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Comment by stirfrykitty | Hacker News Reader

Mix baking soda and sugar together and put them in a bowl. Will kill them dead without toxicity to humans.

Boric acid has no resistance.

Bay leaves repel about every insect known to man. Roaches hate bay leaves and will not be in the same area with them.

Editing to say that bay leaves can be crushed in a coffee grinder, put in a plastic ketchup/mustard bottle as a powder, and the resulting powder "puffed" into areas where they have been. This can be done outside as well. Combine this with orange oil concentrate and your house will be insect free fairly quickly. Cheap, too.

Editing to add, here in the south, loads of people also buy concentrated orange oil from places like Tractor Supply and mix it with water in a pump sprayer. Spray the permimeter of your house and zero insects will cross it. It's toxic as hell to the insects because it dissolves their bodies, but non-toxic to cats, dogs, lizards, etc. They will NOT develop a resistance to being melted by the citric acid.

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I hope you're correct, and I have used diatomaceous earth (not in your list, but similar in nature) to mitigate travelers as I moved out of a cockroach infested place.

But broadly speaking, I have to at least be a little skeptical - if all of these things are such easy fixes with no cost to human health, why are we even having this conversation about insecticides? Why was the market created in the first place? Is it just good advertising?

I live north of Houston. We have more insects, snakes, and critters than most places on earth. Just in my area we have spiders (wolf, black widow, brown recluse, among others), roaches, ants (fire and normal), scorpions, centipedes, mosquitoes, and more.

I have successfully used these to combat insects inside my home. My wife does not like the smell of the orange oil, so I use it judiciously inside (laundry room), but outside around the perimeter. My children aren't exposed to toxic chemicals, but the bugs don't cross the perimeter much. Orange oil appears as "expensive" per liter, but it's concentrated, so I mix it in a gallon sprayer with water and spray. I might actually try soaking bay leaves in the water with the orange oil overnight. In this heat and humidity, the resulting water just might be really nasty for insects.

My grandmother swears by spreading cayenne pepper in lieu of bay leaf powder.

I think the market sees an opportunity, despite health risks, to market this stuff as an easy solution, but it's like doctors prescribing antibiotics for everything. It's efficacy is wearing thin as insects develop an immunity. I guess nature knows a thing or two about handling insects, so I appeal to the non-toxic stuff as much as possible.

Cool, glad to hear it's working. I've also used cayenne pepper and cinnamon on ants, and tried cleaning their trail with vinegar. They're the Argentine kind (San Francisco area) which means they are _legion_, so I had limited results.

We use balsamic vinegar (or wine) to lure fruit flies. I make a trap with paper, scissors, tape, a glass, and vinegar. Get a clean glass and fil it with a few cm of vinegar. From the paper cut a funnel with a small hole (2 mm or so) on the bottom. Use the tape to attach the paper to the glass (use more tape if there are open holes cause else they might escape). The paper will slowly get spots from the flies/liquid. Lasts a couple of weeks. Be careful when you toss it away, so that no flies escape.

We zap flies with an electronic zapper (looks like a tennis racket). There's a couple of tricks I learned from it but yeah just make sure you clean up the mess. The zapper resides on the fridge because we got a young human being frolicking around.

Watered down lemon ammonia works great for killing a pheromone trail. Smells OK and it works.

Terro ant baits are boric acid. A couple times a year we get a stream of ants coming into our kitchen near the sink. I have never been able to track down where they come from. They just appear out of cracks in the wall. But in any case, the only way I've effectively gotten rid of them is to put out a couple Terro liquid ant baits on the window sill, and they're gone within a day or two... at least for a few months.

They're coming from outside. They establish routes that are many meters long through all available seams and cracks. Use Amdro ant bait (not 'blocker') in the spring around the structure perimeter when temps get above 10C/50F, avoiding wet weather. They carry the bait back to the nest and wipe it out. Follow the directions scrupulously and be patient; it will take a week. If you have a lawn keep it thick and healthy; ants usually prefer bare ground for nests. It's possible, with good landscaping and aggressive use of a caulking gun (assuming the structure is otherwise in good condition,) to keep them out, but that is often not feasible, and some ants are more industrious than others.

