Reddit reviews Borax 20 Mule Team Detergent Booster, 76 Oz.

This is lame, but I love doing laundry! First off, use all of the settings on your washer. Take the time to switch the water temperature, spin speed, etc if your washer allows it.

For whitening clothes, I like using some Borax (I put it in the spot for the prewash detergent), and then when they seem to be getting dinging some liquid bluing. That will usually do the trick with tee shirts, towels, sheets, etc.

For hand washing I usually, resolve a little bit of the same Borax in my sink. I used to use woolite, but I always forget to buy it, and the Borax seems to work the same (so one less thing to remember at the store).

I didn't think you'd need to give any reason. It's a type of laundry detergent. We played with it in elementary school to make slime by mixing it with glue.

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Mule-Borax-Natural-Laundry-Booster/dp/B000R4LONQ

I have beaten this infestation before!

Get Borax, the laundry booster. It's hard to find these days, but it does exist. Sprinkle it on your carpet and use a push broom to brush it down into the carpet so it disappears. Wait two days before vacuuming. It'll sit down in the very base of your carpet where fleas like to live and you can ignore. Vacuum and live your life normally. Re-apply annually.

Not only does this chemical dehydrate adult fleas, it dehydrates flea eggs. Therefore, you're killing the next generation before it can hatch. You win this fight is by eliminating their ability to breed. As I understand it, DE only works on adult fleas and by then, it's pretty late in the game.

You can do this in your car carpet, but because it doesn't have a thick pad underneath it, it won't be as easy/clean/long lasting. It might be worth it for an initial shock treatment, though.

EDIT: Borax! https://www.amazon.com/Borax-Mule-Team-Detergent-Booster/dp/B000R4LONQ/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1466110819&sr=1-1&keywords=Borax

EDIT 2: I was taught this in the mid 1990's when my parents had a professional company come do this treatment. I was home alone and talked to the guy and said, "What is that stuff?" and he told me straight up what it was and how it worked. I've never called the pros again.

It is definitely old-school:

https://www.amazon.com/Borax-Mule-Team-Detergent-Booster/dp/B000R4LONQ

Hi! So I was in the same pickle as you, really wanted to do cloth but with the washer/dryer situation I was worried it would end up costing us even more. So I investigating the most effective way to hand wash. I use a mobile hand washer with prefold diapers. The AIOs will not work with my method for several reasons but I don't like AIOs anyways, namely because you have to wash both parts every single time you use them. Prefolds + cover, you can reuse the covers a few times before washing. Plus, prefolds are much cheaper, softer, and I think the sizing lasts longer. You can also fold them many different ways to find the best (read: cleanest) fit because every baby is different!

I have 27 prefolds and 7 covers, I believe. This is just enough so that I don't completely run out of diapers by the time the clean ones finish drying on the rack, if I'm leaving the washing til the last minute (usually like every 1.5 - 2 days, but it's better to wash them every day). It takes 10 minutes of plunging in a 5-gallon bucket and maybe another 5-10 minutes of wringing out with cold water. I find it to be kind of meditative and if you get into the plunging it is a good work out, too.

After I bought the plunger I realized I'd need a better detergent solution, too, because I need roughly a cap's worth of detergent each time I do this, which is at least 5 times/week, plus our regular laundry. This is another reason AIOs won't work. The laundry soap I made contains Borax, which will mess with the elasticity of the diapers (the prefold covers, too, but that's okay because I usually just wash those with a bar of laundry soap, Felsnaptha, soak in cold, and throw them in the dryer during our weekly/ twice weekly wash of clothes). Very very cheap to make, 20 cents/gallon.

Oh yeah, and I just throw the prefold diapers in the washer & dryer with the rest of the laundry whenever we do that, whether or not they're dirty (actually, if they're dirty, I still give them a quick wash/rinse anyway, I don't want them yucking up our clothes). They take up almost no room and it keeps them softer.

