# Do cucumbers really repel cockroaches?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 11, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574 "2017-10-11T15:08:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@scooter\_trash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scooter_trash)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/21 "2017-10-14T13:54:04Z")
I lived in an apartment building in South Florida that was so horribly infested I saw an albino roach. A genuine, all white roach.
Management sprayed several times to no avail.
Late one night I saw a commercial for Combat roach killing gel and said “well, we’ve tried everything else, why not.” Amazing. It worked. The instructions said I should see an improvement in two weeks and I saw an improvement in 2 days. After two weeks any roaches I saw were twitching and after two more weeks any I saw were dead.
The roaches eat it and it slowly kills them (relative to being sprayed, anyhow). They leave behind poisonous roach poop before they die. Other roaches will eat the poisonous roach poop as well as the poisoned corpses, creating more poisonous roach poop and poisoned corpses. At least that’s what the manufacturer said at the time.
You just put a little dab in areas where you’ve seen roaches and that’s it. Put it where it won’t be seen, like the bottom of a counter or sink as it dries to a hard brown substance that’s hard to remove once dried.
I’m sort of new here so I hope mentioning a product name is cool. Didn’t see anything about that in ToS.
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### Author:  [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/22 "2017-10-16T22:08:05Z")
[A HufPo writer tested some anti-cockroach theories](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/how-to-get-rid-of-roaches_n_965145.html), including the cucumber plan. The verdict: “… if roaches could laugh, it would be because I thought this could actually work.”
(Oh, and for the record, the results of their boric acid test: “Amazingly effective.” I don’t know why anyone needs the rest of the 'net when they have the Straight Dope right here.)
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/23 "2017-10-16T22:47:56Z")
> [@scooter\_trash](#):
>
> I’m sort of new here so I hope mentioning a product name is cool. Didn’t see anything about that in ToS.
No problem at all (as long as you didn’t join the site just to promote the product, which you obviously haven’t).
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/24 "2017-10-16T23:35:25Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Even if cucumbers really did repel cockroaches, do you really want to risk an [aardvark infestation](http://pza.sanbi.org/sites/default/files/info_library/aardvark.pdf)?
As long as the aardvarks sound like Jackie Mason when they talk…
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2017, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/25 "2017-10-17T01:28:47Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#):
>
> Wild cucumbers are full of bitter chemicals called “cucurbitacins.” These are defensive compounds that could conceivably repel cockroaches. Cultivated cucumbers have had the cucurbitacins bred out of them, so they won’t repel roaches.
I tried growing cucumbers a few years ago and they all came out incredibly bitter. I suppose I could have figured the problem out but they were also eaten alive by some kind of bug. Whatever bitterness was going on didn’t deter them…
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### Author:  [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/26 "2017-10-17T18:33:27Z")
> [@Dorjan](#):
>
> Never heard of that cucumber thing. Boric Acid is still effective against roaches.
Yeah, borax works, but, man, is it messy, especially when it gets wet.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2017, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/27 "2017-10-18T03:19:28Z")
> [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#):
>
> Yeah, borax works, but, man, is it messy, especially when it gets wet.
Borax is not boric acid. It is a salt of boric acid. You can create boric acid by a reaction of borax and hydrochloric acid. Borax is typically sold as a laundry detergent booster.
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### Author:  [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2017, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/28 "2017-10-18T03:42:47Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#):
>
> Borax is not boric acid. It is a salt of boric acid. You can create boric acid by a reaction of borax and hydrochloric acid. Borax is typically sold as a laundry detergent booster.
Not sure what your point is, but if you lay out a spread of borax to kill cockroaches, and that borax gets wet, it’s damn near impossible to clean it up. After the stuff dries out, it forms a crust almost as hard as stone, and you pretty much have to chip it out somehow. I don’t doubt what you’re saying is true, but I just wanted to point out that borax as an insecticide has at least one serious disadvantage.
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2017, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/29 "2017-10-18T04:29:49Z")
> [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#):
>
> Not sure what your point is, but if you lay out a spread of borax to kill cockroaches, and that borax gets wet, it’s damn near impossible to clean it up.
His point is that borax and boric acid are not the same thing. While it may be true that borax is hard to clean up if it gets wet, that has nothing to do with the use of boric acid as an insect repellent.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2017, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/30 "2017-10-19T00:23:49Z")
> [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](#):
>
> Not sure what your point is, but if you lay out a spread of borax to kill cockroaches, and that borax gets wet, it’s damn near impossible to clean it up. After the stuff dries out, it forms a crust almost as hard as stone, and you pretty much have to chip it out somehow. I don’t doubt what you’re saying is true, but I just wanted to point out that borax as an insecticide has at least one serious disadvantage.
My point is why would you use borax as an insecticide?
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### Author:  [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/31 "2017-10-19T15:47:38Z")
:smack: Sorry. It was a brain fart.
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### Author:  [@BeeGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeGee)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/32 "2017-10-19T18:06:12Z")
2nd the gel. I used Combat. I had a cockroach problem for a couple of months. I never saw them for 13 years in that apartment, then a new neighbor and they were everywhere. I sprayed. I put down traps. They still were coming out of the drawers and cabinets and creating little cockroach babies. I used the gel at the back of the drawers and under the rims of the cabinets. For about three days, I spent my mornings sweeping up dead cockroaches and like that the infestation was over.
Now the great big tree roaches, they’re looking for water and they’ll come in under the door and waltz right past your cats. They are handled by the racquetball racquet.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2017, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/33 "2017-10-20T23:39:10Z")
> [@Dorjan](#):
>
> Never heard of that cucumber thing. Boric Acid is still effective against roaches.
Wife loved the idea of the crystals getting in their joints and sawing their limbs off. She was a bit sadistic.
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> Maybe people are doing a correlation/causation error analogous to using capfuls of beer to kill garden slugs.
dropdad was told in the Army Air Corps that the solution to crabs was applying a mixture of whiskey and sand to the affected area. The crabs would get drunk and kill each other throwing boulders around. Don’t know about that, but I’ve dropped some roaches in their tracks by squirting them with mouthwash.
And for our more ghoulish viewers, _OMG! Cockroach Giving Birth While Being Devoured By Fire Ants_, the most horrifying, yet satisfying, video on YouTube. Spoilered for the two click rule, spoiled again because a right-thinking human, as I know at least a couple of you are, wouldn’t want to watch this:
Are you sure?Enjoy! [https://youtu.be/0qF5\_P2e\_T0?t=565](https://youtu.be/0qF5_P2e_T0?t=565)
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2017, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/34 "2017-10-21T04:02:39Z")
Boric acid was one of the things I used for months against the roaches with very little effect.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [October 21, 2017, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-cucumbers-really-repel-cockroaches/798574/35 "2017-10-21T04:42:43Z")
I find cucumbers very effective on roaches. You just take the cucumber and bash the little bastards with it.
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