apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My new favorite cleaning product? Borax. I am of the baking-soda-and-vinegar-cleans-most-things school of thought but this stuff will clean your drains and your toilet too! I even put it in my laundry and it is so cheap too!

Not to mention it is the bomb when it comes to ridding your loft/abode/flat etc of b-u-g-s. My family has been on to this low key bug-getter for generations. I personally have been asked by professional exterminators to keep mum about its effectiveness since they needed the business. Spread it around your base boards and the inside edges of your kitchen cabinets, keep it dry, replace it when it gets a bit damp and within a week you will be experiencing bugless nirvana.

Does anyone know if borax is toxic to humans and/or pets? I would love to use this to de-bugify my crappy apartment, and have been searching high and low for something I could spread on my window sills/baseboards to keep bugs out, but have had a hard time finding something that would be pet and human friendly (we have a chow chow). Any tips would be great!

bluestar, with a quick google of borax toxic pets I found that it can be used for flea control on dogs and is only not recommended for cats. So I think your chow chow would be ok. I'd just spend a little more time with google to make sure.

Those interested in smallest coolest apt analysis should check out Wende's http://smallcool.blogspot.com/ .
There are a couple new posts up there from the weekend. AT highlighted her blog when it went up, but I couldn't see how to easily find it again from here, so I thought some might like a tip about where it is.

I also highly recommend Borax for pest control. When I lived in Florida where spiders and various bugs are unavoidable, once a year my mom would douse the carpet with Borax and then work it in with a broom. It worked much much better than normal pesticides and as far as I know is completely harmless. We had two indoor cats that never showed adverse effects so I think it's safe.

When I lived in a roach-infested apt in Queens, someone told me to get a squeeze bottle with a big opening (like a mustard bottle from a hot dog stand), fill it with 1/3 Borax, 1/3 cocoa powder, 1/3 sugar, and squirt it under the furniture, in the corners, between the floorboards, etc. The sugar entices the roaches, and the Borax and cocoa powder somehow interact to make the little roach's tummy explode. I did find this to be more effective than Raid, as well as less dangerous to my then-crawling baby. But bugless nirvana? Not hardly. The Borax regimen merely took the infestation down a notch, from horrifying and intolerable to disgusting and disturbing.

when i lived in union city , nj i had a bit of a roach problem thanks in part to my LOVELY neighboors who would leave there nicely wrapped garbage in the hallway...and forget to chuck it.
THANKS

anyways, i had just gotten a puppy so i didnt want any chemicals. after further researching i found that Osage-orange ( otherwise known as Hedge apples)works great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage-orange

if not i would have had to resort to spraying raid in the eyes of my dirty neighboors. once they moved they took the roaches with them.

UGH..gross

Borax is great (we use it to clean almost EVERYTHING, environmentally safe and puppy friendly). Here's another green cleaning tip:

Have a really cruddy oven? Try baking soda. Make a paste out of baking soda and water, and spread it all over the inside of your oven at 8am, then close the oven. At 11am, 2pm, and 5pm take a spray bottle and re-wet the baking soda. At 5:30, order a pizza, as you don't have an oven to cook with. Then at 8pm, take a plastic scraper, and scrape the baking soda out of the oven. The baking soda will take with it all of the grease and crud that has built up in the oven. You will then need to rinse out the oven. It takes more work than a degreasing chemical, but is environmentally friendly, and does a better job! :)

My wife and I did this to our nasty rental oven with 30 years of grime (YUCK!), and now it looks brand new!

Does anyone know where I can find a reasonably priced, REALLY SOFT, cotton duvet cover in a plain cream or white? I love really old vintage thick soft cotton sheets and would love to find a cover than that (rather than the sort of shiny, silken feel). Thanks!

Oh, and Mark, thanks for the tip about the oven! Congrats on your diss, too... I am trying to finish a draft this summer.

Good luck on the draft betsbillabong! Its a long journey, but feels oh so good when done. (Even better than purging clothes ;) )

whoah, if anyone has an answer to betsbillabong's duvet cover question I totally want to know too, that just described exactly what I've been hunting for! my current one is all stiff and not nice at all but my old one is getting so thin (and soft, mmm) that it is getting holes in it!

No kidding mark; I bet... like six years of purging clothes perhaps?!

Bluestar, I keep a tub of food grade diatomaceous earth on hand in case I ever have to debug. DE works mechanically, not chemically. The thing you have to worry about is to not sift it around too much when you're spreading it - you don't want to necessarily breathe it in. But once it's set down, it doesn't waft around at all. It's a very fine, but very dense and heavy dust - it doesn't kick around unless you're blowing on it really hard. Leave down for 48 hours, and then vaccuum. It's supposed to work wonders for fleas - I hear you have to treat every two days for about 6 weeks, but after that flea-infested houses are flea-free.

Reusable grocery bags: http://www.1bagatatime.com.

Each bag holds the equivalent load of 3-4 plastic bags or 2 paper bags, and at $19.95 for a set of 10 they are very affordable.

Great tips about the Borax!

Back to the bug discussion (sorry, guys!) - my big problem right now is earwigs. I can handle the spiders (ok, I can almost handle the spiders) but the earwigs are insidious - they're all over my little garden, and getting in the house. Ick!! Will the borax or the diatomaceous earth help keep them out if I spread either one around the outside perimeter of my place? I live in a duplex and am willing to go around the entire building if something will help. I have two cats, but they are indoor cats - unless the incarnate Houdini does his escape act.

Oceandreamer-- Borax will stop working against bugs when it gets damp. I don't know why. Using it outside will not be that effective.
Per previous posts: I used Borax the entire time my kids were growing up and have always had pets in the house. There has never been a problem with toxicity. As for the cocoa and sugar mix I would think that maybe just plain borax would be more effective. The bugs dont need enticement, if you spread it they will come....and they will die. I once lived in a house so infested that the roaches would fall from the ceiling and cabinets. The Orkin man said the situation was hopeless because they were living behind glued up panelling. After my mom reminded me about the borax I put it out and in less than two weeks I was down to seeing only the occasional bug and in less than three weeks they were gone completely.

Thanks, new idea - at this point I'm willing to try anything - perhaps using the borax around the doorways and inside the window tracks might help - those areas are slightly protected from the weather. I'll definately be getting some on my next shopping trip.