Does Boric Acid Kill Roaches?

You’ll get boric acid in either dust or gel forms, but largely dusts are used for pest extermination. Chemically, boric acid will contain electrostatic charges and thus it’ll cling to the roach’s body while it’s crawling on the roach-treated surfaces.

• Does Boric Acid Kill Roaches? I’ve come to love Boric acid powder (available on Amazon) for its effectiveness in killing roaches. The boric acid powder is a boron derivative.
• You’ll require to mix the powder with sweet substances such as honey to create Boric Acid Gel or roach-attracting borax acid paste. 

If you’re a homeowner, how do you get rid of a cockroach colony? Some of the roach-control products available in the market are roach bombs, roach sprays, roach killers, and roach gels. 

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Boric Acid For Roaches? Powder Roach Treatments 

In this post, I have a comprehensive guide on creating a borax acid paste. Also, I’ll describe the mistakes homeowners make when using Boric Acid to Kill Roaches. 

Unfortunately, the boric acid powder can be easily misapplied and readily blown away by air currents. This could send the powder to areas where kids and pets could contact it and sadly get poisoned. Therefore, the most effective application method is to make a boric acid paste for the roaches to eat.

Summary: Using honey and bacon grease to make the boric acid paste will help attract the toxic boric acid (and readily kill them). The roaches feed on the paste or carry it back to their nests, where other cockroaches also feed and die. If the roach die and their counterparts eat them, then they’d even die.

How To Make a Roach-attracting (and killing) Boric Acid Paste

Sadly, roaches come in a colony, and thus, seeing one implies that many others are hiding. I know you might have tried toxic chemicals or employed the services of an exterminator. However, with boric acid, the process is easy, effective, and inexpensive – and it’s excellent even for roaches that can fly or glide.

Requirements: To create the extra-delicious boric acid cake, you’ll require 2 cups of boric acid powder, 1 cup of baking flour, two tablespoons of bacon grease, two tablespoons of maple syrup or honey, one popsicle stick for mixing, and 2 cups of water.

Preliminary Steps to take

– Restoring sanity in your house after a roach infestation requires a comprehensive plan and consistent work. First, you’ll need to remove water and food sources that would be feeding the pests.

Therefore, clean the house and undertake some necessary home repairs. Also, drain all standing water in or around your house and stop any water leads. 

– Also, clean any dirty sinks and dishes, remove pet water dishes, and watered plants. Clean the kitchen appliances to remove any little food that remains.

Next, you’ll need to remove garbage and trash cans while still doing daily vacuuming of your carpet and seal any penetrations via ground-level walls. Avoid leaving food and bread cramps on the furniture or rugs. Also, do not leave pet food or water overnight in the pet eating dishes.

Step 1: First, mix the 2 cups of water with the boric acid powder and 1 cup of the baking floor. This process will produce a milky-looking solution.

Step 2: Next, mix the honey syrup or honey with the resultant mix from step one. Pour some water to bring the paste to get the correct consistency. I mainly target to create a paste that has a texture nearing that of peanut butter.

Step 3: Take the popsicle stick and now pour a small portion of the roach-killing paste to a place where you know roaches will get the frequency. Such sites include pipes, in food cabinet, under cookers and fridge.

Step 4: Finally, to prevent roaches from coming through walls or drainages from outside the house, you’ll need to cover these areas with boric acid paste. So, smear the paste on walls or pipes where roaches might have routes for getting into your apartment.

Roaches will usually take back the food they get to their nests or colony, and thus other roaches will feed on the same and die. If one of the poisoned roaches poops or dies and other of their colleagues eat it, they’ll die. Therefore, this feeding chain would allow you to kill most of the roaches even in their hiding places – areas where roach sprays would ordinarily not reach.

What’s Boric Acid or Borax?

So, you’re asking, which mechanism does boric acid used to kill roaches and their colonies? As outlined above, Boric acid (popular as Acidum boricua, boracic acid, or hydrogen borate) is a borax derivative that acts as a pesticide.

You’ll mainly find boric acid powder in substances such as toothpaste and another detergent. Boric Acid For Roaches acts as a desiccant (dehydrates roaches) and being non-repellant and odorless.

How boric acid works to kill cockroaches

When the roaches crawl near the boric acid roach paste, the mixture will stick on the pests’ bodies and arms. Further, when the roach ingests the paste, the boric acid will get into the pest’s digestive and nervous systems, crippling them and causing death.

Further, Boric acid will kill another roach population when they eat other dead roaches fed on the boric acid paste. Additionally, the roaches carry the roach paste back to the roach nest, helping kill the roach population in the nest or hidden place.

Further, the boric acid destroys the roaches’ exoskeleton, which allows the paste to dehydrate the roach and thus kill it.

Boric acid functions as a desiccant and will extract the pest’s body moisture, causing dehydration and death. Notably, the infant roaches may die within 48 hours, while the adult roaches will die in 72 hours.

Mistakes homeowners make with Boric Acid.

For the boric acid to be effective, you’ll need to avoid simple mistakes that could hamper your roach-control success. Here’re the mistakes you must avoid.

1. Disregarding Safety Rules

For the chemical that boric acid is, you must use it to protect your pet’s and kids’ health. Therefore, I’ve always told my clients that they must use gloves to use boric acid powder safely.

As discussed above, you must clean up any food substances sticking on your furniture, countertops, and wash the dishes. You must place the boric acid paste in a hidden location from kids and people in the house for additional safety.

2. Excessive boric acid application 

Roaches are not your regular damn pests. They’ll quickly notice a pile of roach acid paste and quickly see that it could be a death trap. Hence, it’s great that you apply the boric acid paste in a thin layer so that the roaches won’t avoid it.

If you’re using a boric acid powder, you can use a pest control bulb duster to apply uniformly.

Hence, you can use the stick to create a skinny layer of the boric-acid paste, and therefore you won’t leave lumps of the solution. It’s important to know that not many roach paste quantities are required to kill the cockroaches.

3. Using the Boric Acid in the incorrect spots

You need to apply the boric acid in food preparation areas or those where food gets stored or could drop. You must special attention to crevices and cracks under the fridge and other food appliances, sinks, and cabinets.

Therefore, if you don’t get the high traffic or food waste areas right, you’ll have started your roach control journey on the wrong footing. 

Conclusion

Avoid wasting time and resources by identifying the right places to apply boric acid. However, you must also practice some patience in the roach control since you’ll most likely see notable results (that’s a large number of roaches dying) in about 2-5 days.