For those of you with a layout in the garage or a barn...

I seem to remember reading a thread about this in the past here.  Do a search and see what comes up.  I'm sure there was a lot of information in that post.

Good luck.

It's interesting you brought that up, I once thought about making a stone arch bridge out of macaroni, another one out of dog treats, and one out of licorice, just to see if I could do it (which I can) but.......then I thought....naaaah, better not, for a similar reason.

Years ago, I try one of those devices you mentioned, it didn't seem to work for spiders.  I've not had a problem with the other things, so I don't know.

When your not running trains power the track up to 220vac.Nick

no joke, standard pest control measures for scorpions ( should be easy to find in a desert climate )  and for the rest Get a cat. cats take care of rodents, spiders bugs that the chemicals miss. we have tons of the same pests here in Phoenix.

We are in a 2nd floor of a barn like structure, and in nine years, have had no issues.

Cats work for scorpions to.  But as for keeping the pests out, run your trains a lot and they'll never get a chance to settle in.

The problem with cats is that they like to walk around your layout. I know plenty of people who tried it and some truly delicate, expensive and hand-made stuff ruined that way.

I could have had a layout in a 10X20 storage shed, my wife said I could get one for the layout. I decided to instead put it in a small bedroom in the house. Smaller layout but it's in a room I want to go into one, easy to get to and comfortable. It's right next to a bathroom and close to the kitchen.

I love my 11X10 layout way better that way than I would a much larger one in a shed away far from the house. I'm sure I'm much further along in the build for that reason, too.

We use some stuff here in Hawaii made by Ortho and is called Home Defense. It comes in a spray plastic bottle and you spray around all doors, window or any other opening in your house. It's clear and dries quickly. It lasts a year though we spray about every six to nine months. It makes a bug barrier. It will even stop our huge centipedes. When the bug walks across the bug barrier they will die after just a couple of feet of walking. Hope this helps. Don

Yep, starting a collection of the old 110 volt Marklin could be expensive, but helpful.

However, there are electronic or ultrasonic pest repellers that plug into a wall socket, and run about $20 at your local big box. Hope this helps.

We had a spider problem in the building. The smoke units from locomotives seemed to take care of that. Ortho Bug Barrier works pretty well UNLESS the bugs are coming in from underneath the structure. Then you need to block off and/or spray the access points. The Garden guys recommend spraying insecticide into tunnels and layout structures.

Jerry

Jerry, it's bigger but the ones here will lay you up for three days if you get bit. There no mainland bug. On a better note, the mongoose here love to eat them. Don

My layout is also located in a garage.  The one thing that does make me nervous is that I will have the doors open alot in the summer.  We live in an area with bugs and snakes.  So far, no problems.  I do have 2 cats and a dog that patrol the layout.  All 3 are well trained and will not damage the layout.