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71 responses total.

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I try a real pharmacy like the one that's located on Washington 
behind Tally Hall.  It's a hospital supply type of item they 
may carry.

Good luck.

I can verify that it is possible to buy boric acid in Ann Arbor, and that
it does work on cockroaches.  My roommate bought some a couple of years
ago and we never had problems afterward.  I don't know where he got it,
though.  :(

Try Ace Hardware or pehaps Schlenker Hardware.

As someone who unfortunately has dealt with a lot of cockroaches in her life,
I can attest that for all practical purposes, a box of Borax has the same 
wonderful effect.  It's a lot cheaper and easier to find.  If you read the
box, it's mostly boric acid, anyway.  Next to the detergents in any store.
..

As an afterthought, when i had my war with the roaches, I mixed the Borax 
with instant cocoa mix, because the sugar and chocolate attract them to the 
acid, which they would otherwise avoid.  Believe me, it works.  You can then
vacuum the mess up when you think you've finished them off.  I was told when
I moved down south that cockroaches were just a part of life here, but they
are not a part of MY life.  Try it and let me know how it works.

(agora item 97 "Where can you buy boric acid?" is now linked as
consumer item 15)

Many hardware stores sell boric acid.  Consider getting, also, a bulb
duster or atomizer with which to apply it and a dust mask to wear
during application.

There is an extensive discussion of roaches on M-net that you may wish
to consult, with regard to their elimination and prevention of
recurrences.

My roommate woke up and says that he got boric acid at a drugstore (he's
not sure which one), and remembers it being near the iodine.  We just put
it in little dishes around the kitchen and it seemed to work.

Boric acid works wonderfully on roaches.  It's also extremely effective
at killing ants.  Unfortunately the survivors quickly learn where not to
step "most of the time" and the colony survives, albeit with a higher
mortality rate.  Fortunately, roaches aren't sociable insects, so they
aren't nearly as hard to eradicate.

Re #5: true borax contains no boric acid. It is sodium tetraborate
decahydrate. Both boric acid and borax are quite toxic. About FIVE GRAMS
of either is the FATAL dose for children. For what it's worth, borax would
taste bitter and boric acid sour; I would expect some difference in the
preferences of cockroaches for the two. However, I recommend against the
exposed use of either if children or pets ever enter your home. 

Marcus raises a valuable point.  Roaches tend to follow paths, and if you
don't poison along the path you will miss a lot of them.  Paths, of course,
can move to avoid poisons.  For the fastest elimination, roach traps can
be used to locate paths (they aren't very good at eliminating roaches, but
can indicate where the roaches are) and poison can be placed accordingly.
But the only way to "get rid" of roaches is to reduce or eliminate their
potential places of residence, places of access to your apartment, and
food and water sources.

boric acid is indeed available from most pharmacies. it is also poisonous
to pets and humans in large ( comparatively ) doses ( see above ).
I mix it with pancake syrup, anything sweet will do. Then spread this 
on a small piece of paper or cardboard and place it in the path of
the roaches but not somewhaere where pets or children can get at it.
Roaches will all be gone within a day or two.

   (I'm sorry: I have to do this Valerie: tnt hasn't been here yet.)

   Boric Acid?!?  Valerie! How could you--you're being roachist!
DO YOU REALIZE WHAT BORIC ACID DOES TO THE LITTLE CREATURES?

   It makes them fall apart!

   It gets inside their little joints and messes everything up.
It's the exact opposite of oil!  Instead of lubricating their
tiny, fragile, God created and delicate joints, it pulverizes
them.

   You'll have roach parts all over your floor!

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I thought that possession of roach parts was illegal in Michigan.

 Not THOSE roach parts ;)

  ROACHES HAVE RIGHTS TOO!

   Damn straight!

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"used chiefly in the manufacture of ceramics, cements, glass, enamels,
 for fireproofing, and in medicine in aqueous solution as a mild antiseptic"
-Random House Dictionary of the English Language

spoken like a true six-letter-word-gamer

Yeah, well, I got that dictionary out to play the game, and now it's too
heavy to put back, so I gotta use it.

Hmmm..the only six letter word there is Random, and it is "not permitted".

It is if you un-capitalize it...and kill it with boric acid (just to
add some on-topic content).

Since we are back on the topic - - let's take it in a slightly different
direction, and consider the problem of citizens buying chemicals in
general. Once it was pretty easy to buy from chemical supply houses, so
persons needing chemicals for art, or photography, or even home medication
(!), could freely order them. However this freedom has essentially been
lost today, because of a small fraction of chemical users, who abused the
privilege (by making dangerous products), and also because of a general
public ignorance of chemistry. Nowadays, you can only buy chemicals
"approved" for retail sale (through hardware, hobby, craft, etc stores),
or you have to have an affiliation with a business or school, and even
then the supply houses ask a lot of questions (their hide is partly at
risk). Example: boric acid can still be found for public sale, but try to
buy sodium cyanide for home electroplating! 

Much of what we take for granted in the way of home chemical products
including soap, cleansers, and paint, were at one time commonly made
at home.  I have a couple books with such formulae, though as Rane
says, getting the chemical ingredients may be a problem now.  In some
cases that's good (do we want people making and using lead-based
house paint, for example).   

That question reflects the failure of public education to teach general
chemistry from a practical perspective. Everyone should *know* that you
don't want to make lead-based paints (or any number of other noxious
formulae). Everyone should also *know* what the chemicals are that are
involved in chemical spills - instead, the newspapers report almost total
gibberish with respect to the nature and hazards of spilled chemicals. It
is an area of abysmal public knowledge. 

Indeed, there was an article in the Ann Arbor news recently about some
kids that were arrested for making explosives.  The State Police
officer was quoted as saying that they were attempting to "make neon",
and that numerous suspicious items were seized, including "stuff in
bottles".  The story about "making neon" was repeated on two subsequent
days, in fact...

That article was typical of the widespread ignorance of elementary
chemistry (and was partly responsible for my introducing this thread).
Those kids were certainly not using their knowledge of chemistry in
only constructive pursuits. Perhaps if the public - and the parents
in particular - were educated in elementary chemistry, things would
not have gone the way they did, and the kids could have been guided
into more constructive directions. (I'm not sure, however, that even
then one could divert pyromania - after all, that's a public obsession,
witness fireworks.)

 I read the article in the DeeTroit News, & it clearly indicated that the
miscreants claimed they were looking for the transformer to make some sort of
light.  It didn't say that the police believed them.

i have some...not sure if it's legal to mail though...

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Unfortunate, but true. Before you can teach everyone chemistry, I guess
you have to teach them responsibility, and we don't do a very good job
with that for too many people. Perhaps chemistry is just too *powerful*
a knowledge, to teach everyone? This harks back to alchemists, sorcerers,
magicians, etc. Anyway, a sad commentary on society.

Actually, there's an even easier fix.  Just make sure every high school
chem lab in the country has a couple of nice bricks of sodium and a nice
big fat canister of fluorine.  Both make *very* neat colours.  :-)

(that would provide an instant education, wouldn't it?)

Scientific and technical expertise usually runs ahead of morality
and responsibility in Western society.  Witness the nuclear weapons
mess.

 Gee, I thought you tought computer science, not philosophy!

One is merely a special case of the other.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss