Does wormwood help against cockroaches

If you notice that cockroaches have begun to appear in your apartment, then you need to take urgent measures to get rid of them. But it is difficult to rid your home of these annoying and unpleasant parasites, since they often return to their favorite places.

Today, the market offers numerous pest control products depending on the size of the insect population. However, you can do without expensive drugs by resorting to folk methods of getting rid of Prussians.

One of these folk remedies is common wormwood, which grows in almost every yard.

In this article we will tell you how to properly prepare the herb on your own, how to use it to get rid of cockroaches and how it works on insects.

Properties of wormwood

Wormwood was used in the fight against cockroaches by our ancestors in ancient times. At that time, chemical insecticides had not yet been invented. The most important components of the plant are essential oils and phytoncides.

They have a bitter, pronounced odor that cockroaches and other insect pests do not like.

Despite the fact that wormwood is a poisonous plant, it will not be able to kill cockroaches, even if the parasite is completely immersed in the grass. But the Prussians really don’t like its smell, and they try to quickly leave the room that smells of wormwood.

Preliminary preparation

If using store-bought chemicals requires removing all kitchen utensils to another room, then this is not necessary for traditional methods. Preparatory activities include the following:

Choose a method and buy the necessary ingredients.
If you use, for example, kerosene, bleach, ammonia and other substances that emit aggressive fumes, wear rubber gloves and a respirator. And to avoid burning the mucous membranes of the eyes, use transparent safety glasses.
Hide food in the refrigerator or closed containers.
Remove crumbs and leftover food from the table.
Get rid of sources of water - wipe the sink, table dry, wash cups of unfinished tea.
Sweep out any debris and mop the floor, wiping it dry.
Take out the trash.
If you intend to use poisonous agents, attach a mosquito net with very small cells to the ventilation hole (cockroaches are able to penetrate through narrow cracks).
If you use repellent methods, do not attach the bars, as cockroaches will escape through them.
In all cases, seal the cracks in the walls/ceiling/floor with building materials, eliminate leaks in pipes and taps, and close the toilet.
Talk to your neighbors who live nearby - warn them that you are poisoning cockroaches, so that they take appropriate measures (for prevention).
Make a product or prepare a ready-made one.

Can wormwood get rid of cockroaches?

In fact, with the help of grass you can rid your home of unwanted “guests”. Its use will not lead to the death of insects, but the pronounced pungent aroma perfectly repels Prussians.

As soon as cockroaches smell the unpleasant odor emanating from the grass, they immediately flee in search of a new shelter.

Wormwood has a similar effect only on cockroaches, without causing harm to people and animals.

Chlorine

You can use chlorine powder in its pure form, but it is easier to purchase “Belizna,” which is very well known to everyone who lived in the USSR. For cockroaches, chlorine is destructive - when the fumes enter the respiratory tract of insects, they cause severe irritation and swelling, leading to suffocation.

The surviving individuals urgently “evacuate”, but after the smell disappears, they can return. Therefore, treatments are repeated every 2-3 days for 3-4 weeks.

An additional advantage of bleach is the simultaneous disinfection of the room. For a forced “neighborhood” with cockroaches, this is very important, since they are carriers of many dangerous diseases.

The specifics of the treatment depend on the concentration of the solution. If the insects have not yet had time to breed in large numbers, 2-3% is enough, in severe cases it is increased to 5-10%, saucers with undiluted “White” are placed near the habitats of cockroaches.

Treatment includes washing floors and wiping all accessible surfaces. It lasts about an hour; it is not necessary to leave the room when using a weak solution.

We prepare wormwood correctly

You need to collect wormwood either during the period when it blooms, or just before flowering. This means that the harvest time for the plant is summer. The most popular among consumers are wormwood flowers and its leaves.

Leaves that grow in the root part must be plucked without stems and at a time when the plant has not bloomed, but is at the budding stage. Cutting off the tops, the length of which reaches 20 cm, is carried out during the period when the wormwood blooms.

Do not forget that wormwood is a poisonous plant, so for your own safety it is recommended to use rubber gloves when collecting it.

If the collected plants will be used in the future for the preparation of tinctures and decoctions, then they must be thoroughly dried, spread on the surface in about a 5-centimeter layer.

This is done in dark and well-ventilated places, for example, under awnings or in attics. If you have a dryer, you can use that too.