> why are we even having this conversation about insecticides?

It might be the same as when people insist on treating a (viral) cold with antibiotics. Not only are they the wrong kind of treatment, they are also a massive overreaction.

Perhaps boric acid is not the kind of thing you can make massive profits from.

Boric acid is mentioned in the article, they are developing resistance.

How can they develop a resistance to something that physically destroys their exoskeleton? It acts as an abrasive.

>Boric acid also has the reputation as "the gift that keeps on killing" in that cockroaches that cross over lightly dusted areas do not die immediately, but that the effect is like shards of glass cutting them apart. This often allows a roach to go back to the nest where it soon dies.

edit: found the article,

>All of the tested resistance intervention strategies selected for increased resistance to all AIs applied in field treatments except boric acid....Our results also showed non-significant, but nonetheless elevated cross-“tolerance” towards boric acid in some instances.[0]

So it's probably noise in the data. Boric acid is different from the rest of the substances studied. It may not be all that effective however, according to the paper, is my take.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44296-y

I get the sense that someone has confused boric acid with diatomaceous earth, and spread their confusion to Wikipedia.

For an insect with a waxy cuticle over their exoskeleton, walking over diatomaceous earth is basically like John McClane in Die Hard, running in bare feet over broken glass. Except instead of bleeding to death from the lacerations, the water in their hemolymph diffuses out at a faster rate through the scratches in their cuticle, and they dehydrate to death. The glasslike skeletons of diatoms are hard, sharp, and insoluble in water at neutral pH.

Boric acid has to be ingested. It's a chemical poison. It works fine when added to bait. Sprinkling it as a powder won't work as well, as the insect would have to be dusted with it over their body, and then groom themselves shortly thereafter to remove the powder. Walking through it just dusts the ends of the legs. It works especially well with ants, who will carry poisoned baits back to the colony, but only if you add it to sugar or peanut butter.

As boric acid is softer than glass, and soluble in water, I wouldn't count on it as an insect-killing abrasive.

We can all blame Wikipedia user Rfc1394, who added the text to the Boric Acid article at 10:05, 23 June 2017, apparently with a citation to the EPA R.E.D. factsheet, which does not contain anything remotely close to the text added.

After talking with another user, it's become clear that yes you are mistaken. Your confusion about the wikipedia source led you down an incorrect path. I shouldn't have taken your statements at face value as true. You are ironically the problem you were attempting to point out -- being confused about a source, and then spreading that confusion.

First: The wikipedia source (EPA R.E.D. factsheet) you said didn't "contain anything remotely close to the text" actually does.

>Pesticide products containing boric acid and its sodium salts are registered in the U.S. for use as insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. As insecticides, some act as stomach poisons in ants, cockroaches, silverfishand termites, while others abrade the exoskeletons of insects. [0]

Second: Boric acid has a hardness of 3 not 1 as you claimed. Diatomaceous Earth has a hardness of 1-1.5. [1] [2] This just about blows a hole in every point you've yet tried to make.

I know I won't get an apology, or probably even a concession of your error, but I am posting this reply for posterity -- so other's aren't mislead.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20080406065032/http://www.epa.go... -- the wiki source that was incorrectly identified as not supporting the claim

[1] http://www.americanborate.com/all-about-borates/borate-appli... -- another source about the abrasive properties + boric acid hardness

[2] https://www.tedpella.com/company_html/hardness.htm -- boric acid hardness

Is it possible that the statement is about a pesticide product containing boric acid or a sodium salt of boric acid, and that the abrasive element in said product is not the boric acid?

Boric acid, or B(OH)3, is the mineral sassolite, and has Mohs hardness 1. [0]

Boric anhydride, or B2O3, has a Mohs hardness of 4. [1] It is not boric acid. It converts to boric acid in the presence of water, and is hygroscopic, so will also do so in the presence of humidity.

