Effective Ways to Keep Bugs Away From Porch Lights

This page is a general DIY article that explains several successful methods for keeping bugs, such as flies, away from your porch lights at night. Here, you can find detailed control guides for various pests you might encounter around your porch light at night, especially during the spring and summer months.

Sitting outside underneath the stars sounds like the most complete way to enjoy the warmer weather of spring or summer. However, with these ideal conditions also comes flying pest activity, such as mosquitoes, flies, June beetles, or moths. The presence of excessive amounts of these pests is one of the fastest ways to make a patio or porch unusable.

Various factors attract bugs, but porch lights are known to be the main factor, especially at night throughout the spring and summer months. From parties to other simple outdoor gatherings, this can pose a problem as guests are likely to be deterred by insect bites or constant rhymical buzzing.

Implementing some of the methods listed throughout each pest control link and step in this guide can help keep your outdoor living spaces serene and enjoyable. 

Keep Your Porch Clean

Keeping your porch or patio area clean is one of the easiest preventative measures you can take to deter bugs from gathering. Make sure to sweep any food residues or fallen foliage, as these can attract flying pests and others, like ants, which can quickly make their way inside your home. At the same time, liquids like sodas are magnets for pests like wasps and bees.

Sweep up plant and food debris and place it in an outdoor trash receptacle several feet away from your home's foundation and areas with high activity points. Avoid empty plant holders, pots, and buckets on your porch. Otherwise, when it rains, it can hold standing water sources. Areas like this are prime sites for mosquitoes to breed.

Objects gathering water that cannot be easily overturned can be treated with an insect growth regulator like BTI Mosquito Dunk. BTI Mosquito Dunk is a floating sustained-release larvicide that prevents mosquitoes' underdeveloped stages from maturing and gets rid of present pests in water.

To use this product, you must determine the surface area of the water you wish to treat. To do this, measure the length and width in feet, then multiply (length X width = square footage).

Apply 1 BTI Mosquito Dunk per 25 to 100 sq. ft. of surface area. Break down dunks into 1/4 for smaller areas and apply 1 to 5 sq. ft. of standing water surface areas.

It would also be beneficial to occasionally power wash surfaces like concrete and hardwood to remove deep grime and residual stains. Keeping your porch or patio free of food residues, liquid spills, plant debris, and objects collecting water makes it a less attractive place for insects to harbor.

Replace Bulbs

Many flying insects, like mosquitoes, use light to navigate when searching for food. As a result, insects can swarm around porch lights and other outdoor light sources during the night. However, not all lights are the same when it comes to attracting insects. The most alluring lights can be deducted from wavelengths, colors, and what they give off.

If you want to keep bugs away from your porch light at night, consider replacing your bulbs with warm yellow or orange LED light bulbs. Insects have eyesight that perceive wavelengths of 650 to 300 nanometers, including the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. This means insects can see the light colors blue and purple but not red, yellow, and orange.

How these pests perceive colors will make them go past or ignore yellow or orange light bulbs in porch lights. Since these pests see cooler tones better, most fly traps or zappers use blue or purple lighting.

While this may be ideal for some homeowners, this may not be your choice. One of the most straightforward solutions is to turn off lights you are not using. The heat and light from your porch light become an enticing invitation to flying pests. However, this is a temporary solution that will not control long-term infestations.

Create Insecticide Perimeter

To keep pests away from your porch and home, we recommend using a residual insecticide that can be used as a perimeter treatment. Supreme IT is a broad-spectrum insecticide labeled to treat over 70 types of pests, including mosquitoes, flies, and moths. Once this suspended concentrate dries, it will continue to eliminate pests for up to 90 days, effectively keeping pests away from your home.

Make a perimeter application along the exterior of your home with a handheld pump sprayer to easily control the spray drift. For a general pest treatment, a perimeter application will use 0.33 to 1 fl. oz. of Supreme IT per gallon of water per 1,000 sq. ft.

Spray at a maximum height of 3 feet and 6 to 10 feet from the structure. Additionally, you may want to spray the underside of eaves, soffits, doors, windows, and around entry points to deter pests from invading your home or harbor these areas.

Broadcast Insecticide

Once perimeter applications have dried, treat your turfgrass with a broad-spectrum insecticide like Dominion 2L Insecticide, specifically for June beetle control. This suspended concentrate product functions as a systemic, meaning it will control larvae underneath your turfgrass and treat active adults. Once dried, this product will eliminate any June beetles and future populations from your property, thus eliminating their flying activity around your porch light.

As a broadcast application, apply 0.46 to 0.6 fl. oz. of Dominion 2L Insecticide per 2 gallons of water per 1,000 sq. ft. of turfgrass. To treat large areas, we recommend using a hose-end sprayer.

To determine how much product to use, you must find the square footage of your turfgrass. To find this, measure the length and width of the treatment area in feet and multiply (length X width = square footage).

To mix, turn the sprayer control valve and water pump off, then attach the hose sprayer nozzle to the garden hose. Remove the reservoir from the nozzle, then add the measured amount of Dominion 2L Insecticide and the required amount of water.

Attach the reservoir back to the nozzle and turn the water back on. Push forward on the control valve to evenly broadcast the mixed solution over your lawn, starting from the corner of the treatment area.

Wait until treated areas are completely dry before allowing children and pets to enter. This product should not be applied to water-logged or saturated areas, which will not allow penetration into the plant's root zone, causing ineffective larvae treatments.

Install Fly Lights

Many homeowners believe the only way to deal with flying pests like mosquitoes or moths is to use a bug zapper. It may sound ideal, but the truth is that bug zappers can be noisy, messy, and otherwise ineffective. Plus, the force of their electrical activities can spew deceased bugs across the floor.

Contrary to many homeowners' beliefs, there are two general types of fly lights: fly lights with bug zappers installed or fly lights installed with glue boards. Bug zappers attract insects with UV rays, which electrocute insects when they contact or come close to them. Fly lights attract flies with ultraviolet light, but rather than being electrocuted, these pests become stuck on removable glue strips or glue boards.

Flylights are best suited for porches, patios, or other outdoor areas for a non-lethal and less messy solution for pests. The Solutions Uplight Fly Light is a stylish, decorative wall light that discreetly manages flying insects. This easy-to-use product keeps insects away from your porch light with its hidden-from-view 15-watt Quantum lamp and full-size glue board, effectively entrapping pests without the consistent zapping that other bug zappers use.

Keep your Solutions Uplight Fly Light a few feet away from your porch light to avoid attracting mosquitoes and other flying pests to this area and increase trapping success.

Key Takeaways

Do Porch Lights Attract Bugs?

• While porch lights are a common attractant for insects, there are other reasons pests like mosquitoes, flies, June beetles, or moths constantly fly around your porch. Things such as leaves, food crumbs, liquid food or drink spills, or objects filled with water like pots or plant holders can be an enticing invitation for pests.

What Color Porch Light Keeps Insects Away?

• Bulbs with warm yellow or orange LED lights are best to replace your porch lights with since insects cannot easily see these colors.

How to Get Rid of Bugs Around Porch Lights?

• You must keep your porch's water, plant, and food residue clean. BTI Mosquito Dunk can treat water sources that cannot be dumped or removed. Change out your porch lights with a warm yellow or orange LED light bulb. Perform a perimeter treatment with Supreme IT and a broadcast application on turf with Dominion 2L Insecticide. Lastly, set a fly light installed with a glue board like the Solutions Uplight Fly Light for discreet and less messy pest control.