Attack of the Cockroaches!
All this wet weather has apparently made our house haven to all sorts of vile critters. A week ago, I was opening the door to the garage from the office/den when I spotted a cockroach scurrying about. I killed it, thinking it was a sole roach that had lost its way. Wishful thinking — where there’s one roach, there almost certainly are dozens more!
We bought some Roach Motels, and two more checked in. A couple of days ago, I spied a roach inside the office! They had breached our defenses and were inside the house! This meant war, so I purchased a box of Hot Shot MaxAttrax Nest Destroyer Roach Bait and a tube of Boric Acid. Rae, Randy, and I positioned the baits and sprinkled the boric acid in strategic locations throughout the garage.
When I returned home from work this evening, no dead roaches were present near the baits, but I noticed something small, something dark in the back of the garage. Sure enough, it was a roach. I proceeded to encircle him with boric acid. After creating the boric acid moat, my eye started itching. I went inside to wash it and when I returned, the roach was gone!
With Randy’s help, we found another roach underneath the wheel of Rae’s road bike. I’m not sure if it’s the same roach or not, but I poured a bunch of boric acid powder on top of it. I felt like Donovan spraying the red dust on the V aliens!
Looking from the photos, what type of cockroach has taken residence in our house? American, German, Oriental, Brown-Banded, or Wood? I’d have to say that our roaches are either American or Oriental. Your opinions? Any thoughts on how our roach control strategy?
If I see any more elsewhere in the house — such as the kitchen or bathrooms — I’m calling the exterminator! Ghastly things!
Update 4/12/2006: Randy and I ventured back into the garage yesterday and found several more roaches. There were three of them entering the house from underneath the garage door. They must be drying to stay dry from the wet weather! We lined the length of the garage door with boric acid and placed additional baits near that area. Later that evening, I even saw two roaches dining on MaxAttrax!
April 12th, 2006 at 1:03 am
Adam, It is extremely difficult to get rid of cockroaches. I lived in a nice apartment complex 18 years ago until it became infested with German cockroaches. From my personal experience, Asian cockroaches are generally larger (1-2″ in length) and can they fly! At one time, I found a roach egg in the kitchen drawer so I placed it in an empty Fuji film container for observation. Within a few days, 16 baby cockroaches came out of the egg. It took them a week to die(without water or food)! The entire apartment complex was fumigated three times and those dirty little pests kept coming back. My wife and I couldn’t take it anymore so we bought a house and moved out. I wish you luck.
April 12th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Adam, I would suggest going back over your home inspection report. If there isn’t anything in there about the roaches, I’d give the company a call. They could be responsible if they failed to mention the roaches and you weren’t able to ask the previous owners to fumigate. Give it a try and see, it can’t hurt.
April 12th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
We don’t seem to have Roaches here in England. One of the many good things about ol’ Britian ;-)
April 12th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Eww. That pic with all the different roaches makes my skin crawl! You can even see the hair on their legs … gross …
I laughed out loud at the pic of the roach with boric acid sprinkled all over it. Sadistic, yes. Thank you for the entertaining captions :)
April 21st, 2006 at 2:28 pm
with all those chemicals around, don’t forget to protect your testicles!
July 16th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Hi there.
We just tried CVS brand (4 pack) of roach killer. We have a recent infestation in our apartment here in Wellesley Massachusetts. I’ve had 4 roach sitings in 4 weeks and zero in the 2 years prior. I’ve gonie and purchased the MaxAttrax stuff and hope it works as well as Combat did for me in Miami. The MaxAttrax was cheaper by $3 per box at Home Depot, so now in a 2 bedroom apartment, 24 traps later, and some powder to go all over the attic, we’ve also launched war.
Tell me did the MaxAttrax work? I’ve had the opposite happen from others, with regular replacements of Combat, I was successful in keeping a Miami apartment in the eighties, Roach free! Miami is home of the Palmetto Bug…picture a cockroach as big as your hand!
September 30th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
House lizards (geckos) are very effective for getting rid of cockroaches as they are natural enemies. You can get one from a pet store
November 25th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Just in response to Steve’s comment…”I think you’ll find that certain home inspection reports state quite clearly that things like: termites; cockroaches and other forms of insect infestations are considered (as ridiculous as it may sound) “exclusions” from inspection reports. However, any well-intentioned, ethical home inspector should inform the owner of the presense of such ‘lil critters’ regardless of “exclusions”… I know I would!
Luckily for my clients, we don’t have that sort of problem to deal with down in New Zealand — just rising damp:)
Steve Salter
http://www.propertyinspections.co.nz
http://stevesalter.wordpress.com
February 11th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Does anyone know what the possible health problems are associated with exposure to roaches?