Borax, or Na2B4O5(OH)4•8(H2O), has a Mohs hardness of 2-2.5 . It is not boric acid. It converts to boric acid in the presence of strong acid, and is considered a hydrated sodium salt of boric acid.

Diatomaceous earth is a sedimentary material, not a pure mineral. It has components of different hardness, the relevant factor being the crushed frustules of ancient diatoms, or diatomaceous silica. "The ultimate hardness of the diatom skeleton is between 4.5 and 5 on the Mohs' scale.... The friability, or the propensity of the skeleton to break down, rather than to abrade, renders a measurement of hardness meaningless without also a consideration of the particle size." [3]

The "not even close" text was the actually quoted text "the gift that keeps on killing". Quoted from the cited source? No. The other dubious hyperbolic phrase was "the effect is like shards of glass cutting them apart", which also does not appear in the cited source. "Shards of glass" does bring to mind a broken diatom frustule, which is literally a shard of sharp silica when viewed under a microscope. There's quite a step up in intensity from "related chemicals may be abrasive" to "this exact chemical is like sharp shards of glass".

Your sources are a company that sells microscopes and "about us" copy for a company that sells mineral borates. I'm not certain what borate it has with a Mohs hardness of 3, but that means it can scratch a fingernail. Try it at home. Grow the biggest boric acid crystal you can, and then try to scratch your fingernail with it. About the only thing holding it together as a solid at all is hydrogen bonding and van der Waals forces. There is nothing there chemically to give it hardness. Individual molecules flake off readily.

So no, I will not apologize or concede.

[0] http://webmineral.com/data/Sassolite.shtml

[1] https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/boric%20anhydride#...

[2] http://webmineral.com/data/Borax.shtml

[3] https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/chief/old/ap42/ch11/s22/reference/r...

I think you're mistaken. There are many other independent sources that talk about its action as an abrasive. You may be the one spreading confusion.

Here's one of many. This one is from the National Pesticide Information Center which operates out of Oregon State University in partnership with the EPA (OSU has a large focus on agricultural research.)

> It can also scratch and damage the exterior of insects.

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/boricgen.html

I'd take a source that has been peer-reviewed by entomologists containing the evidence of independently repeatable measurements.

The falsifiable hypothesis is that crystalline boric acid can kill an insect without being ingested, by a purely mechanical action.

Sassolite (boric acid) has a Mohs hardness of ONE. Please understand why I might be skeptical of its supposed reputation for killing things by scratching them. Minerals with low Mohs hardness, like graphite, talc, and yes, also boric acid, are used as lubricants.[0]

I also question whether those multiple sources in support are truly independent, as I have seen several search results that quote the Wikipedia article verbatim.

[0] http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~wsawyer/boricWear2006.PDF

You think the EPA, the University of Oregon, and the National Pesticide Information Center are wrong?

Seems likely. Rather, they stated that 'fact' without anything more than anecdotal evidence.

This paper investigates a far more likely method of action: http://zero.sci-hub.tw/673/f8d7a6469e96789d8c958eb3c4efdc46/...

You're flat wrong.

I didn't bother checking the other claims that logfromblammo made before my previous comments, I accepted them at face value, but I did this time; Boric acid has a hardness of 3 not 1 as he claimed. Diatomaceous Earth has a hardness of 1-1.5. [0][1]

I looked at the source for the wikipedia claim that logfromblammo described so: "which does not contain anything remotely close to the text added". The source does support the claim in wikipedia. [2]

The foundational premise behind his original post "unsourced wikipedia edit mislead other websites" is flat wrong. And on top of that, his reasoning for why boric acid wouldn't be a good abrasive "mohs hardness of 1" is also wrong, and egregiously so when the infamous Diatomaceous Earth that he claims is being mistaken for boric acid has a mohs hardness of 1-1.5! It's an irrelevant argument.

My initial diagnosis of logfromblammo being the one who was confused was absolutely correct. Very disappointed in both of you. Hopefully many people weren't mislead by being convinced by logfromblammo as you were.

