this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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Asklemmy

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[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)
  • Alkaline water
  • Smart toothbrushes
  • Chiropractors
  • Yearly bug and pest deterrent spraying around exteriors of buildings
  • Self help books
  • Apps like Nerdwallet
[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you remember that influencer that started her day with alkaline water with lemon juice, the lemon juice being acidic neutralises the alkaline and makes it not alkaline water.

Those self help books just parrot the same things you would find in a wikihow article.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's snake oil peddler Gwyneth Paltrow if I recall

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Yup, she seems to be quite the scammer with her snake oils shop

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yearly bug and pest deterrent spraying around exteriors of buildings

No, this actually does something.

I live in an all-wood house. (Literally a log cabin.) I've had issues with carpenter ants. Spraying permethrin around the house, and on their trails when I see them, has largely eliminated the issue. It's a pretty concentrated solution, about 10:1, and has to be reapplied every few months (it does wash off, eventually), but it def. does the job.

You can get a less concentrated treatment for clothing if you're going to be in areas with extremely high levels of mosquitos and ticks.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Alkaline water = artificial spring water

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Yearly bug and pest deterrent spraying around exteriors of buildings

I wanted to add to this because it might catch someone else.

I live in a cedar cabin in the mountains. The wood is untreated on the inside. Cedar is not usually attractive to insects that eat wood, but, well... Every year since we moved there, we'd get small amounts of frass (chewed-up bits of wood) from insects eating the exposed roof beams (!!!) of our house. I would spray the beams with permethrin, a bunch of dead ant-looking things would be on the floor the next few days, and that would be it for the year.

This year I called an exterminator, since it keeps happening. He said that it wasn't termites (yay!), but thought that it was some kind of beetle. (Powder post beetles are a huge problem in our area.) He said we had two options: we could either fumigate the entire house (cost: about $10k, since the whole house would need to be tented), or we could paint all the woodwork in the hose with a 1:1 solution of Bora-Care and water. Bora-Care is a disodium octaborate tetrahydrate and glycerin solution, and should poison the wood for pests, without being toxic to people or animals once it's dried. (I may also have to drill the beams in inject a similar product in order to get deep enough penetration.)

This should be a one-and-done process; I should not need to repeat it.