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Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

sciencemag.org

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Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#101

Post by js2 »

orblivion wrote: post #88
stirfrykitty wrote: post #42

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…

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…

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#103

Post by close04 »

orblivion wrote: post #88
stirfrykitty wrote: post #42

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…

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…

> 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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#104

Post by S_A_P »

I had a cockroach come in my garage the other day. had some wasp spray nearby and doused it. While I could tell it was probably unhappy, it just kept on moving albeit in a half drunken path. Not sure if it actually died, as it turned around and left but it definitely lived much longer than a wasp does with the same dose.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#105

Post by jawns »

andrewl wrote: post #64
hanoz wrote: post #17

I can't help but think that AI plus robotics is going to have pest control sewn up in the not too distant future, rendering these chemical brute force attacks largely redundant.

I've wondered about that. Could small crawling robots, perhaps 3-inches long, be built to roam around houses and inside walls and under sinks and so on to seek out and kill cockroaches and other household pests? I doubt anything can develop resistance to being torn apart by a robot. The answer is probably that it could be done now, or fairly soon. Whether it would be economical is another question entirely. But I don…

> I doubt anything can develop resistance to being torn apart by a robot.

True, but resistance is not the only evolutionary adaptation available. For instance, behavioral adaptations might make them more difficult for robots to capture.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#107

Post by simonebrunozzi »

stirfrykitty wrote: post #42

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…

Wow. Why is this not more widely known?

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#108

Post by dmitrygr »

CriticalCathed wrote: post #87
orblivion wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#109

Post by hyperpallium »

stirfrykitty wrote: post #74
elorant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#110

Post by Dig1t »

stirfrykitty wrote: post #42

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…

Does the sugar not attract ants?
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