Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Erin, a reader from North Carolina, asked a pest control-related question this week regarding an article about dementia and diabetes being linked to pesticides.
She writes:
I wanted to ask you for ideas about pest control. We live in an apartment in NC and are having a roach problem (we’ve been killing 20, mostly babies per day—they are going wild in our kitchen and dining room at night). I don’t want to have our apartment sprayed with toxic pesticides especially because I have a 1 yr old and 3 yr old. I guess I need a pep talk from another natural mama about why I should not spray and some ideas of alternatives. I spray down the kitchen and dining area with an orange oil spray every morning and night to keep things clean and the orange oil is supposed to be a natural repellent. I also put boric acid in the sink before going to bed. I’m sure you know from living in the South how bad roaches can be! Any other tips? I am feeling a lot of pressure from friends and family to spray. One friend almost pleaded with me “for the sake of my family” to get the place sprayed by a professional! Maybe you could write a post about home pest control sometime if you have not written on that already.
Erin, I have written a related post called Green Herbicides and Pesticides for Your Yard, but I have not written one on non-toxic pest control for your home.
Thanks for the article suggestion!
Here’s how I keep pests at bay in my home in very buggy Florida!
Non-Toxic Pest Control (Homemade Roach and Ant Cookies)
Makes about 20 cookies
There is simply no need to use a pest control service for spraying toxic pesticides in and around your home to control roaches and ants. A super simple solution is to make homemade roach and ant cookies that last for years. Just be sure to hide them well and keep them away from the kids as they look like real cookies and you wouldn’t want one of your children taking a bite by accident!
We once had a bad roach problem in our old home when we remodeled the kitchen but these cookies took care of the problem within a few days.
The roaches begin to decline in number and eventually disappear completely never to be seen again!
Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup borax or boric acid (where to find)
1 egg
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together to form a moist batter. Add a bit of water if more moisture is needed to make a paste. Form small cookies about 1 inch in diameter and place on parchment paper on cookie sheets.
Bake at 350F for about 8-10 minutes. Let cool. Hide cookies in the back of cabinets, in corners on the floor and anywhere else you have roach or ant problems. They work great in garages too!
Store leftover cookies in a plastic ziplock back in an upper cabinet away from children and pets. These cookies last for years and so make enough so that you only have to make this recipe one time!
Other Non-toxic Pest Control Ideas
While these roach and ant cookies work beautifully well for keeping pests out of your home, occasionally I will have some ants trailing under a patio door or around the front porch foraging for food. For these situations, I place a bay leaf right at the same spot the ants are trailing in to repel them away in another direction.
Ants do not like bay leaves – at least the ants in Florida! This simple idea quickly and easily turns the ants around and sends them off foraging away from your house! As for fire ants, they are a different kettle of fish. This article plus video shows how I control them very easily with no pesticides.
That’s it! That’s all I do to keep pests away from my house. Two simple ideas that work. If worse comes to worst and your house is infested with more pests than just roaches or ants, be sure to call a green pest control company to fix the problem. There are two in my local area and they cost anywhere from $300-$500/year depending on the size of your house. Earth’s Best Natural Pest Control Management is one of the biggest in my state of Florida from what I understand, but I’m sure there are many others around the country.
More Information
Natural Flea Infestation and Prevention Solutions
Spider Repellent Guaranteed to Work
Natural and Effective Bed Bug Removal Techniques
Safely Get Rid of Carpenter Ants in a Snap
Fast and Effective Fly Repellent
Quick and Easy Homemade Fly Trap
Fast Acting Mosquito Bite Remedy That’s Probably Already in Your Kitchen
Cucumber peels work!
Years ago I lived in an apartment that became infested with cockroaches (my landlord had purchased another building that was infested, removed the carpets from the other building, and stored those carpets in the basement of our building).
Upon my sister’s advice, I started putting fresh cucumber peels in my kitchen cupboards every day (about a quarter of a cucumber used daily), using the cucumber itself in my daily salad. I left the peels in the cupboards until they dried out.
Within two weeks my cockroach problem was gone. There was never any dead cockroaches lying around so I presume the cucumber peels repelled the roaches and didn’t kill them. My neighbor wasn’t so lucky, they continued to have cockroach problems for months and months after I had successfully rid my apartment of the roaches. Why my neighbors ignored my advice I will never know.
