We’ve all heard scary stories featuring characters who are at the mercy of a centuries-old vampire’s curse, or whose homes are haunted by the family ghost. Using pesticides is kind of like accidentally unleashing one of these curses: though it may feel like the simple solution at the time, the consequences down the line can be dire for our waterways and communities.

By adding a few preventative measures to your repertoire, you can help keep the pests at bay without haunting our waterways. Read on for some tips:

Build habitats, not horrors.  As the National Wildlife Federation points out, opting for native plants in your garden can help attract helpful local insects who will happily keep peskier bugs from munching on your plants. Famously, ladybugs love to eat aphids, and many dragonflies will even eat mosquitoes! (And with the recent heat waves, mosquitoes have been on the rise in LA, though LA County Vector Control has been employing novel methods to tend to these unwelcome vampires.) By creating an extension of the natural SoCal ecosystem in your own yard or gardening box, you’ll potentially reduce pest populations – and have some hardy, happy native plants to boot.

Welcome the web-makers: There are some cool, creepy crawlies who call SoCal home. Our 2023 blog post on some of these amazing arachnids might be worth a revisit this time of year. Welcoming eight-legged friends into your home and garden is good for your plants, as these little wonders can help manage the more ghoulish pests who actually wreak havoc. Plus, their webs make for free Halloween decor!

Tactile Tricks and Treats. If you spot some invasive pests crawling about your plants, consider the more tactile, up-close-and-personal options at your disposal before reaching for a bottle of toxic potions. The National Wildlife Federation recommends plucking off visible invasive pests, and using physical barriers, like “fencing or mesh covers…to prevent [plants] from being eaten.” Similarly, you can cover large swaths of weeds with “tarps or layers of wet cardboard topped with compost or other mulch.” You don’t even need to say “Trick or Treat!” to snag some mulch: LASAN offers free mulch to LA residents. Check out this page to learn how you can get some. 

Cleanliness helps with creepiness. Our Water Our World points out that “pesticides don’t really solve pest problems;” to actually initiate long-lasting pest control, it’s important to create an environment that deters pests on multiple levels. Part of this is making sure that your home and outdoor areas are clean and tidy – plus, less debris means less gunk to get swept toward our storm drains during the rainy season.

Pesticides: Haunting Our Waterways

When it rains, pesticides get washed away from plants and in the surrounding soil, and are then transported to our waterways via the storm drain system. These pesticides can then haunt our waterways for a long, long, long time – the Environmental Working Group calculates that pesticides with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”) “were found in up to 50% of California surface water samples,” according to a May 2026 article. 

Toxic pesticides aren’t just poisonous for the ants, roaches, termites, and other garden-persona non grata that humans try to stave off. They’re also fatal for the aquatic animals living in our waterways. And that’s not to mention the hazards they pose for friendly critters like ladybugs, birds, bunnies, and honeybees. Common pesticide ingredients like fipronil, imidacloprid, and malathion have all been shown to be toxic to these precious pollinators – even causing colony collapse. We humans are also part of the delicate ecosystem who rely on California’s waterways for drinking water and recreation, meaning that pesticides in our waterways haunt all of us.

Are there some pesticide containers lurking in the dark, dusty corners of your garage or closet? Bring them to one of LA’s S.A.F.E. Centers so you can break free of their creepy curses.