Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Gwen Giffen" <ggiffen@1st.net>]

Someone in a goat forum I belong to has recommended spraying fabric softener 
around the barn to repel flies, ticks, mites and every other bug under the 
sun. They claim they have tried all other organic and home remedy routes, 
and nothing else has worked so well. They went on to say that some golf 
courses even hand out fabric softener sheets to golfers to use for insect 
repellant. Since there has been a recent discussion in this forum concerning 
such "home remedies," I wondered if anyone knew the scientific basis of 
fabric softener working?

I don't have a bottle of Downy sitting on my shelf, but I do have some cheap 
"Members Mark tm" sheets I've been using - mainly because I can stand the 
smell of them. Ingredients state: "Softening agents (cationic and nonionic 
types), and fragrance, in a nonwoven sheet." [note how incredibly 
informative...what fiber is in the sheets??? Which agents are they 
impregnated with???] I never gave it much thought before. But having been a 
textiles and clothing major through my junior year in college, and knowing 
about the petroleum base of polymer fibers and thus some laundering agents 
designed to detatch petrol-based dirt from petrol-based fabrics (like 
disolves like), and knowing that many insect repellants are also 
petrol-based, I am very curious as to how, exactly, fabric softeners work to 
repel insects. Does anyone know?

If flies, ticks and mites don't like it, should we? Some rusty wheels have 
started turning up there....

Gwen