Nobody likes to think about them…but they are there!

A friend of mine had a big problem when she moved in to an apartment in Old San Juan. The street in front of her building was being re-paved during the first few months of her stay and it caused her apartment to become infested with the little visitor everybody hates: cockroaches.

Now I know what your thinking: “ohh come on, he isn’t going to talk about insects, is he?”, and to answer you briefly, yes I will talk about insects. Because I will show you how to get rid of them!

This post isn’t specifically about San Juan in the way that most of my other posts are, but it’s no secret that old buildings in general attract those little creepy crawling visitors, and in a 400 year old city there are a whole lot of places for them to hide. The good thing is that dealing with bugs, and roaches specifically, can be easy with this simple Do It Yourself method that can be used in all kinds of places: from private residences to businesses!

First: you will need: Boric acid powder, rice flour, Karo or pancake syrup, a Popsicle stick and a mixing bowl. By the way, I think its kind of obvious that dealing with boric (or pretty much any) acid is dangerous. So use it outside or in a well ventilated area, wear a mask for protection, and obviously at your own risk. In fact read its Safety Data Sheet before even thinking about trying this.

Second: Using the bowl, mix all the ingredients. The correct mixing order is : 2 parts boric acid + 2 parts flour and enough syrup to make a peanut butter like consistency.

Third: Using the Popsicle stick, dab portions of the paste on the places usually visited by the roaches, under sinks , in dark spots, behind the fridge, underneath the counters and anywhere else you might have seen them. The trick here is to put the paste in dark places so the roaches are always tempted to go to it, day or night.

Using this simple and cheap method you can guarantee that your house and/or business will be clean from pests, and wont smell like pesticide all year long!

A very special thanks to instructables.com where you will find this and other helpful tips!