[0] http://www.americanborate.com/all-about-borates/borate-appli... -- another source about the abrasive properties + boric acid hardness

[1] https://www.tedpella.com/company_html/hardness.htm -- boric acid hardness

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20080406065032/http://www.epa.go... -- the wiki source that was incorrectly identified as not supporting the claim

I think they are referring to pesticides that contain boron, and not specifically to the individual chemical component B(OH)3 (s), a.k.a. solid boric acid.

I can easily imagine a commercial pesticide targeted at ants and roaches that contains borates, sugar, and diatomaceous earth, because that is exactly what I use in my own kitchen, made from the individual components. It is effective, and has low toxicity to humans and pets. But to be clear, it is abrasive because the D.E. component is abrasive, not from the boric acid.

D.E. is actually the only powdered pesticidal substance I am aware of that kills via mechanical means.

> How can they develop a resistance to something that physically destroys their exoskeleton? It acts as an abrasive.

Broadly speaking, couldn't they just develop a change to the structure of their exoskeleton? I can see how it might be less likely than a chemical resistance, but it still seems possible.

I'm sure it's possible, but it's like a human being developing a resistance to a hammer to the skull. It would take much more than few generations of selective pressure to do that.

Your skull IS such an adaptation. Not hammer, but it does protect your CNS from many physical harms, and was evolutionarily gifted to you back in the days of early vertebrates

I'm not saying it's not an adaptation. Think about the scale of time you just referenced and compare it to the frame of time of the study and my comment.

Read my comment again.

Thank you.

The speed of evolution is mainly a function of the length of a generation (and also of the amount of pressure from the environment). Consider how long human generations are compared to cockroaches, and how little evolutionary pressure humans face today. Read my comment again. Thank you

I did read your comment. You're wrong. A few generations (1.5 years) would not plausibly have this effect. I doubt even a hundred generations would be able to select for something so significant since it's a weakness that all exoskeleton insects have. Insects have remained largely the same for millions of years.

I never said it wasn't possible, I said it wasn't plausible for it happen on short scales of time such as this study.

You're being pedantic, but you're still wrong.

Different humans have skulls of different thicknesses and if there was a situation where hammer skullings became major cause of death I'm sure that over time those with thicker skulls or other features that made them less susceptible to skullings would survive and flourish.

how many generations will roaches have passed through within the space of one year? tens? hundreds? thousands?

American cockroaches take 6 months to a year to reach reproductive maturity

Orange oil doesn't contain citric acid, it is mostly limonene.

While we’re on the subject of insect-killing tricks, dish soap + water in a spray bottle is an excellent at killing flies, and it’s very safe for you.

>They will NOT develop a resistance to being melted by the citric acid.

No, but you encourage the selection of the organisms who have a resistance to citric acid, or whatever substance you are using. I think it's very presumptuous to say that by killing everything with a substance you aren't selecting for that resistance.

cleaning also helps

Powdered or crystallized sugar?

Crystalline (table sugar). Powered would likely work as well. The baking soda destroys them from the inside out, basically blowing them up. Roaches have strong stomach acid, but they cannot "burp" so the baking soda creates a mini explosion inside them. Fitting end.

Thanks, I'm going to try this.

Just to be clear: "baking soda" is Bicarbonate of soda (aka. bicarb soda, sodium bicarbonate)?

Mix in equal proportions?

It's a dry mix, not with water?

Yes, 50/50. Plain old Arm&Hammer. Dry.

Thanks. I would have thought the large crystals of sugar would be easy for them to differentiate... but perhaps the baking power ia so fine-grained, it coats the sugar.

cool. Now how do I get rid of the ants that are eating the sugar?

The baking soda will kill them, too.

Orange oil, bay leaves, and baking soda/sugar mix are all non-toxic to humans and animals, and all cheap. And they all work very well.

Where I live, the only insects I will not kill are the spiders. They hang out under my roof line and eat all the bad flying insects like mosquitoes.

1. Spiders are not insects. In fact, from my experience, a lot of proper insecticides don't do squat to spiders. The toxicity pathways are simply different between insects and spiders, I guess.

