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DIY Lawn Care: 14 Household Items You Can Use In Your Yard

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14 Useful Yard Tools Made From Reusable Household Items

Have you ever thought about using a fork in your garden? Or a 5-gallon bucket as a stool? If you haven’t, you should. These common reusable household items may be more useful than you think! When you love lawn care as much as we do, it’s easy to get carried away purchasing unnecessary items such as fancy leaf bins and weeders. However, there are plenty of items around your home that will function in their place! The best part is, reusing these items is free. Throughout this blog, we’re going to share with you our 14 favorite reusable household items. We’re sure that these household odds-and-ends will help transform the way you take care of your lawn and garden! So what do you say? Let’s get started!

1. Trash Can

Anyone who regularly mows their yard knows to always go through and pick up fallen sticks, twigs or trash before mowing. However, sometimes you miss a few things and have to stop what you’re doing to pick these things up along the way. If you have an old trash can around your home, then you have the perfect solution to this problem! Attach the trash can to your lawn mower and use it as a collection can for twigs. That way, you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to carry sticks off to the side. Instead, you can just toss them in the bin and keep trucking along! This reusable household item is one you’re sure to benefit from. 

2. Squirt-Top Water Bottle

Oiling smaller items such as a chainsaw can get messy without the right tools. Instead of dripping oil all over the place, use a squirt-top water bottle to fill these items. The squirt-top bottle will help control the flow of oil, making it easier than ever to oil your machines!

3. Grocery Bags

When you’re doing yard work, there always seem to be a few times when you need to run inside. Whether it’s for a glass of water or towel to clean up a spill, you’re bound to need to go in at some point. The only problem is your shoes! They’re likely covered in grass or dirt, and the last thing you want is to track that inside your home. Instead of repeatedly taking your shoes on and off, use grocery bags as shoe covers. Simply place each foot into a bag, tie it off at the top and step inside without the fear of dirt or mud tracking through your home. We suggest grabbing a few bags from the one bag under the sink that holds every grocery bag you’ve brought into your home—we know you have one, everyone does!

4. 5-Gallon Bucket

The uses of a 5-gallon bucket are endless. You can use it for storage, seating, trash, cleaning and more! We want to talk about how to use it for your yard, though. When you’re gardening or pulling weeds, the constant bending over or squatting down can get a little tiring. To avoid this, use a 5-gallon bucket as a stool. You can even go a step further and use it to hold all of your gardening tools! That way, you have gardening storage and a seat all in one. Pro Tip:The lid of a 5-gallon bucket can be a pain to take off sometimes. Cut off all but two of the plastic tabs on the lid to make it effortless to remove. This will make it much easier to get the items you need.

5. Tarp

If you don’t have a wheelbarrow, no worries. A tarp will do the trick! Use this reusable household item to carry leaves, twigs, mulch and more around your lawn. Simply drag it behind you and go! A tarp will make it much easier to pick up debris around your lawn, or aid in spreading mulch in your yard or garden.

6. Pool Noodle

If you push mow your lawn, then you know first-hand how sore your hands can be after! Give your hands some much-needed relief with a pool noodle—yes, a pool noodle! Cut the noodle and wrap it around the handle of your mower, then use electrical tape to secure it. This is a quick and easy fix that your hands are sure to thank you for.

7. Clothes Hamper

In the fall, picking up fallen leaves is much easier said than done. You try and try to get them in the bag, but the bag keeps collapsing or falling over, making it difficult to get anything done. To sturdy your bag, cut the bottom out of an old clothes hamper and stick it down into the bag. Once the bag is full of leaves, remove the clothes hamper and start over!

8. Recycled Water

If the humidity in your home is a little high, you may be using a dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers are great for removing moisture from the air—but did you know the water they collect can be used for your home and yard as well? The water in the base of a dehumidifier is purified, making it perfect for watering your houseplants and garden. Simply empty the basin of the dehumidifier into a watering can and you’re good to go! Just be careful not to overwater your plants—it could be what’s harming your houseplants.

9. Garden Hose

Similar to a 5-gallon bucket, there are many ways to repurpose a garden hose. Instead of throwing an old garden hose out, consider cutting it into smaller pieces that you can use to secure a slippery trash bag, or replace the handle of a bucket. If you have a large trash bin, stick pieces of a garden hose around the rim to prevent the bag from slipping into the trash can. Or, if the handles on your buckets are rough or broken, tape on part of the hose to make the handle easier to hold.

10. Berry Containers

Once you eat all of the strawberries or blueberries in your fridge, save the container. A berry container is the perfect tool for seeding your lawn! Place grass seed into the container, and gently shake it over your lawn. Overseeding is especially important in the fall, so empty berry containers will come in handy then! The small holes in the containers will help disperse seeds more evenly, and with any luck, you’ll end up with a lush, green lawn come spring.

