While insects in the home are bad enough, they rarely pose a danger to human life; however, the ill-timed ant bite, hornet sting or roach on the leg at 60 mph could be disastrous. Getting rid of ants in the pants or roaches in the glove compartment isn't just easy -- it's kind of fun, and can come with a bonus: especially when you forgo all of those nasty chemicals and bug bombs and kill every living thing in your car -- and garage -- using one simple, cheap form of atmospheric modification.
Items you will need
- Soup pot with handle
- Tongs
- Duct tape
- Garage
- Three 5-pound blocks dry ice
- Step ladders
- Three 5-gallon buckets
- Warm water
- Candle and holder
Step 1
Park your car in the garage, and close the garage door. If you have a remote for the garage door, take it from the car and keep it with you. Hunt down air leaks in your garage around the doors and windows. Chip a small chunk of dry ice off of your block, and drop it into a soup pot full of warm water; wait for the dry ice to start producing CO2 fog, and wave it near your garage doors and windows; watch the fog for movement, and note the places where air movement through the leaks around your windows and doors disturbs the CO2 fog. Seal those leaks by whatever means necessary, as well as you can. Duct tape, old shirts and rags, even foam sealant around the windows will all help to seal the garage.
Step 2
Place your three large buckets evenly around your garage, and as high as possible. You might even consider placing them atop step ladders. If you're only using two buckets, place them at either end of the garage; if you're using four buckets, then place them at the corners. Fill each halfway with warm or hot water. Open your car's doors, trunk and hood, and stage your blocks of dry ice near the buckets. Place a candle into a candle-holder, set it on top of your car's roof, and light the candle.
Step 3
Carefully lower the dry ice blocks into the buckets using the appropriate tools or gloves; don't touch it with your bare hands under any circumstances. Work quickly -- get all three buckets filled with dry ice blocks and billowing fog as quickly as you can, or have one assistant for each bucket and drop the blocks simultaneously. Get out of the garage ASAP; it will quickly fill with carbon dioxide.
Step 4
Watch the magic through a window and keep an eye on that lit candle. The cold carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air; as the garage fills with CO2 from the ground up, it will eventually reach that candle and extinguish it. Once the flame goes out, you know that your car is covered with enough CO2 gas to kill anything trapped inside of it or below the car's roof-line in your garage. This should happen in a matter of minutes for the average two-car garage, but the dry ice will continue bubbling away and filling the room with CO2 for at least another 20 to 30 minutes. Soon, there will be so much fog you won't see the car.
Step 5
Sit back and wait. All animals need oxygen to survive, and the heavy CO2 gas displaces the oxygen that the bugs in your garage need. Bugs don't require a great deal of oxygen, so they can go without for far longer than humans can; ants can survive in a pure CO2 environment for several minutes with no long-term side effects. This CO2-stunning procedure has been used for decades to study insects in laboratories. However, you'll want to leave your garage for at least an hour, to make sure that everything is dead. If you sealed it well, you may still have some visible fog even that long afterward.
Step 6
Open your garage door using a remote garage door opener, if applicable. If you do not have a garage door opener, wait for the fog to clear out prior to entering the garage.
by Richard Rowe, Demand Media
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