Posted on 06/26/2011 12:13:10 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
I just went to dollar store and got the cascade tablets with 8.9% phosphates for a dollar/fifteen tablet bag. I’m set for a while.
I think about it every time I use a window cleaner and I see the watery streaks it leaves and I think, didn’t windex used to be a lot more... err... don’t know the word... evaporative?
I feel like a counterculture outlaw when I used products that DO have phosphates. Also, I think I now have enough 100 watt incandescent light bulbs to last me... well not enough years. I need to go to Home Depot later, think I better pick up another dozen.
How in the hell can they get away with that?
Go to your fav big box store and get some large dish soap bottles. Pour them at the edge of your concrete and around your foundations. they will be gone in short order. I repeat about every few years. I have not had an ant in my house in what seams like forever.
ACK!! “seems”
The dollar store will continue to have it because in the lower class subculture, i.e. mexican, there are no rules. And the swells probably like their mexican housekeepers buying it on the sly to get their clothes clean.
Sounds interesting and I will give it a try. Making ant bait is too much like cooking—work.
Now if I could find a way to stop the mosquitos from eating me alive. It gets worse as I get older and the bites are more irritating as well.
Because they never SAY trisodium phosphate on the label, only the acronym, TSP.
After you pour a stream all around, use the hose to get it in the ground. If there is still a few around repeat a little further away from the edges and do it extra good around their holes. As you will notice the soap kills the ants. Eventually they will all be gone to somewhere else. I guess they don’t like something in the soap. Dawn or Palmolive in what I use.
Plus it is inexpensive. : )
That is a very mild way to kill roaches. A very good way. Not toxic like it sounds.
One Word: Cherry Phosphate.
I’ve been using the TSP in the dishwasher but I had a coupon for Finish Quantum packets and they work very well too. I’ll have to check the package if I go to buy them again to see if they have phosphates.
What type ants are plaguing you ?
For Argentine ants, the easiest way I’ve found is to just use Terro. It’s a slow kill, but their whole nest is killed in a week.
A faster way, that kills the whole colony & works with most types of ants, is to take a garden hose & squirt the ground by your foundation, patio slabs & side walks. Do this just enough to soak the ground. A minute or so at high volume should do. Then check those areas a few minutes after their flooding. If there’s a nest there, they’ll be evacuating it & carrying their eggs to higher ground. When most of the colony to get out, hit-em with your favorite EPA approved instant kill pesticide (chlordane, DDT, what-ever).
Here is another source for dish detergent with phosphates. Keep up the good fight, Freepers! :-)
http://www.bubblebandit.com/info/About_Us
It raises the alkalinity of the wash so that it does a better job of cutting grease.
Phosphates work better though, because the phosphate ion does a better job of complexing minerals which deposit on the items being cleaned.
Thanks
Also used to raise the alkalinity of the wash (cleaner). It is not as destructive to fabrics as sodium hydroxide.
Highly concentrated TSP solutions will etch glass, as will most other highly alkaline solutions. It converts the silicate in the glass to Sodium Metasilicate which is water soluble.
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