kickaha | Nanny state, take... I've lost count.

We live in an apartment building with 5 units.

We have seen evidence of a few carpet beetles.

We would like to apply a mild pesticide around the molding on the floor to 'discourage' them from coming out of the walls. (If they're in the walls, I don't care - it's only when they come out and eat my things that I care.)

Dry pesticides won't stay as a barrier around the cracks in the molding.

I haven't been able to find a pet-friendly dry pesticide.

Liquid pesticides will, as they dry to form a nice little barrier (of a mild sort, but that's okay, that's all we're looking for.)

Got all that? Reasonable so far? Mild bug evidence, want a mild liquid pesticide that is pet-friendly to just discourage them from coming out of the walls. Nice, easy, simple, right?

NY doesn't think so. We are banned from applying *any* liquid pesticides in our own apartment because a) there are more than 2 units in the dwelling, and b) we don't own it.

To do this, we need a pest-control license.

&$%*(@#&*(%^&*@($&*()@$@#$#!

You know, I can even see the mental processes that led to this, and up to a point, in certain situations, they could even be rational. But this sort of "OH NOES!" blanket ban is so *fricking* typical up here, and of course the response to problems caused is... more legislation, licensing, and oversight. Oh, and of course more license fees, inspection fees, exam fees...

I swear to god, it's almost enough to make me vote Republican. If the NE is the spiritual heart of the Democratic Party, it is in serious need of a transplant, stat.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Boric acid? I think my brother used to eat it all the time.

Yup, used to use it all the time for roaches in Seattle, but it's best applied when you can just dust it, blow it, or dump it into a space. It'll work for the wall holes in the pantry, but the spots I wanted to put the barrier on are the little tiny 1/32"-1/16" cracks where the quarter-round molding along the baseboard doesn't *quite* meet the floor. Or wall. Or the next piece of molding. (Detail work is not my landlord's strong suit.) Liquid would make that oh so much easier.

I'm tempted to simply ask where I can get some DDT in powder form, just to watch their reactions. :P "What? It's not one of your scary liquids..."

Dude, just resuspend it in water! That's what I did when we got a serious ant problem in our apartment when we first moved in. I think I did a 5-10% w/v mix and watched them die. It was good times. I mean, Boric acid in water also can double as a cleaner (Borax) so you can always say you were cleaning your floor.

That small an amount is useful? Weird, I tried a similar trick with the roaches, and they just laughed at it. I was thinking that a thin paste might work, but...

Heywaitaminnit. I wonder what it would do in a solution of PEG? I've got plenty of that lying about in dry form...

SCIENCE!

PEG would work fine, that stuff doesn't react at all with Boric acid.

That reminds me of the time I spent an entire day in lab with a PEG paste on my foot because I'd spilled phenol on it and decided that was the best way to prevent a chemical burn. I think there is still a list of stuff we wrote down over the years that we've used PEG for...

Heh. And here I thought it was only good for sex lube and bathtub cleaner base.

We are scientists sir, we do not clean or have sex.

I, uh, need it for bathroom cleaner. (actually, the sad part is that I do -- there's mold growing *in the caulk* of our bathtub)

Cheapest I've found for non-lab use is Nasco Farm & Ranch.

No, I'm not kidding. :)

You can get it pre-mixed (http://www.enasco.com/ProductDetail.do?sku=C15197N), or dry (http://www.enasco.com/ProductDetail.do?sku=C08175N). I prefer dry because you can mix as much as you need, and no more - the cellulose base *does* go bad after a while. Also, you can add the dry powder directly to white vinegar, and make a kick-ass soap scum remover goo.

BTW, lemon pledge blocks ants like a frickin' force field of anty doom. Spray a line of it, and they won't cross it. We had a horrible infestation in an apt in NC, (hundreds of ants were discovered one fateful morning, from wee 1/8" ones to big assed 1" soldiers), and once I found the entry point, a line of lemon Pledge stopped them cold. I actually did a 2' semicircle around the spot to see if it would contain them (while I could still observe), and they did *not* want to go near it. A quick squirt on their entry, and voila. No more ants.

You could always just caulk the holes. *shrug*

I'll buy your plane ticket if you want to come up here and take care of that. :D

Seriously, many of the holes we would caulk are large enough that Bob can lose toys in them. There are tons of the smaller holes. :( We closed up a bunch of the larger ones with FoamCore a while back, and many of the remaining holes are large enough that we would need spray foam to do the job. The landlord left a hole in the wall the size of a beach ball behind the cabinets. :P We can't get to it to seal it. If there were rats in this house, they'd be all over our kitchen.

....wow. Have you thought about making the landlord fix them? :p

You do realize this house was built in 1864, right? The hole behind the cupboard we only found because I was poking around back there for no good reason. :) The other holes are where the old plaster has fallen away near hidden junctions, like the back of the doorjamb in the pantry. This is pretty normal.

I can plug the smaller holes with some expanding insulation foam, and I have an idea on how to close the large hole without needing to pull the cupboards out, but the cracks around the molding are simply everywhere. Old settling floors aren't exactly level or even. I've *done* the caulk-everything-in-sight before, on a 400sq ft apt in Durham, and it took most of a weekend (not to mention about 8 tubes of caulk)... I can't imagine how long this place would take to do right.


ginkgo said, the one good thing about this is that we're 99.99% sure that this place has no mice or rats - they could get in any time they wished, but we've had no sign of them. Heck, the fact that we only have the rare spider or bug is amazing, IMO. The carpet beetles so far in the last 14 months have numbered fewer than a dozen, and a few larva, all near the recently discovered wall holes.

Of course, if we *did* have mice or (small) rats, Bob would be a lot more entertained... :)

Nanny state, take... I've lost count.

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Where does one buy PEG?

Re: Where does one buy PEG?

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