11. Tin Can

Need a water break when mowing but don’t have a place to put your drink? No worries! Rinse and clean a tin can and attach it to your mower using zip ties. Now you have a cup holder!

12. Wine Corks

As if you needed another reason to drink a bottle of wine, here it is! To tie up electrical cords and keep them from getting tangled in storage, use wine corks. Begin by drilling two small holes into a wine cork. Next, tie a strand of rope or bungee cord through the holes, creating a loop on the other end. Finally, wrap up the cords and secure them by sliding the cork through the loop in the rope.

13. Fork

If you have an extra fork laying around, use it to remove weeds in your yard. Stick the fork into the soil, and twist it around. The fork will catch all of the roots, and make removing those pesky weeds that much easier. And don’t forget to take a seat on your 5-gallon bucket while weeding!

14. Cereal Box

Emptying the oil in your lawn mower just got that much easier. Cut out part of a cereal box and use it to transfer oil from your mower into a waste pan. The glossy outside of the box will prevent oil from soaking through, making it the perfect oil trough. While there’s plenty of reusable household items and DIY options to help keep your lawn healthy, sometimes you need to leave it to the experts! Here at Killingsworth, we’ve been taking care of lawns and gardens for over 26 years—so as you can imagine, we’ve collected a few yard tricks of our own! If your yard needs a little extra TLC, schedule a service. We’d be more than happy to use our expertise to make your yard the best looking lawn on the block!

DIY Lawn Care: 14 Household Items You Can Use In Your Yard

Bedbug inspection

How to Know if Your Hotel Has Bedbugs

Upon entering a hotel room, do you typically reach for the tiny toiletries, take a leap onto the bed, or perhaps start by inspecting for bed bugs? Knowing what to look for is essential. Anticimex Carolinas Service Manager Christian Tweed has shared valuable insights on identifying bed bugs in your hotel room and preventing them from hitching a ride back home with you. And if bed bugs do become an unexpected part of your vacation, remember that Clark’s Pest Control is here to assist!



Q&A with a Pest Professional


How do bed bugs get inside hotels?


Bed bugs are primarily hitchhiking insects as opposed to foraging ones, meaning that they get carried around on people’s clothes and belongings. Someone with an active infestation in their home can easily bring bed bugs to their hotel, but they can also be picked up during travel (airplanes, taxis, and rideshare services) and brought to a hotel room.


What do people misunderstand about bed bugs in hotels?


From a probability standpoint, all hotels will deal with bed bugs at some point in time. If you think about a bed bug’s method of travel, there’s literally nothing a hotel can do to stop them from being carried in. What I have realized is that luxury hotels are more likely to have an aggressive response to dealing with a bed bug case once it’s identified as they tend to have a higher quality of service and a reputation to protect. While this isn’t always the case, it has been my experience more often than not.

Got bedbugs? Call Clark’s at 866-781-4991 today!

What do you recommend travelers do when they get to their room to check for bed bugs?


Most hotel headboards hang directly on the wall. I start my inspection here before even looking at the bed itself. I have found bed bugs, their exoskeletons, and the telltale black stains they leave behind around the edges of or in the crevices of headboards. If the headboard looks clean, move on to looking over the pillowcases and comforter for any signs or stains. You can dig into the bedding as deep as you want here, but I encourage people to look over the top layer of things at the very least.


What are some lesser-known signs of bed bugs in your hotel room?


The specifics of the black stains they leave behind, which as gross as it sounds, are just digested blood as that’s all that bed bugs feed on. If the stains are on a hard surface, they will be small dots as if left behind by an ink pen and will smear into a brownish gray when moisture is applied. If they’re on fabric, they will usually bleed along the fibers making a small diamond, square or X shape.


If there are bed bugs in your hotel room, can they travel home with you?


They absolutely can, however this is easy to prevent. While staying in a hotel, keep as much of your clothing and luggage off the beds as possible. Storing suitcases in the bathroom might sound odd, but it’s an effective method of prevention.

Don’t tackle bedbugs yourself, call Clark’s at 866-781-4991!

What should you do with your suitcase if you suspect your hotel has bed bugs?


When arriving home from a trip, leave your luggage in the garage or on a porch and bring your clothes in one load of laundry at a time. If the clothes are dirty, wash them like you normally would, if they’re clean then run them through the dryer for at least forty-five minutes. Once your suitcase is empty, vacuum over it meticulously (don’t forget to empty the vacuum when you’re done), or if you’re in the right climate, expose it to heat for a few days by placing it in your vehicle (parked in the sun) or for a few weeks in your attic.


The Clark’s Solution


If you brought bed bugs back to you home, Clark’s is here to help. Our Bedbug Control service is designed to eliminate bedbugs and create a safe, comfortable environment.


A Clark’s Pest Professional will do an inspection and recommend a plan of attack to get rid of bed bugs now and prevent them from hatching in the future. Call Clark’s at 866-781-4991 today for more information.




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