Creepy Crawly Solution - My Mom's first Guest Post!

Today I am happy to feature our first guest post! It's written by none other than Mother Dearest. Thanks for sharing your expertise, Mom. Although the motivation behind this project is less than desirable, this is an inexpensive way to terminate those nasty critters WITHOUT introducing toxic chemicals to your home.

Enter the Roach Ball...

Have you ever had roaches barge into your home uninvited?  Many times they travel inside cardboard boxes and take up residence when no one is looking.  How do you get rid of them without spraying toxic chemicals?  Enter the roach ball.  This old time recipe is a sure roach attractant and roach killer.  It uses ingredients that are easy to obtain and the balls are easy to make.  
Put on vinyl or latex gloves to protect your hands.  You'll need boric acid (found in home improvement stores and most big discount marketers), flour, sugar, onion and bacon grease.  Mix an equal amount of boric acid (you can use borax, but you'll need to use twice as much) and white flour.  This is the base of your dough. Add a small quantity of minced onions, sugar,bacon grease (you can use butter or shortening, but bacon grease is best) and enough water to make a dough that has the consistency of biscuit dough.  The proportions can vary, so don't stress over how much of each ingredient to use.  Roll the dough into balls the size of walnuts.  Place the balls in the back of cabinets - especially where your water pipes come in, under the bottom drawers in your kitchen and bathroom cabinets and under heavy furniture where they can't be found by children or pets - It is toxic if eaten in large quantities and is a skin irritant because of its acidic properties.  Also, because it is a dough, you can squish it into cracks along baseboards where you suspect cockroach activity.
Roaches are attracted to this yummy confection and will feed on it.  Within a few weeks, all your roaches will disappear.  Remember to check and make sure that roaches aren't coming into your house through openings around your plumbing, cable or the electrical supply to your house or apartment.  If there are openings, roaches can be an ongoing problem and you'll need to replace your roach balls when they are no longer soft. For a permanent solution, you will need to use an expanding foam (like Great Stuff) to plug up those openings to the outside world. As a word of caution...that expanding foam does just that - a teeny, tiny bit goes a long way.  Practice first on something you can throw away and if you get too much, you can cut it down to size after the foam has cured!

Even the best housekeepers cannot guarantee a domain free of roaches {especially if living in an older home}. At least now we have a way to get rid of those pesky pests that will not put our family's health in danger! Thanks again, Mom!