Is there anything worse than finding mouse droppings in your house? Oh, right. There is: Finding a palm-sized wolf spider in your kid’s bed. Ask me how I know. Luckily, I’ve found a company that makes all-natural pest repellent, which means you don’t have to burn your house down and move to a different country thanks to some unwelcome creature finding its way into your home.
It’s called Stay Away, and it really works. Stay Away makes several different products, each crafted of all-natural, botanical, kid- and pet-safe ingredients. Whether your latest enemies are rodents, spiders, moths, ants, or beetles (including stink bugs), there’s a formulation designed to smell great to you and horrible to them. The secret is botanical oils that repel or confuse each creature, mixed in with corn cob and sunflower oil. Just place a Stay Away sachet in the trouble areas and voila — pests be gone.
Related: This perfume keeps mosquitoes away. Really!
I tried Stay Away Spiders and Stay Away Moths, and their success has me wanting to try Stay Away Ants next spring. Stay Away Spiders has a pleasant smell, mostly lemongrass and citronella, not unlike natural mosquito repellents. I put a sachet in my (arachnophobic) daughter’s closet and another on my bedside table. Since then, I’ve seen only one spider in the house, and it was halfway between her room and my room and looked deeply confused. Even the little house spiders aren’t hanging out in my bathroom as much, which I count as a win.
Stay Away Moths has a stronger smell centering on cedar, which is not my favorite oil. I hung a sachet in my closet using Stay Away’s Pouch Pod, a bio-based holder with a hanger that can help the repellent last up to three times as long. I haven’t seen a single moth, although I’ll admit we’ve never had a moth problem in this house. I did try to put a sachet in the pantry, as I dread pantry moths, but the scent was just too strong. Still, cedar is better than moth balls by a long shot, and if you’ve ever pulled out a favorite coat to find it eaten to pieces, you’ll rejoice.
But the thing I like most about Stay Away is knowing that even if my kids or dog found a sachet, licked it, or straight up ate it, they’d probably be okay. (Not that I’d recommend it.) I caught my dog with an ant trap in his mouth this summer and nearly had a heart attack, so I’ll take corn cob and lemongrass oil any day.
You can find Stay Away natural pest repellent sachets at our affiliate Amazon, or on the earthkind website. And thanks to earthkind for the review samples!
