Cockroach Control

Use cockroach traps to determine where roaches are hiding. Roaches hide together. To locate their harborages, buy lots of cockroach traps and place them all over your home. Concentrate on areas where they've been seen and areas with a foul odor, brownish or rust-colored streaks, exoskeletons, and body parts. Also place traps along walls, in corners, near plumbing, near appliances, and in drawers, cabinets, cupboards, and closets. I recommend plain, unscented sticky traps for mice and insects. You can also use more expensive roach traps that lure roaches in with roach baits and pheromones. Monitor traps for a full week. Full traps—especially traps filled with nymphs (immature cockroaches)—indicate that a cockroach harborage is nearby.

Deprive cockroaches of food. Start a strict regimen of sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning, and dish doing. Next, go through the kitchen and put all the food in roach-proof containers. Since they'll eat just about anything, contain and/or dispose of as much clutter as possible. Many species of roach will move from the yard to the home, so organic waste must be properly disposed of both inside and out. Inside, use an airtight, five-gallon bucket (found at paint and hardware stores) lined with a thin plastic bag for all food scraps. Outside, make sure the trash can is sealed tight and switch to a contained composting system. Finally, don't leave pet food and water dishes out.

To control cockroaches, you'll need to deprive them of water. Most cockroach species are very vulnerable to dehydration without a constant water source. Insulate cold water pipes to prevent condensation. Pipe condensation is a common source of water for cockroaches. Look for leaky pipes . . . and fix them. Install screens over all drains or use drain caps. This will prevent entry through drains, but it will also prevent cockroaches from enjoying the moisture left on drain traps. Be aware that potted plants and flowers in vases are often watering holes for cockroaches. Lastly, increase ventilation to damp or moist areas. This can be especially beneficial in attics and basements. Many cockroach-infested homes benefit from the use of a dehumidifier.

Indoors, seal all cockroach harborages. Cockroaches can fit into surprisingly small spaces. The most common pest species, the German cockroach, can hide in spaces as small as 1.5 millimeters. Seal off all cracks, nooks, and spaces around trim and baseboards, pipes (where they meet walls), shelves, cupboards, cabinets, sinks, and bathtubs using caulk and/or paint. Focus on areas where your sticky traps captured the most roaches. Before you seal off the cockroach harborages, clean the areas with a vacuum, soap, and water (this will make roach control chemicals more effective) and treat the cracks and crevices with any roach-killing product that can be worked into tight spaces. This will prevent cockroaches from living to seek out new harborages.

Deny indoor access to outdoor cockroaches. Walk around your house's perimeter with a caulking gun and fill in every crack, crevice, and hole you spot. Look around wires and pipes entering the home, around outlets, lights, and vents, areas where siding meets foundation, and at corners. Apply bug screens to all vents, weather stripping to all doors and windows, door sweeps to doors, and patches to holes in window screens. Finally, keep a clean, dry border around your home. Pick up leaf litter, remove thick vegetation and/or mulch, move wood piles back, and keep plants trimmed well back from the siding and roof. If the outside of your home is less habitable, it's less likely cockroaches will find their way in.

Kill cockroaches with baits, dusts, sprays, and/or foggers. Because roaches frequently develop poison resistance, it's good to purchase several different types/brands of cockroach poison. In general, it doesn't matter what brand you get. (If, however, you want recommendations, please contact me.) What matters is that they're used in accordance to the directions. Baits are available as stations or gels. Bait stations are those little black hockey pucks that roaches crawl into and eat from. Gels are gels. Along with your baits, use dusts or roach sprays for application into hard-to-reach places. For severe infestations, consider using a fogger. They're effective and achieve swift results. If your problem is primarily outdoors, there are spreadable granule products available.

Continue placing sticky traps to monitor for progress and reinfestation. I would recommend leaving sticky traps out at all times. This way, if cockroaches return or you didn't get rid of them as thoroughly as you thought, you'll quickly find out. If you're worried about kids or pets messing with your sticky traps, products like Protecta Pets Monitors come with a hard plastic protective housing.