Get Rid of Roaches

I was very thankful when the flood finally subsided and we were able to clean the house but a new problem arose that needed dealing with.  I've seen a few roaches scampering about my kitchen sink and that totally freaked me out.  I knew something must be done to avoid a bigger infestation.  Chemical sprays were out of the question and like everybody else, I searched online for a natural way of pest control.  My search has landed me here.  It said I will only need 2 ingredients, borax and sugar.  Mix together and put container in the place you see them crawling about.  Seems easy but I don't have borax at hand and I didn't feel like buying a new box of borax.  I asked a chemist friend what would be an alternative for borax and what do you know, he said I can use chalk or the blue cube that you rub on the ends of pool sticks.  I chose the chalk, easier and cheaper to get.  After that, I started making my own batch of roach food killer recipe.

I used these materials:

1. A container, in this case a McD ketchup dish because I like to reuse stuff.
2. Chalk, I used 2 different chalks. A plain one and a Baygon chalk roach and ant killer.  I was trying to find out which one would be more effective.  I could have used the baygon chalk by itself but I didn't like the idea of inhaling chalk powder while I scribble it on the wall.  Also because it's unsightly. The first batch which I used on the first day was plain chalk.  The next batches with baygon chalk.
3. Sugar or anything sweet. I used my expired pancake syrup for this.  At least I found a use for my expired syrup.

Next step:

1. Need to make my chalk powdery and a hammer did the job.
2. Add sugar or in my case, syrup to the dish. Just enough to cover the powder then stir until the chalk dissolves.
3. I left my batch in the kitchen sink.

 

The next day, I went straight to the kitchen to see if it worked and it did.  I know it's gross but I wanted to show you that it worked so I took a picture.  If you click at the left picture, you'll see that it even attracted some ants.  The website was right.  It said that the sugar is what attracts them and the borax is what kills them.

I did mention that I tried a plain chalk and a baygon chalk. The baygon chalk was far more effective. The plain chalk works too but the other provided a faster result.  But if I were to choose, I prefer using the plain chalk for health reason.  It just so happen I have leftover baygon chalk to use for this. 

I was told by  my chemist friend to continue serving the roach food killer for 2 to 4 weeks to make sure I get them all.  I've been doing this since Sunday and everyday since then, I'd be sweeping a few dead roaches in the morning.  This morning I notice the roaches are a lot smaller (younger?).  Could it be I'm close to getting rid of them all?  Oh well, I'll keep doing this for a month just to be sure.