Our house was built in 1949. That’s the same year Harry Truman became president, Orwell published 1984, and still about 20 years before central air conditioning became common in new home builds. No amount of renovations will change the fact that our house was built when people just assumed they would live with nature instead of try to keep it out.

For the last several years I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep bugs out of my house, kill the ones that do get in, annihilate every mosquito within 10 miles of my house, all without killing off bees, butterflies, and other pollinators or exposing my kids to unnecessarily risky toxins.

Here is what I’ve come up with so far.