2. I actually like ants, unless you're talking about the really nasty ones like army ants or red fire ants. I don't mind them in my house, stealing my food; I just don't want to accidentally kill them. Some people raise them in formicariums (like aquariums, but for ants). I used to have a formicarium when I was in Canada, but have been having trouble trying to start a Carebara affinis or Carebara diversa colony in Hong Kong. Ants, like a lot of other apocrita, are actually quite "hygiene-conscient", almost to the point of OCD. Ants are also pollinators and scavengers that clean up the ground by carrying whatever they can eat into their nests. I have never heard about ants being vectors of human-affecting diseases.

TL;DR: Try not to kill the ants.

Spiders don't stand a chance against orange oil concentrate. It handily kills them right along with every other crawly thing. I won't spray the ones that stay up high, but if you've ever seen a Wolf spider in your house, you'd spray them, too. They can get rather large. If only I could convince my wife to move someplace civil like Vermont or just slightly east of Seattle, like Issaquah or Snohomish. Texas has too many critters. Where I live, the coons will attempt to gain entry into your trash cans, the possums will be under your cars and hiss at you, the snakes are ever present. Just down the street from us, a family killed two water moccasins in their back garden a couple of weeks ago. They also have seen several copperheads. Both are venomous.

I forgot to advocate for the spiders, again, except the really nasty ones. E.g. during damp seasons, I catch and deploy jumping spiders into my daughter’s room as a method of biological control against book lice.

In my opinion, if you have any kind of spider infestation on your property, then you have something else to worry about. Spiders need food to thrive, which usually means insects or other arthropods, which in turn means you have an infestation of other arthropods.

So why are you having a bug infestation in the first place? Are you leaving food crumbs all over the place? Do you have damp places where fungi and moss will grow? Insects and all kinds of critters really like those conditions. If you fix those, your insect and (consequently) spider infestation will most likely be gone.

In the case of mosquitoes, we are the food, so you can’t fix that, but you can clear out bodies of still water, which will decimate the number of mosquito larvae.

Killing them (with insecticides) only fixes the symptoms, not the root of the problem.

I have lived in or just outside of Chicago my entire life, and the worst critter I've encountered are centipedes, which I handle incredibly poorly. I honestly don't think I would manage well with encountering snakes or wolf spiders with any frequency.

I admire your resolve in your combat.

When you mention bay leaves, do you mean laurus nobilis or a different species? Could you specify the Latin name please?

I tried coffee powder at the back door to keep ants out.

I tried egg shells to protect our strawberry plants from beetles and caterpillars.

Neither worked... well, maybe they somewhat worked, who knows?

Your comments are what makes HN super-awesome! Thank you.

Any tips for mosquitoes when you can’t rely on spiders (or geckos) alone?

The best (non-toxic) repellant I've found for mosquitoes is blasting them away with a low to medium powered box or table fan.

I live less than 1000' from the water's edge, so mosquitoes are ever present for about 9 months of the year. I've tried citronella candles when out BBQing, watching my children play in the lawn, etc. I don't like dousing myself in chemicals, so I don't spray myself with deet, etc. They are a nuisance for which there is little to be done other than avoidance.

Deet is benign to humans. Lots of studies on it since it was invented to protect those building the Panama Canal.

You can also build bat houses. Bats feed almost exclusively on mosquitos. They eat more than their own body weight in them.

There is a great story behind this and I dug deep into the research and history dozens of links long but this might inspire you

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygieostatic_Bat_Roost

If you can stand the smell, neem oil is very effective. I use low concentrations in a spray bottle, and spray my windows, they generally don't come in..

Will orange oil and bay leaves also work on ants (or, just baking soda will)?

Orange oil kills ants as well as spiders, etc. Baking soda is only used for ants and roaches, mixed with sugar.

Thanks. I see bay leaves should repel ants too, from your original comment:

> Bay leaves repel about every insect known to man.

I have to try the bay leaves. Thanks for these pointers.

Wow. Why is this not more widely known?

Does the sugar not attract ants?

The same mixture of baking soda and sugar also kills the ants.

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