You need to set the temperature to approximately 40 - 50 C˚, place the prepared plants in it, and continuously stir them. Readiness can be easily determined by the fragility of the stems.

Next, the dried wormwood should be transferred to cardboard boxes or bags made from natural fabrics. In this form, the herb can be stored for 2 years without losing its beneficial properties.

How to prepare it correctly

To obtain positive results, it is important to properly prepare wormwood for cockroaches.

It is important to follow the instructions:

When harvesting the lower leaves, you need to take only them, leaving the stems.
If the upper part is required, cut off the crown, the length of which is no more than twenty centimeters. It is this part of the plant that contains the maximum amount of active substances and has a pronounced specific aroma.
The optimal harvesting time is the flowering period, which occurs in June – July.
Fresh raw materials can be used immediately after harvesting.
For long-term storage, wormwood must be dried. To do this, place the collected raw materials on clean sheets of paper or fabric. Should dry in the shade.

After all the manipulations, place the prepared raw materials in bags made of natural fabrics or cardboard boxes. Store in a cool place. Periodically inspect the wormwood for the appearance of mold, pests, and rotten parts.

Where can you buy wormwood grass?

Today, anyone can purchase wormwood at any large pharmacy or at one of the many pharmacy points, of which there are many in every city. Both dried plants and alcohol-based wormwood tincture are available for sale.

Dry grass in crushed form is sold either packed in filter bags, or in packs weighing 50 and 75 grams. The average price of such a drug does not exceed 50 rubles.

The alcohol tincture is available in 25 ml glass bottles. The price of one bottle varies from 70 to 80 rubles.

Both drugs are available to customers without a doctor's prescription.

The use of wormwood herb in the fight against red parasites

To rid their homes of cockroaches, many people prefer to use wormwood herb rather than synthetic preparations. It’s cheap and practically harmless, and you can prepare the plant yourself.

It can be used in the fight against red barbels in various ways, which we will discuss in a little more detail.

Using dry wormwood herb

Dry wormwood grass is used for treating premises in the same way as fresh grass. To do this, dry brooms from the plant are laid out in places where insects are most concentrated.

It is recommended to place dry herbs in the kitchen and bathroom, paying special attention to areas under the sink, along baseboards, ventilation ducts and other nooks where cockroaches like to live and move around.

Place some grass under your mattress, under rugs, and inside upholstered furniture.

Using wormwood decoction

Although a decoction of wormwood does not have the same pronounced aroma as the fresh plant, it can also be effective in the fight against Prussians. With the help of a decoction you can protect your apartment from uninvited guests.

To prepare a decoction of wormwood, you need to take two glasses of water, add 2 tablespoons of dry crushed wormwood and boil it all. The resulting mixture must be infused for several hours.

The finished decoction is used for spraying in the room where red pests live. This helps to scare off existing parasites and protects the home from new cockroaches entering it.

Using wormwood as a tincture

A tincture made from dry herbs and alcohol will help combat the problem more effectively. It has a more pungent odor. You can buy it at the pharmacy, or you can prepare it yourself.

To do this, 2 - 4 teaspoons of dry crushed wormwood should be infused in 0.5 liters of alcohol or good quality vodka.

You need to moisten a cotton swab in an alcoholic tincture of wormwood and place it in places where cockroaches are most often found. However, the use of this product should be treated with caution, observing a number of rules:

It may take 20–30 days to make the tincture. It is necessary for it to produce its own juice and independently gain a high level of concentration;
The effect of the tincture on cockroaches lasts approximately one week, after which the treatment should be repeated;
The tincture is made on an alcohol basis, so it has an unpleasant odor, which is unlikely to bring pleasure to the apartment residents themselves;
While the apartment is being treated for cockroaches using an alcohol tincture of wormwood, it is necessary to send all household members to another place for a couple of days.

Reviews

On the Internet you can find many reviews about this or that means of struggle. Most people still advise using several folk remedies at once to achieve the best result.

