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Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

sciencemag.org

121–130 of 154 posts

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), bu…

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to have crickets for my bearded dragons and after a while I also took a liking to them. I feel that if you watch almost any animal closely for a while you see interesting traits and behaviors that make them likeable.

> if you watch almost any animal closely for a while you see interesting traits and behaviors that make them likeable. I used to burn leaves with a magnifying glass in the sun as a kid. Once, I hovered the infernal dot over an ant and watched his abdomen pop. I then observed, in zoomed-in horror, as the poor thing kept trying to feel its missing abdomen and then clean its own juices off its antennae. Other ants would…

You have empathy for something mostly despised as a pest. Hackers are thought to have little, but sometimes I suspect we have more, so much more that is really the lack of reciprocation for our empathy others show for us that is the problem.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#124
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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 man…

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), bu…

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.

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

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#126
post #57
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could use Tokkay Gekkos to get them. Then the cockroach problem becomes a gekko problem. Then we use a cat and the gekko problem becomes a cat problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokay_gecko

No, that's the beautiful part. When winter rolls around, the cats simply freeze to death.

Since Skinner recommended gorillas: https://youtu.be/P9yruQM1ggc

... I had to check [0]: at least mountain gorillas can survive temperatures below freezing.

[0] https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/mountain-gorilla

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides

#130

How will they evolve against this: https://4.imimg.com/data4/RH/CQ/NSDMERP-28172796/kainchishoe...

Becoming harder. I already despise that cracking sound when I step on them, it’s disgusting. If they could make it louder, I would seriously hesitate to kill them.
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