summer.

• 750 ml (3 c) water
• 250 (1 c) sugar
• 20 ml (4 tsp) boric acid
• Cotton balls
• 3 clean 250 ml (8 oz) screw-top jars
• Old-style beer-can opener (that cuts V notches)

1. In a pitcher, mix the water, sugar and boric acid together. Loosely pack the jars half-full of cotton balls and saturate with the solution.

2. Pierce jar lids with the can opener, making two or three holes just large enough to admit ants.

3. Place the baited jars where ants are active, but make sure jars are out of the reach of pets and children. Attracted by the lethal sugar and boric acid mixture, ants will crawl into the traps.