HOUSTON — Pests can be a nuisance this time of year and some folks are willing to try anything to keep them away.
A post going around Facebook claims a bar of Irish Spring soap does the trick. A few people contacted the VERIFY team wanting to know if it really works.
The post reads, in part, “Irish Spring is known for its invigorating scent and there are plenty of success stories on the internet from people using it to banish flies and rodents around their home. You get a mesh bag, place a bar of soap inside and hang it on your patio or porch.”
Patricia and Wendy asked us to VERIFY if it's true.
Our sources for this are Colgate-Palmolive, the company that markets Irish Spring bar soap and Molly Keck, an Entomologist at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.
“There's no reason that it should work. There's no scientific explanation for it working,” Keck said.
There’s a good reason for that.
“Our Irish Spring bar soaps were not tested to keep flies and rodents away. We, therefore, would not have this information as our products were not intended to be used in this way,” Colgate-Palmolive said.
Keck said you may not want to fire your exterminator just yet.
“It's not going to replace your regular pest management. It's not going to eliminate all the insects away from your house or anything like that. I mean, if you think it will, by all means, try it, but you're probably going to find that that's not the case,” Keck said.
We can VERIFY, this claim is false.
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