Get Rid Of Household Ants, Cockroaches And Mosquitoes
78Get Rid Of Pests With Non-Toxic Alternatives.
Last summer, while we were gone, ants moved in like unwanted guests, and were as hard to get rid of. Our rule is: no poisons in our house and yard. In short-term thinking it’s more difficult, but we found a way and it may work for you.
It was possible to subdue the little buggers if we wiped the counters down with a sponge full of eucalyptus oil before going to bed. But, it didn’t cure the problem and only worked until the vapors wore off. Then, like the unwanted guests, they were back. The difference is, ants don’t sit around with their feet on the furniture and watch TV.My wife went to Washington State to visit but, before leaving ,I received instructions to get some boric acid. We’d bought some expensive environmentally benign bait that contained boric acid and even though it didn’t work, the idea was sound. Most insects have no way to pass gas, hard shelled insects in particular like ants and cockroaches. When they ingest boric acid it causes gas, they can’t pass it and explode. It wasn’t as loud as an unwanted guest snoring and it didn’t wake us up at night, but it did the trick. Ants take everything they find back to the nest, and happens to the queen? Boom! Without a queen pumping out babies, the nest soon becomes a ghost town of little exploded ant bodies. It took about three weeks as the ant supply dwindled from lots, to a few, to an occasional scout or passerby. Basically, I don’t have anything against ants, they help clean the yard and are second only to bees as pollinators. They just have to understand: I won’t mess around in their hill and they won’t take liberties in our house! Especially fire ants, they hunt you down and leave you with a week’s worth of itching as a reminder they were there. We find olive oil or chicken grease in enough boric acid to make a paste works best. We even put some oil/fat into the commercial product. The ants walked around it to get to the home made mixture. I guess the theory for the commercial product is: make something the ants don’t like and they’ll go to someone else’s house for dinner. That may work in an apartment house but our neighbors live an hours walk away for the average ant, which is too far for them to commute. Boric acid is locally available and the only size we could find will last about 20 years.According to research on neem oil, from the Neem tree, it’s used in third world countries not only for ants, cockroaches, etc., but also as a repellent for flies, mosquitoes and other airborne insects. Neem contains the compound salannin which biting insects hate. Tests in India showed it to be more effective than “DEET”, the main ingredient in most commercial repellents. My information says concentrations as low as one-tenth of one part per million works as well as the best chemical mixture. Neem doesn’t kill insects directly, it comes in the back door similar to boric acid. The extracts contain compounds similar in shape and structure to insect hormones. Insects absorb the compounds, which block their endocrine systems and obstruct their reproductive cycles. Last summer I spent a lot of time in the bush in Canada, fishing and hiking. Sometimes the mosquitoes were so thick you could grab handfuls of them out of the air. I bought some repellent with extra DEET. There were warnings on the label but I was “itching” to get something that worked. I washed it off as soon as I could and made sure I didn’t contaminate any food, like the label said. But, I didn’t think about my watch face, which turned into a cloudy, pockmarked mess too blurry to read. I went back to swatting while we searched for a better way. If it melts the plastic face of a watch, it can’t be good for your body.We found a mix of eucalyptus, peppermint and rosemary worked as effectively as DEET. If neem leaf or seed had been available, I would’ve tried crushing it and soaking the pulp in water or alcohol for 24 hours to see if it worked as well as research indicates. Used topically, neem oil is said to have no side effects to humans or warm-blooded animals and no harmful residues to contaminate the environment. Insects don’t develop a resistance to it, and I found nothing to indicate you’d have to buy a new watch every time you used it.CommentsLoading...
thx for help
Another thing we've discovered is: some ants like corn meal and it has the same, blow em up effects as boric acid. You might give it a try, it may work better depending on the type of ant problem. Larry
I have used ornage oil which is found in a few organic cleaners and it worked very good at killing ants.
Hi, we've also found corn meal to be effective on fire ants and cockroaches. Thanks for the read.
Me and my fiancee recently moved and are trying to get rid of the roaches that inadvertantly moved with us using a 50/50 powdered sugar and borax mixed with enough water to roll into balls and put in coffee filters (which we found were cheaper than muffin papers but have to be double layered to keep this sticky mess off of whatever you put it on) which SEEMS to be working pretty well. We put ours under the sink, above the laundry machines, above the stove in an unused cabinet and on a bathroom shelf out of reach of our 2 kitties and our roomate's small dog and 4 year old child about a week ago.
From what I've heard, small amounts of borax will NOT kill small mammals, but we do not want any of the smaller members of our house getting sick because they ate it (or rather, we do but only the unwanted ones).
We have seen more roaches than we thought initially had come along for the ride, but a few of the ones I've killed have been sluggish and had very dull, brittle exoskelitons. Fortunately, the only ones that appear to have come along are in the nymph stage and not adults, but I'm holding my breath on that since the ones we've got are german roaches and they have a 40 day maturation cycle.
Not sure whether or not borax actually gives them gas, but they certainly do lose the half of their exoskeleton that covers their underside (as I have seen on a few I have smashed). Explosion or deterioration I don't care so long as they die.
Very good information,thanks. I've found that Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap will repel wasps, hornets and yellow jackets for a up to a week. After two or three weeks they've given up and found a new place to live. It doesn't seem to kill them, just encourages them to pack their bags and move on.
I live in a townhouse in Florida and came up with my own non-poisonous strategy to keep bugs away and it has worked fantastically. Ten years ago when I moved in to this house I bought 10 lbs of boric acid and 5 lbs of Diatomaceous earth. I put them both into a dry, empty paint jar that sealed then shook the two until they were well blended. About an hour after I let it sit for the dust to settle, I went inside the house and drilled a 1/4 inch hole every 6 or so feet down each wall. From there I poured it into every wall. Now all of the areas that they travel through are mountains of (to them) toxins.
Right after that I followed with spackle and paint, so the process was virtually invisible. Since this is a 2 story house, I also drilled holes into the floor under the carpet and pumped the dust between the floors and sealed those back with wood spackel. The last went in the attic. I might have had to buy more for up there.
Since I love indoor plants, I treated the soil indoors with beneficial nematodes as well as the lawn in front and behind this townhouse. Although the association here puts pine bark mulch down, it attracts the carpenter ants like you wouldn't believe. With that said I went to the hardware store and bought both cedar and eucalyptus mulch and poured those over the mulch closest to my house.
For indoor foliage I use neem oil spray, then the rear tropical garden does get scale occasionally so I've let some ladybugs go out there. Annually now all I do is spray some neem both inside and out! Spray it in the evening because it gets absorbed by the plant and remains toxic to bugs. It is so safe you can use neem oil on a baby!
DEET melts plastic? Wouldn't it ruin the bottle it comes in, or are the bottles made with a resistant plastic compound? Anyway, I've researched DEET alternative, at least for around the home, and found that mosquito traps are quite effective.
Here's one that uses a CO2 lure:
Non toxic substances are the need of the hour as many toxins have already entered the human food chain and are creating havoc with human health.
Greatly useful article, Larry. Great timing it is very helpful to me right now. Thanks.
This is a great idea... I am also someone that doesnt like to use pesticides.
Marye Audet Level 2 Commenter 4 years ago
this is exactly what I needed to day! SWe have fire ants that have taken up residence in a wall...:/ thanks so much..off to get boric acid