To Destroy Cockroaches
A very simple trap can be prepared for these disagreeable pests by cutting four or five strips of paste-board, an inch or more in width, and placing them in a slanting position against the sides of a quart bowl or a common nappy [? – ed.]. Then pour into the basin (taking care not to touch its sides) some molasses and water, or stale beer and molasses, and as cockroaches are very fond of sweets, they will walk up the ladders of paste-board, and find a watery death. Pieces of wood will do as well. Several of these traps can be placed in the kitchen and pantry, night after night, and soon their number will be greatly lessened. Another way is to place pieces of unslacked lime where the cockroaches frequent, and they will be driven away. But care must be taken not to let water drip upon the quicklime, as it would produce combustion.
Still another way is to take quantities of powdered borax, and scatter it all about the shelves and the water pipes. The cockroaches do not like it and will not run over it. A solution of alum in boiling hot water will destroy them at once and also kill their larvae.
These insects always follow the water pipes in houses, but any of these simple remedies will keep them from putting in an appearance.
Source: Household Hints and Recipes, Henry T. Williams
Filed under Remedy | Tags: alum, beer, board, borax, cockroach, cockroaches, insect, insects, lime, molasses, pasteboard, pest, pests, quicklime, williams | Comment (0)To Kill Cockroaches
Mix equal parts of red lead, Indian meal and molasses to a paste, put it on iron plates and set it where they congregate.
Source: 76: A Cook Book
To keep away Bed-Bugs
Scald and saturate the holes and bedstead thoroughly with hot strong soap-suds, or water diluted with corrosive sublimate ; dip the cord also in the same liquor. Then, before putting up the bedstead, dip the feathered end of a quill into soft soap, or hard soap melted, or any kind of paint, and work it round in the cord-holes of the beams and elsev/here. This renders every part obnoxious to them, and they will not inhabit it.
Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott
To Keep Out Red Ants
Place in the closet, or wherever they appear, a small quantity of green sage.
The Kansas Home Cook-Book