Of all the pests to worry about as homeowners, you’d think the ones that are hard to see with the naked eye would be the least of our concerns. However, if you leave a clover mite infestation unchecked, it could become a serious nuisance to your home, yard, and garden. Knowing how to get rid of clover mites is relatively easy once you research getting rid of clover mites around your home.
If you’re looking for information on how to kill clover mites, you’ve come to the right place. This article is your guide to clover mites, and we answer all your questions pertaining to this nuisance pest like, what does a clover mite look like, and what do clover mites eat?
Don’t freak out if you’ve spotted these small critters around your home. A clover mite problem doesn’t usually require a call to a pest control company. An infestation often disappears after applying some of these methods on how to kill clover mites.
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Table Of Contents
- What Does a Clover Mite Look Like?
- The Life Cycle of Clover Mites
- How to Get Rid of Clover Mites
- How to Kill Clover Mites Manually
- Wash Infected Areas
- Give Your Home a Perimeter Barrier
- Spreading Natural Powders around Your Yard
- Store-Bought Products
- Set Up Sticky Traps
- Preventing a Clover Mite Infestation
- Seal Off All Entryways
- Bathe Your Pets
What Does a Clover Mite Look Like?
Clover mites are arachnids, according to entomology. They are closely related to spider mites but differ in several ways. What does a clover mite look like? Clover mites have a very distinctive appearance compared to other well-known mites.
Adult mites have elongated bodies that are less than a millimeter in length and the size of a pinhead needle in diameter. They have a pair of front legs that point forward and look like antennas.
Young mites are reddish-brown, and they are redder as they mature. Crushing these mites may leave a red stain on your exterior walls, drywall, and window sills.
You may also wonder what do spider mites look like on plants. Many mites have similar characteristics and often, similar remedies are used to eliminate them.
The Life Cycle of Clover Mites
Once clover mites reach sexual maturity, the adults mate, and the females lay up to 70 eggs, allowing their numbers to explode into large populations rather quickly. Eggs are laid during the hottest months of summer and fall.
Once the eggs hatch, the clover or wood mite larvae emerge and feed on plant matter immediately. The nymphs mature into adults after a short 30 days, and they breed with adults to reproduce once more until an infestation occurs.
Eggs of clover mites are found in cracks and crevices along sidewalks, rooftops, concrete, buildings, tree bark, walls, and any other small space or entry points they can find.
The eggs overwinter and hatch in the early spring, so don’t assume that the eggs are dead just because it’s cold outside.
How to Get Rid of Clover Mites
Knowing how to kill clover mites is crucial if you’ve spotted large numbers of these tiny insects hanging around your property. If you’ve noticed a clover mite problem, try one of the following strategies for getting rid of clover mites.
How to Kill Clover Mites Manually
Homeowners initiate control measures with things they already own, like a vacuum cleaner or shop vac. These insects are small, but their bright red color helps you spot them.
Use the vacuum to suck up any mites you spot and thoroughly go over all areas with suspicious activity. Repeat this process as often as necessary. It might not permanently eliminate the problem, but this is one of the easiest ways to kill them.
Wash Infected Areas
Dish soap is a powerful ingredient against a lot of insects, including spider mites. Mix a few drops of dish detergent in a bowl of water.
Soak a sponge in the soapy water and wipe the solution over walls, tables, chairs, concrete, and other areas where you’ve spotted them.
The soap kills them right away and works as a repellent for future mites, as well as being a dust mite repellent. The soap also helps eliminate mildew, which is a primary food source for clover mites.
Give Your Home a Perimeter Barrier
Learning how to get rid of clover mites requires some extra labor but is a fantastic way to prevent them from entering your home and taking over your patio.
Digging a perimeter or moat around your house and filling the hole with pea gravel, mulch, or loose gravel helps deter mites from entering your home and garden. It is also a preferred method because you don’t have to use chemicals.
Spreading Natural Powders around Your Yard
Some products that come in powder form and are safe to use around your home include baby powder, diatomaceous earth, and boric acid.
When learning how to kill clover mites, spread a thin layer of these powders around your house, patio, shrubbery, and ornamental plants using a duster machine. If that doesn’t work, turn them into a homemade deterrent spray.
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DIY Clover Mite Spray
- Boric acid
- Water
- Garden sprayer or spray bottle
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To make this all natural bug spray for plants and home areas, thoroughly mix one part boric acid with three parts water in a spray bottle or garden sprayer. Walk around your home, spraying a perimeter around your home’s exterior, patio, concrete slabs, plants, garden beds, and flower beds.
Boric acid works as a natural insecticide and causes all bugs that come in contact with it to dry up and die. Use boric acid also for getting rid of spider crickets.
You can also mix up an essential oil spray for clover mites or as a home remedy for leaf miners. Neem oil is particularly effective.
Store-Bought Products
Clover mite control becomes even more powerful when you decide to purchase in-store products. There are various aerosol sprays to use for spider mites.
There is also a pesticide that prevents the mites from eating your garden plants and the surrounding landscaping if you’d prefer.
Set Up Sticky Traps
Sticky traps are available for purchase at all local hardware stores and are useful for keeping mites out of specific areas or killing them in areas of high traffic.
Clover mites are unable to crawl, meaning they have to walk over surfaces to get anywhere. Setting up sticky traps in their traffic flow forces them to walk over the tape and get stuck with zero chance of survival.
Preventing a Clover Mite Infestation
Prevention is the most critical course of action for all types of pests. If you’re not sure what measures to take, look through some of the strategies listed here.
Seal Off All Entryways
Keeping spider mites out of your home is even more important than keeping them out of your yard.
Sealing up all cracks and possible entry points with caulk is a cheap but effective way to keep these tiny bugs in your home. Because they are so small, pay close attention to detail when filling cracks.
Bathe Your Pets
One of the sneakiest ways that clover mites make their way into our homes is to lay eggs carried in by pets. Whenever your pets go outside, they run the risk of picking up mites and bringing them into your home.
Clover mites hang out in fields with lots of grass, like at dog parks. If you suspect your pets are bringing clover mites into the house, wash your pets outside with a hose and soap during the summer before allowing them to come inside.
Pest control is always going to be there if things get too out of hand. Clover mite infestations aren’t too common and, when they do happen, most homeowners find that they are one of the most manageable problems to solve.
There are dozens of ways to deter clover mites, so try a few tactics and see which works best at keeping the pests away from your home.
If researching how to get rid of clover mites helped you remove them from your home, share these ways to kill clover mites on Facebook and Pinterest.