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Richard,
Children can develop asthma from breathing roach droppings (and probably from their moltings, too, I’m not sure). That’s the only thing I’ve ever heard about being an health hazard from roaches.
Saw a big black one (about 1″ long) in our tub the other morning, just a couple hours after that earthquake in Illinois. (In Dayton, Ohio, our house vibrated from it.) I hope we’re not infested. This is the first one we’ve ever seen, and we’ve lived here for 8 1/2 years!
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:12 am
Cockroaches are the indicators of the cleanliness of a house. They are harmless to human beings. Some times they will scraping our toes when we are in sleep. They are like scavengers. Though they are harmless they are unwanted guests to children. They can be removed by using some bait traps. Natural biological control by some egg parasitoids (wasps), spiders and lizards also keeps the population of cockroaches under check.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:13 am
It is now 2008. This is Menorca, Spain.
The villa sees no roaches at all during daylight hours, but go into the kitchen after a quiet half hour after dark with bare feet and you wish you hadn´t !
Roaches up to 2 and a half inches long scuttle for the darkness - under the oven, the refridgerator, the kitchen cupboards etc and there are generally three or four.
The knives and forks drawer often contains a couple no matter how much bleach and insecticide has been applied. They just keep coming.
They fly in during the day or early evening, settling on walls, and creeping in through windows and shutters. They can flatten themselves to paper thin and seem to be devoid of all body fluids. Yugh !!
Traps with sticky interiors do work, but it´s pretty unpleasant to have to deal with a dozen struggling roaches when you get up to make your early morning tea. However, it´s better to know they are in a trap than crawling over your face when you are asleep !
June 30th, 2008 at 9:44 am
My 8 yr. old son found a bug on the floor this morning, he said it looked like a cockroach, so i looked my self, and sure enough it was. My house is only 3 years old and we have never had a cockroach before, the only thing I can think of is that it came in with my neighbors. they brought there trailer from there other property and everyone that went in to look at it came in my house right after. there has been sitting for 10 years without being used. Do you think that was the only one. They trailer had only been here for 1 day. What are my chances
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
We have lots “O” roaches out here in the desert…Nevada…they are tough to get rid of but what I have found that works is spraying with “hot Shot” (blue bottle at home depot) every 2 weeks for 1 month and then every other month after that seems to work very well. The bottle is not very expensive (under $9 bucks) and it is a concentrate that will make 2 gallons. Also, when spraying be sure to open up any water closets (sprinkler boxes) and spray them thoroughly as well. I would also purchase some Home Defense indoor spray and hit all of the door ways and base boards…the stuff is pretty much oderless and is made to spray indoors….good luck!
July 26th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I’ve had good luck with ‘Home defense’ by ortho
July 30th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
that is an adolescent Oriental cockroach - they invade from the outside during this time of year.
Good luck
(I work with these little guys every day)
July 30th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
cockroaches can carry MRSA, Sallmonella, Strep & Staff. They cause and exacerbate asthma esp. in young children and the elderly. The sentization cutoff for cockroach allergen Bla g1 is 2u/g of vacuumed dust - the asthma morbidity cutoff is 8U/g - if you’re having an cockroach problem I would seriously recommend that you try an Integrated Pest Management approach - check out the National Center for Healthy Housing web site - they have some great stuff - IPM controls cockroaches a lot better than any other method and it’s the least toxic way of taking care of things which is a benefit to you , your family and your environment, not to mention cockroaches can quickly become resistant to toxic chemicals (i.e. the Cinncinnati cockroach) - IPM relies on denying them food, water and harborage - it takes a little while - but it’s also the best bet for long term on control, as well as your health.
cheers
Liz Kasameyer, RN, BSN
MSN/MPH Candidate 2008
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Baltimore City Health Department,
Division of Healthy Homes
July 31st, 2008 at 12:09 am
Thanks for the information, Liz! We’ve only seen a couple in the garage this past year. There’s a friendly lizard who lives there that seems to be controlling the population, along with our traps. I’ll take a look at IPM too!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm
No problem Adam - just an FYI boric acid is ineffective if you use it other than as a fine dusting. The way that it works is that roaches crawl through the dust on their journeys foraging for food. The dust then gets attached to them and when they clean themselves (like a cat) they ingest it. It is a slow stomach poison for them. If it’s used in other ways it really isn’t going to do you any good. The Combat gel and Maxforce baits are great. Good luck - if you really wanna make sure they don’t get in your house make sure you take a look - a very close look in your garage - at where the seams may have cracked, or any holes, you can use caulk to fill holes and copper mesh to fill any holes bigger than a dime.
Liz K.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
WATERBUGS CAN OFTEN BE CONFUSED FOR ROACHES. YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK INTO THAT.