I’ve been dealing with ants in my kitchen for too long now. I tried your cookie recipe, only I used borax powder. It didn’t occur to me you said boric acid. I don’t know if it’s the same thing or not. I put a cookie out on the counter where they are and they came to it at first, but then they ignored it. The cookie dries out fast and gets hard so maybe I need to get boric acid? I’m so frustrated I am about ready to call an exterminator.
i wanted to come back and leave another comment telling you how the cookies worked for me:
We’ve been seeing a lot of roaches lately. I also had ants invade my pantry the night before this posted. I had dusted a few corners in the kitchen with boric acid, but didn’t want to use too much because of the kids in my house. Also, the little I used didn’t seem to have any effect.
I made the cookies and oh my goodness! They are amazing little things! I don’t think they turned out the way they should have – they spread out into one large mass on the cookie sheet (plus I accidentally burned one batch). But I thought I’d try it anyway. I tore off three small pieces and put them under shelving along one wall of the garage. It was about midnight when I finished and put them out. First thing the next morning, I decided to check them. One cookie was dusty. One was covered in both live and dead ants, with more ants trailing back and forth – they were definitely having a party over there! The last cookie? Was gone. It’s nowhere to be found. I’m guessing the roaches stole it.
The best part? Is that with those three bits of bait I left in the garage, I have not seen any more ants in the house and I have not seen a single roach since then, alive or dead. I do want to put a few in the attic, but I don’t feel a rush to do so. Thank you so much for posting this recipe! We were about to break down and have someone come out to spray the house and now it’s not needed. Again, THANK YOU!
Thanks for all the information. I love this website. Lots of good information. I wish I could have found it earlier. I just made the ant-roach cookies, now to try them out. We don’t have roaches but the little black ants are a problem. I loved the webpage about doctors and their kickbacks. I came to this site for the bread recipes. Now I’m hooked. Yes, some men love to cook too. You have a faithful follower. You are bookmarked!
We are very interested in other solutions regarding bug control as we live in the woods and have plenty! We recently started carrying Diatomaceous Earth in our store, so I am excited about finally putting this to the test especially on ant hills outside. We have never had our house sprayed. We usually use the baits, but in this economy, it sure seems expensive compared to other means mentioned here. Sarah, your bat house is very intriguing to me! Where do you get one, and will they always attract bats? I am totally intrigued! Mosquitoes here are viscous and we refuse to use chemical sprays on our bodies too, so we use essential oils and such, but it would be nice to have some mosquito eaters around. 🙂
Nickole @ http://www.savvyteasandherbs.com
Was wondering what would be wrong with using Combat roach houses? Since there is no spray, nothing is left behind. I have found them to be very effective in eliminating my roach problem, and I can rest easier that the kids won’t get into them. I find the homemade cookie bait to be too chancy since I have four small kids and they are up into my cabinets sometimes as well.
I have also used cinnamon sticks in my cabinets and in my sugar bowl to very effectively ward off ants. I found out recently that it is the oil that they cannot tolerate. Other herbs such as peppermint would work as well. When the smell from the essential oil wears off, they need to be changed.
Sarah! COOKIE BAKING PROBLEM! I just spent 1.5 hours putting a double batch’s worth of the roach cookies onto three cookie sheets, consoling myself throughout the tedious process by imagining how wonderful it’ll be to be roach-free again. I baked them at 350 for 10 minutes, and was totally dismayed to find they’d melted and bubbled into a huge mess. Is that b/c I topped the cookie sheets with aluminum foil rather than parchment paper? Or is it b/c it wound up requiring about 3/4 cup water (double batch) in order to stick together? Or is it b/c I put my 1″ diameter cookies too close together on the cookie sheets? I’ve now transferred the messy masses into our dehydrator to take out the rest of the liquid and in hopes this will salvage the contents.
BTW, we first tried to buy the boric acid at Lowe’s. They said they do not sell “pure” boric acid and recommended Dollar General Store, where we found it for just $2/16 oz.
I was about to write to ask you this same question! The roaches are driving me batty and just yesterday I found ants having a party on my pantry floor. I also found about 50 winged ants dead in my bathtub upstairs. Not sure how they got there or how they died!
I guess I’ll do some baking tomorrow!
Great post! We’ve had good success with Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap mixed with water. We had originally tried it out on our Apple tree seedlings to combat whatever was munching on them. We’ve some kind of earwig population explosion after a very wet winter (biblical proportions – really) and the peppermint soap/water mixture is helping out substantially as a barrier.
Sarah, many thanks for this post. We’ve suddenly been seeing the occasional large roach in our house, and I want them outta here!