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Painting Your Porch Ceiling Blue Won't Actually Repel Bugs
By KRISTY BOWEN
Porch ceilings in the South are often painted a pale creamy blue, but the belief that these ceilings deter insects and birds may just be a mix of cultural and urban legend.
The color's properties have roots in the Gullah Geechee culture of enslaved Africans, who believed that the color could repel "haints," a word for restless spirits or ghosts.
These spirits would think the blue was water, which they could not cross. The shade was often used in the South as a way to ward off ghosts and even insects from
a home.
According to paint experts at Sherwin Williams, the popular shade was historically a variety of milk paint made with lye, which does have a proven deterrent factor with insects.
While the repellant effect of the paint was based on scent and not visual trickery, the association of blue ceilings and pest-free porches stuck.