I didn’t know how to get rid of this nasty thing. As soon as they crawled, there was no rest from them. First of all, I crushed the boric acid and made bait from it. I washed the floors either with vinegar or alcohol so that I wouldn’t get used to the smells. In general, I managed it in 2 months.”
Alina
https://hloptarakan.ru/tarakany/sredstvo-ot-tarakanov/nashatyrnyj-spirt.html

I didn’t wash the floors with ammonia, I didn’t have time for all that. But I put it in a saucer at night and closed the doors. This is what happened to me in a rented apartment. I was a student myself, I didn’t have much money for expensive products, and there was no time to wash the floors every day. Duct tape, boric acid and ammonia are all my weapons. It helped!
Denis
https://hloptarakan.ru/tarakany/sredstvo-ot-tarakanov/nashatyrnyj-spirt.h

A paste of boiled potatoes and eggs helps very well against cockroaches, add a little soda to them, roll into small balls and leave them in the places where the cockroaches hide.
loreen
https://www.colady.ru/kak-izbavitsya-ot-tarakanov.html

Room treatment

First of all, it is necessary to treat the kitchen and bathroom with wormwood, since they are the favorite habitat of cockroaches. You need to place fresh bunches of plants on window sills, in ventilation ducts, under the sink and washbasin, next to the baseboards, in the place where the trash can is located.

You can place bunches of the plant on cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, as well as in all places where large concentrations of red parasites are most often observed.

If the Prussians have already managed to sneak into the bedroom, then place several branches of wormwood under the mattress, on the windowsill and on the closet.

Remember that after 3 - 4 days the aroma of wormwood weakens and it will need to be replaced.

Kerosene, gasoline or turpentine

A folk remedy against cockroaches, used as a last resort when other measures to combat them have already been tried and have not given the desired result. It will not be possible to stay in the apartment after treatment - the smell is intolerable to humans, provokes persistent migraines, and can cause poisoning.

For 100 ml of water take 30-50 ml of the “active ingredient”. The solution is sprayed on the identified habitats of cockroaches and their movement routes, and containers with it are placed nearby. Where possible, wipe surfaces with a cloth soaked in liquid.

Then the apartment, with windows and doors closed as tightly as possible, is left for at least a day. It will take a very long time to ventilate the room to get rid of it. The smell literally “eats” into furniture upholstery, carpets, curtains, and other fabrics.

Important! Processing is carried out exclusively with the use of at least a minimum set of personal protective equipment (respirator, goggles, rubber gloves). In addition, any of these liquids are highly flammable, which also requires special precautions.

Pros and cons of using wormwood

Like any means of killing parasites, wormwood has a number of advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages of this tool include:

Natural origin of raw materials and its safety for humans and their pets;
The price of drugs is affordable for people with different income levels. You can buy wormwood herb or its tincture at any of the many pharmacies. Very often, grass grows right in the yard of a house or in a nearby area, where it can be picked;
The product is quite simple to use. There is no need for additional preparatory measures. Preparing the decoction will not cause any difficulties;
The repellent smell only affects insects, while it only reminds people and pets of summer and field plants.

Among the disadvantages of wormwood are:

The product does not have a long-term effect on pests. Since the smell quickly disappears, the plant bunches will need to be replaced with new ones from time to time. The broth will also have to be updated, periodically preparing a new portion;
Preparations based on wormwood, compared to synthetic products, do not destroy parasites, but only repel them;
Wormwood has no effect on insect larvae, and adults may become addicted to the drug.

Conclusion

Based on the above, we can conclude that it is impossible to destroy cockroaches using wormwood and preparations based on it.

Such means can only scare insects, forcing them to flee in search of a new and favorable habitat. Therefore, the plant can be effectively used as a preventative measure.

And the use of wormwood herb in combination with chemicals will help completely rid your home of parasites. This way you can achieve the best results and forever free your apartment from uninvited guests.

Biological enemies

Cockroaches are afraid of rats and mice, because they not only compete for food and repel with their smell, but they themselves are not averse to feasting on the Prussian. There is no need to let wild rats into your apartment for this, because even a decorative rodent will destroy a colony of pests in 1–2 weeks.

A non-trivial, but reliable way to get rid of Prussians is to get a poultry (in a private house) or a lizard. Reptiles do a good job of killing cockroaches by eating them.

A less original approach is to get traditional pets - a cat or a dog. Cockroaches are not happy about such a neighborhood and will hurry to leave the household.

It is much easier to scare away red pests and force them to leave the apartment for a while than to prevent them from coming back. Using several methods at once, with patience and persistence, it is possible to make your own home so unattractive for cockroaches that they will leave the house forever.