Once a cockroach enters your home, it’s pretty challenging to suppress its population from doubling up. Of course, nobody wants to see a cockroach crawling on their fan’s ceiling the first thing in the morning.
Even if we do all the preventive measures, these insects just make their way into our homes anyway. It could be from cracks, drains, or your neighborhood — you can never know. This is when you need to use effective strategies to cope with them.
Although using an anti-roach is an easy way out, some people don’t prefer doing so. So instead, they use salt to get rid of insect infestations.
Still, some people wonder: Does salt kill roaches or just repel them? How can I use this mineral to clean my house from these bugs? Is this method even worth my effort?
Today, we will find answers to all your questions about eliminating roach infestation from your home. While we are at it, we’ll also see whether you can use Bug-A-Salt to kill roaches or not.
Does Salt Kill Roaches or Repel Them?
Yes, salt absorbs moisture from the insects’ bodies, including cockroaches. It consists of ammonium nitrate and chloride, which are powerful to repel roaches for a long time. However, unfortunately, they won’t kill them as you suppose.
The salt grains have a hard texture, making it pretty tricky for cockroaches to chew them. Moreover, salt neither looks appealing nor has a pleasing taste for cockroaches to consume easily. Usually, roaches chew their food to determine its taste before ingesting it.
Besides, cockroaches usually have an improved sense of smell that helps them detect different foods from distances. Although salt doesn’t have a strong smell, these bugs can easily spot the mineral in its raw form.
So, if you’re using salt to repel cockroaches, you can infuse it in their favorite foods, like sweets, meats, and starches. Also, small amounts of salt may not be effective enough, so go for excess quantities to get desired results.
Simply put, salt can only repel roaches; it can’t kill them.
Table Salt vs. Epsom Salt: Which is More Effective to Kill Roaches?
Two types of salt work wonders in this case: table salt and Epsom salt. The former is the one lying in your pantry, while the latter is a component used in medicines. While table salt helps repel cockroaches, Epsom salt can kill them quickly.
You may also know Epsom salt as magnesium sulfate. It’s very toxic for pests, including cockroaches. Due to its high magnesium concentration, it’s super effective for humans to relieve different ailments.
If you’re a fan of bath bombs or salts, you’re already using Epsom salt. It doesn’t belong to the family of table salt despite having the same texture.
Epsom salt targets the digestive system of cockroaches to suppress their appetite. When they don’t eat, they die naturally.
So, in a nutshell, table salt can repel cockroaches easily and may kill them if consumed in large quantities. Meanwhile, the magnesium sulfate in Epsom salt can kill cockroaches before they multiply in numbers.
How to Use Epsom Salt to Kill Roaches?
You can kill roaches in two ways:
- Sprinkling Epsom salt directly on them
- Making a powerful solution and spraying it
The first method is the easiest, but it may not be that effective. You can simply sprinkle salt grains in the suspected high roach areas, such as cracks, under the furniture, behind the refrigerator, kitchen, and bathrooms.
On the other hand, you can mix Epsom salt with water to make an anti-roach spray. The best-estimated quantities would be 4 ounces of Epsom salt in 150 ml water. Spray this mixture directly on the cockroaches for quick results.
So, stock up Epsom salt in your home and use it as a weapon to kick most of the roaches out of your home.
Does Bug-A-Salt Work on Cockroaches?
Bug-A-Salt refers to a plastic gun that targets salt grains at insects to kill them. These guns work wonders in killing soft-bodied pests, such as mosquitoes, flies, and cockroaches. Typically, you can shoot 80 grains per shot from a Bug-A-Salt.
The Bug-A-Salt was specially designed for insect hunting. Thus, it could be the easiest as well as a fun way to get rid of all those roaches roaming in your entire home.
All you have to do is aim at a massive crowd of roaches and pull the trigger to release the salt grains on them. These grains will leave the gun at a speed high enough to hit the roaches and injure them. In some cases, the velocity is strong enough to puncture the entire bodies of insects.
Since cockroaches are soft-bodied, Bug-A-Salt works effectively to kill them.
However, if you want to eliminate roaches from your home entirely, you need to destroy their eggs as well. Cockroaches usually lay their eggs in dark, hidden, and hard-to-reach places.
Grains from the Bug-A-Salt may penetrate these eggs and kill them. However, you need to have a good aim, or else you’ll be just running everywhere in your home with a plastic gun in your hand.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some most-asked questions:
Does Salt Kill Roaches?
Table salt repels roaches, while Epsom salt can kill them entirely.
Is Bug-A-Salt Effective to Kill Cockroaches?
Yes, Bug-A-Salt is very effective in killing cockroaches. However, they can be hard to handle and target the roaches.
How Can I Use Salt to Eliminate Cockroaches?
You can either sprinkle salt directly on roaches or dissolve it in water and spray the mixture on the insects.
The Bottom Line
In a nutshell, table salt can’t kill roaches unless used in relatively higher quantities. So honestly, we would suggest you use table salt to repel the cockroaches or kill them with Epsom salt.
Keep in mind that roaches can’t eat salt as it is. So, you need to combine it with different foods that cockroaches like to eat.
You can also sprinkle salt in the suspected areas of your home and even use Bug-A-Salt to target these pests. However, targeting roaches with these guns can be difficult since you can’t reach shallow areas with a big nozzle.
If you’re not in the mood to do any of the above hard work, who’s stopping you from buying an anti-roach spray? It’s the easiest way to make your life roach-free.