Do you have cockroaches in your home? It’s a horrible situation to suffer through. After all, a cockroach infestation isn’t just extremely unpleasant – it can also be unhealthy.
Cockroaches are known to exacerbate respiratory conditions, so if you or someone you live with has asthma, it’s even more crucial that you take action fast.
If this is the first cockroach infestation you’ve experienced, you’re probably in a state of panic.
How should you even begin to handle this? The internet can be full of contradictory advice when it comes to this particularly nasty pest, but here you’ll find all the answers to the most frequently asked questions.
Read on and you’ll soon get rid of your unwanted house guests!
How Do You Know You Have Cockroaches?
Cockroaches are nocturnal, so it may take a little while to realize you have a cockroach problem.
If you see them in your house during the day, this is an indication that your infestation is at a serious level.
If you enter a room at night and turn on a light, you may hear cockroaches run away. You may also notice a bad smell in your house.
Other signs you should look for include:
• Droppings
Cockroach droppings are small and could resemble coffee granules. Clear them away carefully to avoid spreading bacteria.
• Smears
As they move around your home, cockroaches are likely to leave dark smear marks on walls and horizontal surfaces as well as around wall-floor junctions.
• Eggs
Cockroach eggs look like a pill, and they can be different shades of brown or black. Usually, they are around 8mm long.
• Property damage
Cockroaches are hungry, and they’ll eat almost anything! Look for evidence of nibbling on leather items, food packaging, and your furniture.
• Shed skin
As they grow into adulthood, cockroaches shed their skin multiple times. You may see remnants of this process around your home.
How Do You Get Rid of a Heavy Cockroach Infestation?
If you’ve looked at the above checklist and confirmed the presence of cockroaches in your home, it’s now time to make a plan.
Nobody wants to share their home with cockroaches for an extended period, and they can even represent a health hazard!
The first step you should take is to deep clean your home. By the time cockroaches have set up there, this may feel like a futile gesture.
However, cockroaches are attracted to what they can eat. If your floor is covered in crumbs or you’ve left food debris on dirty plates, you’re unfortunately asking for trouble!
Next, you might decide to take a trip to the home improvement store. There, you’ll find a range of deterrents that you can set up at cockroach hotspots around your house.
Choose between the kind that poisons pests using bait or that traps them with a sticky substance.
Liquid concentrate and boric acid have been shown to get rid of roaches. Dilute and spray the concentrate around your house, using it like a cleaning solution.
Cockroaches don’t like that one bit! To use boric acid, combine it with flour and sugar to make a dough that you can split and spread around the house. This has a poisonous effect on cockroaches.
If none of these strategies prove effective, try a pest extermination service.
Don’t worry – cockroaches can be incredibly persistent, but a thorough treatment performed by the professionals should bring an end to your infestation.
How Long Does It Take Pest Control to Get Rid of Roaches?
Cockroaches are known for their resilience. If they weren’t so gross, this quality could be seen as admirable!
Remember, people even say that they’ll outlive humans in the event of nuclear fallout.
With that in mind, don’t expect immediate results, even when you hire a professional pest control service.
Generally, it takes about two weeks to get rid of all the roaches in your home.
If you have an exceptionally severe infestation, you may even need a second pest control treatment.
Consult your exterminator if you believe this to be the case.
While you wait for the effects of the pest control treatment to take hold, make sure you maintain high standards of hygiene.
If food and waste are left out for long, that will help to sustain the cockroaches! Paper and cardboard have the same effect, especially if they’re wet.
Lastly, you should dry off sinks and bathtubs after usage. Cockroaches like to set up camp in these moist spaces.
If you’re sticking to these rules strictly, then all you have to do is wait. After two weeks, the results should be obvious.
Still, seeing signs of cockroach infestation beyond the two-week period? Then you’ll have to talk to pest control again!
Do Roaches Come Back After Extermination?
Wouldn’t it be great if one extermination got rid of cockroaches forever? Usually, this is the case. Not always, though.
If your home is close to others; for example, in an apartment building, then it’s more likely to occur. In that situation, it’s best to organize a collective treatment with your neighbors.
Roaches could reappear through flea market purchases where they’ve set up home.
Be careful what you bring into your house! Leave it outside for a day first to be sure it’s not a pest hotel.
Thoroughly clean your second-hand item or, if it’s small enough, freeze it for a day to kill off any contamination.
If you see the odd cockroach from time to time post-treatment, try DIY traps to trace their activity.
This is the best way to observe whether there’s a serious problem occurring once again or if you’re just dealing with stragglers from your previous infestation.
Does Roach Killer Kill Spiders And Other Insects?
Generally, if you buy roach killer spray it will also work on spiders, fleas, and other insects. This can be convenient if you have problems with other pests in your home.
However, it’s important to check the coverage that different brands promise. Some sprays are designed for specific pests and others will get rid of all insects.
There are many kinds of roach killers on the market. You’re probably familiar with brands like Raid, Advion, and Black Flag.
Each brand has a variety of products to suit a range of pest control needs. Shop around for the best product to suit your personal circumstances.
Read the label and the instructions very carefully since roach killer is a potentially dangerous product.
If you have a dog or cat at home, they may be drawn to cockroach bait you leave lying around.
Usually, the poison level is too strong to be seriously harmful, but it’s definitely something to be aware of. You don’t want to hurt your pet while getting rid of pests, do you?
What Causes Roaches In a Clean House?
When you tell someone you have a roach problem, their first response is likely to relate to house cleaning. “Did you leave dirty dishes out? Haven’t you taken out the trash in a while?”
This can be very offensive for house-proud people that are very hygienic but still happen to have pests. It’s a surprisingly common complaint!
So, what could bring roaches to a clean house?
It could just be the part of the world you live in! Some climates are more prone to cockroach infestations than others.
If you call the balmy states of the South home, then you could encounter cockroaches at home no matter how often you clean.
Structural issues in your home might make it easy for roaches to gain access. Cracks and gaps will invite them in.
Plumbing issues also attract these pests! They like leaky pipes because they thrive in moist environments.
Some general household repairs might be enough to deter cockroaches from setting up at your place.
How Do Professionals Get Rid of Roaches?
Professional exterminators will apply a range of techniques to provide a comprehensive pest control treatment.
First, they will perform a thorough inspection to determine the scale of the problem.
Then, they are likely to use glue traps in the areas they identify as particularly problematic.
To kill off the roach population in your home, they’ll probably use poisoned baits.
They might even surround your home with bait to keep any new cockroaches from entering.
Some exterminators will arrive equipped with a kind of vacuum to suck up any cockroaches, droppings, or eggs.
Because most people don’t want to deal with cockroaches, pest control services are popular.
Sure, you could invest in DIY efforts, but it might be easier to hand the job over to the professionals.
Now you know the different options available for handling cockroach infestations.
Whichever method you decide to choose, good luck with it! Hopefully, your house will soon be free from these unappealing creatures.
REFERENCES
https://www.aspca.org/ https://cockroachfacts.com/
