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I need a method for detecting crevices

Wait... why don't I wanna leave caulk trails again? You're not gonna tell me now they attract roaches now do they?
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
Take two small glasses or plastic cups. Fill one half full of household ammonia, the other half full of muriatic acid (from a hardware store, sold for cleaning concrete and brick). When you hold the cups close to each other, a white smoke will form over them where the vapors mix. The vapors are reacting to form ammonium chloride in particles small enough to act like soot or smoke. Do this near windows and doors, and you'll be able to see which way the smoke drifts.
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Ron_Tomkins said:
Man... I don't know. This has Hazmat written all over it. Are you sure it's safe? What happens if I breathe that smoke?
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I don't know anything about anything, but from his post:

ammonium chloride is safe enough to eat, and used as a flavoring in such 'delicacies' as salty licorice. (salmiakki or some variant in northern europe)
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Um, in my experience roaches don't really travel too much back and forth, inside to outside, via cracks in the house. They get in and stay in. They breed in the walls, under stoves, in the kick spaces under cabinets. You could seal the house up completely air tight and the roaches wouldn't notice (unless, of course, were talking townhouses here).

What I do at my house, and my rental house, is lay down a good chemical barrier around the foundation to keep them from wandering into the crawlspace, then use copious amounts of boric acid ("roach proof") in the places they like to frequent. Its pretty effective and very safe to humans/pets. Though, you may have to drill some holes on lower kitchen cabinets to get the boric acid under the cabinets where its needed.
 
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I use this stuff:

http://roachridder.com/

I think it's just boric acid mixed with a bait, but we don't have any roaches to speak of since we started using it.

It says they only ship to Texas, so you may have to find something similar locally or email them and see if they can make an exception.
 
madurobob said:
Um, in my experience roaches don't really travel too much back and forth, inside to outside, via cracks in the house. They get in and stay in.
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When I lived in a leaky house in rural Alabama, any time there was any clearing of brush or woods in the area we would get roaches. Apparently roaches that had been living in the woods were happy to move into our house when their homes were destroyed.

In my current home there are lots of roaches living in the landscape stones around the house. They never come into the house, probably because it is a block home with no easy way in.
 
Become a bug psychic, and charge other people to find all the crevices where bugs hide in their homes. Use the proceeds to buy yourself a new, bug-free, place.
 
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