Common borax can be found in the laundry aisle of your grocery store — look for20 Mule Team Borax.
It is a white, crystalline mineral, large quantities of which are mined in southern California.
Borax has diverse household uses, including as a water softener; cleaning aid; an emulsifier; natural preservative and buffering agent in homemade cosmetics; deodorizer; and mold inhibitor.
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It is frequently used as a natural household insecticide, acting as both a stomach poison to which insects don’t become immune and as a desiccant that destroys the waxy coating that pro-tickets insects from water loss and subsequent dehydration.
After coming into contact with borax, insects clean themselves, thereby ingest-in the powder, leading to death within a few days (or less); that is if they have n’t already succumbed to death by dehydration.
It may sound gruesome, but borax is one of the least toxic, most effective, and longest-lasting substances for ridding your home of nearly all creepy-crawly bugs, especially bad infestations of fleas, ants, and cockroaches.
To ensure maximum effectiveness, sprinkle it evenly and uniformly all over the surfaces you are treating, or insects will simply gather on untreated areas. Spreading it directly on the insects or placing borax unavoidably in their path is a surefire way to control traffic and potential infestations.
For a container, I recycle a large plastic spice jar or poke holes in the metal top of a widemouthed canning jar using a hammer and fat nail. Cleanup is easy — after 24 hours or so, simply vacuum all treated areas thoroughly.
