How to Kill Cockroaches with Washing Powder: 3 Easy Steps and Recipes

There are loads of natural methods to get rid of cockroaches. Some of them work while others do not. Instead of harsh over-the-counter chemical products, there are ways to get rid of roaches and other pests simply by using products you already have around the home.

One of these products is washing powder, and you can easily combine it with a few other ingredients to get rid of roaches in no time.

The first thing you’ll need is some type of bait station or lid. Any old, small lid that you’re considering throwing away will do, as long as it is deep enough to hold the ingredients.

How to kill cockroaches with washing powder

Here are ingredients and steps to create a washing powder recipe that kills cockroaches at home.

Step 1 – Make your bait station

Get a shallow dish, plastic lid or even shallow container. You can use a few of them depending on the severity of the roach problem. Combine one part laundry detergent and one part sugar and place it in the lids.

If you like, you can add a pinch of borax, an ingredient that is well-known for controlling roach populations, but this isn’t absolutely necessary. The sugar is there to lure cockroaches to the bait traps because cockroaches love sweet things. It is the washing powder that then kills them.

Step 2 – Place the traps

Place these traps wherever roaches tend to congregate. This could be under the kitchen sinks around the pipes, around your kitchen cabinets, around your trash cans, and near any of the cracks and crevices you have in your home.

If you’ve noticed cockroaches in other places in your home, make sure you place traps there as well. One thing you’ll want to keep in mind is to keep these traps away from children and pets.

Step 3 – Monitor the baits

Once the baits are set up and ready to go, keep an eye out for how effective they are. You’ll likely have to replace the traps occasionally until the roach problem is resolved.

The more traps you have out, the faster the roaches will start to disappear.

How washing powder kills roaches

It might be surprising to many people to learn that it isn’t the washing powder itself that kills the roaches. To be exact, it is the foam of the washing powder that does the trick.

Once the roach eats the concoction of washing powder and sugar, the foam will block the internal organs of the roach and cause it to suffocate to death. You can also fill a spray bottle with water and a small amount of washing powder, then spray the mixture directly on any roaches you see. It will not take long for the roaches to die.

Another tip to keeping roaches away is to keep the area as clean and dry as possible after the roaches start to disappear.

This is because roaches thrive in moist, damp environments. The cleaner and drier the area is, the less likely you are to have to deal with roaches in your home.

Other home ingredients to kill roaches

You can use other ingredients besides washing powder at home to kill roaches. Dawn dishwashing liquid can be used instead of washing powder, using the same recipe mentioned earlier. Mix sugar through in equal portions and put it in a shallow dish.

A very high concentration of Dawn liquid and water, when sprayed directly on the roaches, will get to their spiracles and prevent air from getting into the trachea. This essentially drowns the roaches and causes them to die.

This mixture will also wash away the grease that protects the cockroaches’ cuticles, which then causes the roaches to lose water in the body and die.

To be sure, washing powder and dishwashing liquid are no friend to cockroaches, so this is a very simple but very effective way to get rid of them in your home.

Other ways to use detergent to kill roaches

When using washing powder or powdered detergent, you can place four spoonfuls of the powder into a quart of water in a spray bottle and spray the mixture where you need it to go.

As an alternative to washing powder, you can use dishwashing liquid or even fabric softener. People have had success at killing roaches with all three of these things. Try to keep the combination at about 98-99% water and only 1-2% washing or dishwashing powder or liquid.

Keep in mind that even if you spray these mixtures directly on the roaches themselves, they might not die right away. This is one of the disadvantages of using washing powder or detergent in roach-killing sprays.

You just have to give them time. Indeed, many types of soap and water work to kill roaches because it eliminates the protective coating on their bodies and causes them to suffocate to death.

If you don’t have any luck with regular washing powder, try either dishwashing liquid or fabric softener. The truth is that most types of cleaning soaps will kill the roaches around your house.

It might require some trial and error to determine the combination that’s most effective for your home, but you’ll get there if you don’t give up and keep on trying.

Conclusion

Washing powder is effective at getting rid of roaches. If you add sugar to lure the roaches into the trap and some boric acid to make sure the concoction kills them, you’ll have more luck achieving your goal to get rid of roaches in your home.

The methods described in this article are simple, fast, and inexpensive. While some of them might be slower than others, they all eventually work and will kill your roaches.

Most people prefer natural ways to get rid of pests such as roaches over the chemical-filled products on the market. Washing powder is something easy to use and which most people already have in their home, making it the perfect option for a lot of people.