Catnip repels cockroaches
The ingredient in catnip that makes cats delirious with joy repels cockroaches 100 times as effectively as DEET, which is used in commercial repellents, scientists at Iowa State University say. In their studies, Chris Peterson and Joel Coats found that Osage oranges (sometimes called hedgeapples) also repel cockroaches. The bugs' response to the inedible fruit was "yuck," they say, although they don't know which chemical in the hedgeapples repels them.
The Associated Press
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