pest-controlvent
A massive cicada just crawled through one of the air vents in my apartment. I vacuumed it up and then taped Glad ClingWrap over the vent as shown below. The tape is painter's tape.
I covered the other air vents in my apartment in the same way. Is there a better way to keep bugs from entering my apartment through the air vents? Would it be unsafe or cause damage to keep the ClingWrap on the vents?
This is probably a futile exercise. Mice can squeeze through the smallest of gaps so you'd have to virtually hermetically seal your house to prevent any mouse coming in. Obviously you can block up the largest/most obvious holes and make it generally more difficult.
What you can do is make your house a less welcoming environment.
Make sure that you keep all food sealed in plastic containers etc. so that your house is not a source of food for them. They might still get in, but only for warmth.
There are plenty of recommendations out there on the web, but I can't say how well they work. I think the lifespan of a gnat is something along the lines of 15 days, so you basically just have to remove their food source, and they'll be gone in 2 weeks.
Clean dishes quickly, keep everything clean, get rid of potted plants (they feed on the manure found in many types of soil that you might get for potted plants) or cover the top layer of soil with an inch of sand to prevent them from getting to the manure, look for any dead animal bodies (rats, lizards, birds, etc.)
I've also seen ideas for traps, which supposedly work pretty well, but just because you catch some, that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get rid of their breeding grounds. The basic idea is that you take a cup and put 1" of vinegar and one drop of dish soap in it, then cover it with something that resembles a funnel (curl up a piece of paper into a cone shape and cut the tip off.) They'll be able to fly in because the funnel will guide them downward, but they won't be able to get out so long as you seal between the lip of the glass and the funnel (maybe fold it back down on the outside of the glass and secure it with rubber bands. Like this:
Best Answer
You're barking up the wrong tree
First, as pointed out, cicadas, while numerous at the moment, are quite utterly harmless. However, if you keep getting them in your apartment, it's not the fault of your HVAC system (unless they're getting in through a dedicated outside air grille, which is somewhat unlikely given the vintage of your building). Instead, what you're dealing with is the fact bugs can squeeze in through small gaps and holes in the envelope/sheathing of the building left by the way frame or frame/veneer construction works. These holes are often found around penetrations for electrical cables, hose bibbs, and AC lines, or at joints between different types of framing components, such as between the foundation and the wall bottom plate. The ceiling drywall on the topmost level is also a common place for air leakage to happen, as there's no sheathing above it to back it up before you get to the "outside", aka your attic.
So, I'd take the clingwrap off before you kill your HVAC system with it due to the fan building up pressure, and if you get a bug parade, tell your landlord they should look into improving the air-sealing of the building as a whole. The good news is that air-sealing doesn't just help with bugs, it reduces heating, cooling, and humidity loads as it plugs holes where uncontrolled outside air can infiltrate into the building.