Roaches: Not Just a Dirty Home Pest

Everybody knows the stigma that a cockroach infestation carries on a home or place of business. The public understanding, after all, is that these infestations only happen as a result of one thing: an unkempt, messy space. A cockroach in a restaurant is a sure sign that the restaurant is breaking some sort of health code, so the rumor goes. However, like most rumors, this doesn’t really accurately describe how cockroach infestations happen.

The truth is that most homes and places of business could potentially become host to an infestation. The insects can subsist on very little, and can fit through extremely small cracks in order to enter into a home. Don’t let the size of an adult cockroach fool you: One sixteenth of an inch is all they need in order to squeeze their way into your home.

Keeping Roaches Out

So, if a clean environment is not what keeps cockroaches out of your home, what does? Here’s the good news: The rumor has some grounding in reality. A cleaner home or place of business means that the roaches will have a little bit harder time finding the food they need to survive. This can mean a more manageable infestation, as the infestation will localize around the food sources that are available. Likewise, a clean home means that those food sources will be scarce, limiting the number of cockroaches which can survive.

However, we don’t want a smaller cockroach problem, we want no cockroach problem! So how do we keep the gross little things out of our home? The answer to keeping cockroaches out of your home is with a rigorous exclusion process. By finding all of the little cracks which an insect can crawl through and sealing them, and placing screens over open entry points such as chimneys, you can reduce the chances of cockroaches entering your home. However, it doesn’t stop there—cockroach eggs can be unwittingly carried inside on your clothes and in bags. These thin eggs can be difficult to detect, and so your best bet is to ensure that clothes are washed promptly after coming in from outside or a place you suspect might have a cockroach infestation.

Kicking Roaches Out

Despite your best efforts, you have found a cockroach in your home. Unlike stink bugs, cockroaches will reproduce within your home, and are nocturnal. As such, simply killing them as you find them would be fighting a losing battle. You need a more proactive approach to ensure the roaches are completely removed from your home:

• Time for Cleaning – If your home was messy when you spotted the roach infestation, clean things up. If your home was already clean, clean it more. Take fruit and bread off counters and seal it in containers; degrease your oven; declutter any paper piles in your home; throw out cardboard boxes (roaches lay eggs in the folds, and the babies hatch and feed on the glue); keep dirty dishes out of the sink; take your trash out regularly. The goal is to make your home as clean as possible. Doing this limits the cockroaches’ food sources and hiding places. If food is scarcer, the cockroaches’ numbers will be reduced, enabling you to more effectively treat the problem.

• Use Sticky Traps – Roach traps are available at many stores, and consist of a sticky surface which keeps a cockroach from leaving once they step on. Though this will not eliminate your roach problem entirely, they are good for monitoring where the roaches are coming and going throughout your home. This will enable you to target the nesting places within your home, and can save time and money.

• Call a Professional – If, after the above steps, you still have roaches in your home, calling a pest control professional is probably your best bet. Not all pesticides are effective against cockroaches, and many which are available for retail are contact poisons: This means you have to spray the cockroach directly. While this is good for killing pests as they are found, it is not effective against colony infestations. A pest control expert will know best how to eradicate the colony from your home when traditional methods prove ineffective.

Cockroaches can be a severe nuisance, and can damage the reputation of any business or home which houses them. However, with these tips, you should be able to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the presence of these intruders in your home.