Roaches are a nuisance in many homes. Leave bits of food or spill a drink, and they will be all over the place nibbling and licking them. Turn off the lights, and they will rule your kitchen. If you’re tired of roaches, read on and find out how you can best eliminate each one of them.
Apply Bait poison
Tempted to apply pesticide? Bait is the deadlier poison as it kills the cockroach slowly. When they crawl back to their cracks, other roaches devour them and suffer the same fate. Avoid bombs or foggers. They’re not just ineffective, but drive them deeper into crevices and cracks. Some may look dead or fake it but rest assured they’ll re-surface.
If you’re entitled to a Orlando pest control professional by virtue of living in an apartment complex housing, make sure they place the bait on sticky straps. Good bait will last a couple of months. Change the brand if the roaches are not falling for the trap. Plus, some cockroaches are quite picky. Keep away cleaners, aerosol sprays, and even cigarette smoke as they could contaminate the bait.
Buy sticky trap monitors
Get sticky trap monitors and place them under cabinets, around your kitchen, living room, bedroom, and along walls for at least two nights. It might also help if you put them under the kitchen sink, by the fridge, and behind the bed or wherever these critters lurk. If you find baby roaches on the traps, focus your energies there. Stick trap monitors cost around ten bucks at local stores.
Reduce food sources
As well as storing food in your fridges and reducing food stores, store human food and pet food in sealed containers. Roaches are active at night. If you seal and keep your food out of sight, they won’t be able to nibble them. So they will starve and move out.
Eliminate roach breeding space
Next, eliminate roach hiding spots around your kitchen by filling crevices and cracks with caulking. Scrub gaps around pipes using copper pads. Dispose of all your card boxes, heaps of paper, or paper bags as roaches like to hide inside them.
Clean up areas around your home where roaches roam or live thoroughly. Empty and wipe your shelves, cupboards, or stovetops, and even fridge. It is essential to remove frass- little black spots or roach poop- as these bugs use them to communicate. And worse, frass and cockroaches can trigger asthma. You do not need special cleaning substances, soap and water will do.
Use a Vacuum cleaner
Your old vacuum cleaner isn’t just good for sucking dust from floors and carpets. It might also help you kill roaches by their hundreds. If your vacuum has a HEPA filter, it will prevent roach allergens from contaminating indoor air.
Here’s how you eliminate roaches with a vacuum cleaner. Get a hair dryer and blow directly into cracks and crevices to flush the cockroaches, and then have someone operate the vacuum cleaner to suck up the roaches. Once the vacuum bag fills up, empty it outside or onto a plastic bag that you can seal and dispose of properly.
Monitor roach activity
Just because you’ve killed the last roach doesn’t mean you’re safe. Keep an eye for new signs of cockroaches, especially their eggs and frass. If you don’t, you’ll never know when they might come back.
If you’re overwhelmed, contact our pest control Orlando professionals to help you today.
Brandon is the President of Drake Lawn and Pest Control in Orlando, FL . He has over 30 years experience in the Orlando Pest Control Industry. He attributes his achievements to living by these rules: continuous training and education, providing honest work and striving for the pursuit of perfect service.