Washer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003SQ7I5S/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Diapers:
4 packs of these -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AJXY1U/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i07?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1 of these (super deluxe, was a gift, sooooo soft) -
http://www.amazon.com/BabyKicks-Pack-Prefold-Diaper-Small/dp/B001NAAQPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1376071041&sr=1-1&keywords=baby+kicks+diapers
7 of these -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AJXY1U/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i07?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1 pack snappis
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YWKWJO/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Detergent recipe - http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/diy-laundry-soap-20-cents-a-gallon
Products -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000R4LONQ/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029XNTEU/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0063KXEIG/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

this stuff? http://www.amazon.com/Borax-Laundry-Booster-76-Box/dp/B000R4LONQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381027469&sr=8-1&keywords=borax

First, clean out the car. Be meticulous.

Next, get a shitton of borax. Spread it EVERYWHERE. That stuff is abrasive and will scrape little holes in an exoskeleton, leaving the roaches to dry out.

The borax will be gross and it will get all over the place, but it's the most reliable way to get the job done.

Terro liquid is the best of the commercial, ready-to-use stuff. But if you have a little time, you can make your own bait that's much cheaper than Terro, and just as effective (I'm not a chemist, but I'm fairly sure it's the exact same chemical composition as Terro).

Mix about 1 cup of sugar with about 1 tablespoon of Borax, in some vessel that you don't plan to eat from. Heat up about 1/2 cup of water to boiling (or thereabouts), pour it into the sugar/borax mix, and stir it all together until it dissolves. Let the mixture cool a bit, then spoon it into bottlecaps, used jar lids, or onto pieces of wax paper, and set those in the area where you see ants.

When the ants discover what you've left for them, you will initially see many more of them swarming to collect the mixture. In a couple of days, though, they'll take enough back to kill off the whole colony and you won't see any more. If you do continue to see ants, try mixing up another batch with a bit more Borax than before.

I've also heard that some ant species prefer the Borax mixed with peanut butter or something "proteiny", but I've always had good luck with the sugar water base.

Note: Borax isn't terribly toxic to us vertibrates, but you still probably want to keep it out of reach of children and pets. This is one aspect where the commercial Terro is nice, since it comes in dispensers that are capped off. You can usually jury-rig something that lets the ants get to the poison but keeps the kids and pets out.

Get borax here https://www.amazon.ca/Mule-Borax-Laundry-Booster-00368-136549/dp/B000R4LONQ/190-1372441-8275909?ie=UTF8&tag=diynatural02-20 and powdered sugar here https://www.amazon.ca/Domino-Powdered-Confectioners-Sugar-16oz/dp/B0019N2EQU?ie=UTF8&tag=diynatural02-20. Its a little bit on the expensive side.

Washing soda and borax.

You can probably find 'em cheaper, those are just the first search results.

Ugh. For ants I do two things.

1. Use Tanglefoot on stands for the hive boxes. Works fine for scouts but won't stop a really determined ant attack (they'll just pour ants into the goo until they make a bridge).
   
   
2. Sugar water laced with Borax. The ratio is important: too strong and the ants ignore it, too weak and it won't kill the colony.
   
   I put it in tubs poked with hole large enough for the ants to get in but way too small for the bees to get in.
   
   After a week or so, no more ants.
   
   Sometimes ants don't want sugar though, so you have to use a protein bait instead.

What you want is a compound with boric acid in it.

It's a desiccant meaning that when ingested, it will cause the ants to dry up from the inside-out.

Borax is a name for a commercial version of it: https://www.amazon.com/Borax-Mule-Team-Detergent-Booster/dp/B000R4LONQ

However, you can also find it in most ant-traps like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyv4r0gRtVo

Most roach powders also have boric acid as the main ingredient.

It works really well, but to get them to eat it, you need to mix it with sugar/honey. What I like to do is to take small amount of flour, dissolve small amount of sugar/honey in water, and a tiny amount of boric acid and mix it into a dough. You make small balls of the stuff and leave it around where you see ants.

They eat the boric acid and bring it back to the colony and the entire colony dies by desiccation.

cheap diy indicators and treatments;
simple double sided tape along bed legs.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002O16SHW
use this powder as directed
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0085HRWI8

it may be fleas not bb.
fleas leave fewer indicators behind.
for fleas wash everything around bed with borax.
https://www.amazon.com//dp/B000R4LONQ
including floors walls in:outsides of furniture.