Question
You said in one of your replies to hard clay soil that you had some excellent solutions to insects that are natural. I live in Canada with hard clay lawn so will be trying the ideas that you gave on my lawn in your answer. But we do have ants and the small red bugs i'm told are clover mites that return every year in one spot in the kitchen and i really dont like using ant killer or insectisides but don't know any other solution. Any and all ideas to all insects would be greatly appreciated as i love natural alternatives to chemical.

Answer
Hi Tom;
When you get your lawn on a totally organic program, and have a healthy enviornment for lizards, toads, grss snakes etc, they will eat all the ants, and get fat and sassy, and you will not have ant problems.
Remember though, if you use any chemicals, you will undo the benefits of the organics.
I put cedar bark mulch all over my lawn. It repels fleas, ticks and lots of other insects, including termites.
I put a trail of it around the foundation of the house when termites are ready to swarm, and in 40 years that we have lived here, have had no termites.
My neighbors have though, so it is the cedar that keeps them away from our house.
For every harmful insect that lives in your soil,there are hundreds of beneficial insects that feed on the harmful ones. chemicals kill the good with the bad.

    In the house.
Tomrepel cockroaches, I put a piece of rosemary about 1 inch long on each panrty, cupboard shelf, and toss a few in eaxh closet. I put a piece about 3 inches long under each appliance, anywhere roaches can come in and hide.
I use a lot of lavender.
I use lavender oil to make bath salts with epsom Salts and a lavender oil in it. Makes great bath salts, and relaxes as well as soaks the soreness out of joints and pain, a lot.
It is a very relaxing scent, and is great for smelling to help you drop off into a sound and relaxed sleep.
I put about 2 drops on my hands and rub them together, then rub a stuffed toy well, to give to a fussy child that is too tired to go to sleep.
The little tyke will drop off to sleep in just a few minutes. Works on me too.
Now I have learned that lavender repels some insects.
Since I have started using lavender body wash, and lavender scented bath powder, mosquitoes that used to zoom in on me, don't bite me anymore.
Basil is supposed to repel fleas and some other insects.
I use lemon scented Pledge on my furniture, so that may be why i don't have ants.
where ants come in, if you sqweeze a trail of lemon juice, they won't cross it.
I get cedar oil, and paint a line of it along the clothes rods in my closets, and down the door frames and around the baseboard. Makes a cedar closet out of it. It is enough to keep moths etc out of your closet, but not enough to transfer a cedar smell to your clothes.
I put fresh rosemary down about once a month, and paint the cedar oil about 3 or 4 times a year.
Since I started using the rosemary, I also don't have silverfish, earwigs,or spiders, which are bad down here, and I used to have them a lot.
I also tuck a few sprigs of lavender, rosemary, a little less basil and mint, between the waterbed mattress, and the frame. the heat from the mattress activates the scents and imparts that up around me as i sleep.
Rosemary, cedar oil and lavender is all i use a lot of in the house.
I never had an any problem, and maybe it was the lemon scented furniture polish etc that kept them away.
Put a couple of little Geccos or anoles in your attic, and they will eat bugs that hide up there.
I have lots of lizards in the yard, and they scamper up the wals and into my attic ( because I has a small hole in a corner of my bathroom, and one ran down from the attic once), that look like anoles. they eat ALL the aphids off my roses.
for molds and fungus, outside ( don't get them inside) I use baking soda disolved in water to spray plants and areas that get fungus with. I could never find how much soda to use, so I used 1/4th cup per gallon of water.
That works, so I stick with that amount.
Since I went organic in the garden as well as in the house, my Asthma is 90% better, and i don't ever have to put up with insects.
Hope this helps you out some.
Charlotte