Keep Pests Out Of Your Kitchen With The Leftovers Of Your Morning Brew

Do you enjoy a good cup of coffee in the morning? At noon? Way too late in the day? You aren't alone. We love coffee and sometimes coffee loves us back. Coffee has powers we're only beginning to understand, so why not keep brewing those cups? (Within moderation, of course.) Now, if you're drinking multiple cups of coffee a day, you're probably also generating a lot of coffee grounds. Stop washing coffee grounds down the drain and start saving them for pest control. That's right: You can use leftover coffee grounds as a pest control method. All you need are the coffee grounds you used for your morning cup.

What you want to do is take the coffee grounds, make sure they're nice and dry, and sprinkle them around your plants and at entry points where bugs may meander. If you have any particular problem places where bugs seem to congregate, go ahead and sprinkle some there. You can even burn coffee grounds to repel mosquitoes by placing dry grounds in a bowl or on a flat surface and burning them like incense. Coffee grounds don't repel every type of bug out there, but they do work on ants, snails, slugs, worms, some beetles, and other creepy-crawlies which no one wants in their kitchen.

So, what about coffee grounds makes them so repugnant to the pests you so desperately want out of the house? Basically, it boils down to the nitrogen content in coffee. Nitrogen is slightly toxic to these insects, creating a natural repellent when they run into it. On top of that, the delectable scent of coffee which so many humans adore is an absolute deal-breaker to tons of bugs. They'll swerve anything that smells too strongly of the stuff. When burning coffee grounds, the scent becomes even stronger and less bearable. On top of being a natural repellent, it can also mask any smells the bugs might find attractive so they won't be as likely to stick around and try making a buffet out of your kitchen.

Coffee grounds are good to have on hand in general, even setting aside the pest control. You can banish kitchen odors with leftover coffee grounds, use them to make delicious treats like chocolate chip cookies or chocolate muffins, and use them as a nutrient-dense addition to compost. So, stop throwing them away and start using them to keep your kitchen free of pests and smelling fresh; repping your coffee addiction with pride.