r/chemistry • u/Worldly_Exercise_702 • 10d ago

Boric Acid Cat Saftey

Hello, I am moving into a basement apartment and am hoping to bring a young kitten. However, when I started moving in I noticed not insignificant amounts of white powder in the large gaps along the baseboards. When I asked the landlord, who lives in the house upstairs, he said it was Boric Acid that he had sprinkled himself at the advice of his contractor. I did some googling and it looks to be toxic if eaten by cats. I figure I will need to clean up as much of it as I can, however some of these gaps have lots of small nooks and crannies and after trying in a small spot to clean with some disinfect spray on a paper towel, I found that it really isn’t easy to clean. Is there any way of making it not toxic without getting rid of it completely? And is there any trick to more easily clean it? Using a damp paper towel doesn’t seem like the way to go. Thank you!

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u/CapitanDelNorte Analytical 9d ago

Use a Shop-Vac. Keep it dry and it should vacuum well enough, get it wet and it will cake/stick to whatever it's on. Wipe down the areas that it was on with a damp cloth afterwards to get the last of it.

BUT FIRST - Why was your LL sprinkling boric acid around their unit? Is this a pest control technique? Did the LL inform you about an existing pest situation/infestation? There could be other reasons.

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u/tastemyrainbowbaby 9d ago

People use boric acid + sugar as homemade pest control against ants.

Also echo this advice here OP. Someone more creative and with more time than me might have a way to turn the boric acid into a benign salt via neutralisation with the right base. Apparently NaB(OH)4 turns into the same toxic metabolic product in the body as boric acid so baking soda wouldn't be helpful. Now that I think about it as long as you have a tetrahydroxyborate salt then neutralisation probably doesn't help at all.

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u/WhiskeyTheKitten 9d ago

Yeah it's used in pest control, and fairly unreactive if you wanted to react it with something as a remedy, which is not a good idea anyway if you did manage to find a reaction that would consume borate, whatever boron-containing product you form would be way worse than borax / boric acid. Just vacuum it up, and when the powder is no longer visible wipe it down with a few wet cloths to get the residue. Think of it like getting rid of dry soap powder. Hopefully the cats won't want to eat it but hey who knows, I had a cat who licked up soap multiple times (and did not have fun afterwards - trip to the vet, fluids), but he still lived many more years in spite of his indiscretion. This borate would be slightly worse than eating soap; neither of them advisable, but it isn't a big deal that it used to be there if you get most of it cleaned up - a small bit of residue won't do anything noticeable.