Comprehensive Guide To Get Rid of Cockroaches in Your Home
Cockroaches are annoying filthy invaders that are commonly associated with different filthy conditions. In fact, researchers have found that these nasty critters possess unique genes that allow them to combat toxic foods, fight infections, and grow back broken limbs. While this makes the pests resilient to the dirtiest living conditions, roaches can also infest a clean and tidy home and businesses.
When cockroaches scurry through your home, they contaminate foods and surfaces with urine, feces, saliva, and digestive juices that contain disease-causing pathogens. Cockroach diseases such as cholera, dysentery, leprosy, and salmonella can be serious and even fatal, making cockroach pest control necessary. Our team of experts at Maximum Pest Control Services offers professional cockroach control services located: Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga Ontario to eliminate pests and reduce the chances of future transferred infestations.
This comprehensive guide you reading now provide professional pest control tips on how to get rid of cockroaches in your home or business.
What Attracts Cockroaches to My Clean Home?
Cockroaches infest clean homes for the same reasons other pests show up in a tidy house – in search of food, water, and shelter. Roaches are omnivores scavengers, but they are not picky eaters. They will feed on just about everything and anything they can find, including sweets, meats, and candy. But if these foods are not readily available in your immaculate home, roaches will be happy to feast on other things, including books, wallpaper, glue, fingernails, eyelashes, and even human flesh (feet and hands fall over dead skin).
Other factors that invite roaches into your home include:
• Accessibility: Roaches are skilled invaders. They can compress their exoskeleton to about half its original size and splay their legs out to the side, quickly squeezing through ridiculously tiny holes and narrow cracks. Roaches can also gain access to your home via the gaps in the walls, dryer vents, and sewer systems or drains. Additionally, they are hitchhikers and can be brought into a house via luggage, clothing, and other infested items.
• Moisture:Roaches are cold-blooded pests. This allows them to survive for a long period without sustenance. But while they can go for up to a month without food, roaches can only survive for a week without water. That’s why you often find them in high-moisture areas such as basements, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and kitchens. Leaky sinks, pipes, and faucets are also a big cockroach attractant.
• Landscaping: Factors such as bird baths, flowerpots, wood piles, trash cans, and faulty gutters can also attract roaches into your yard. On top of being a source of water, these places also provide shelter and food for roaches. Once in the yard, it’s only a matter of time before roaches move into your house.
Why Are Roaches So Hard to Get Rid of?
Cockroaches are one of the most difficult pests to get rid of without the help of an experienced professional. Besides having an incredibly high sense of smell that allows them to easily find food and water sources, roaches are experts at hiding. They are also extremely resilient thanks to their strong exoskeleton that helps them withstand weights up to 300-900 times their own body weight.
Additionally, these filthy pests can survive for a month without food and a week without water. They can also go for as long as a week without their head! Cockroaches are also challenging to control because they breed rapidly, with a single cockroach laying as many as 18 egg cases (each egg case contains an average of 16 eggs) in her lifetime. A recent study found that female roaches don’t need a male partner to reproduce. Hence, a single female in your home can lead to an infestation of up to thousands of roaches in a year, making it hard to successfully get rid of a cockroach infestation!
4 Home Remedies to Get Rid of a Cockroach Infestation
Natural remedies are a safe and non-toxic way to get rid of pests in your home. These remedies are ideal for home and business owners who want to reduce their environmental impact and keep their families safe from the health threats posed by synthetic pesticides. Here are the four home remedies that deliver long-term cockroach control results:
Boric Acid
Boric acid is a common compound in the pest control industry. It effectively controls a wide variety of pests, including ants, roaches, and bed bugs. Once consumed, boric acid disrupts the insect’s stomach and central nervous system, causing paralysis and eventual death. This compound is also abrasive to the cockroach exoskeleton. It weakens the hard shell and dehydrates the pest from the inside out. For the best results, sprinkle a light dust of boric acid on a paper plate and add a small amount of peanut butter, then place the plate in cockroach activity areas. Ensure the boric acid dust remains dry, as efficacy is reduced when it gets wet.
Diatomaceous Earth
Commonly abbreviated as DE, diatomaceous earth powder is obtained from the sediments of naturally occurring algae in water bodies. DE is not poisonous and is harmless to people, children, and pets. However, this scratchy powder is deadly to many insects, including bed bugs, beetles, silverfish, and fleas. When the dust gets on an insect’s body, it absorbs its fats and oils via the exoskeleton and kills it through dehydration. To kill roaches, sprinkle a light coating of food-grade DE on cockroach activity areas.
Essential Oils
Essential oils are commonly used to repel pests naturally, thanks to their pungent smells. If roaches have invaded your home, you can use peppermint oil or catnip oil to repel the pests. Alternatively, you can use cedar oil, rosemary oil, or eucalyptus oil to kill cockroaches. Mix the essential oil with a small amount of water and spray all infested areas for effective cockroach control results.
Borax
Borax is a popular natural household cleaning agent. Luckily, you can use this laundry product to kill and control roaches in your home. The best results are achieved by combining equal parts of borax and white table sugar and then dusting the mixture in cockroach activity areas. Once on an insect’s body, borax rapidly dehydrates the poor creature to death.
3 Conventional Methods to Get Rid of Roaches
Convection pest control methods are one of the most effective ways to get rid of cockroaches in the home. However, these methods are best left to licensed pest control experts. That’s because some chemicals are inherently toxic and, if not handled with care, can result in safety issues. Here are effective three convectional cockroach control methods that provide effective results:
Bait Stations
Bait stations cockroach killer gel are easy to handle and help get rid of roaches effectively. The toxic food-based bait attracts roaches into the bait station. The bait does not kill pests immediately upon consumption. Instead, it is slow-acting, allowing the pest enough time to return to the nest and die. When other roaches come in contact with the poison, they unknowingly pass it to the other roaches, potentially exterminating an entire colony.
Liquid Cockroach Concentrate
Liquid chemical sprays are highly concentrated treatments that kill and deter roaches. For the best results, spray the concentrated liquid in cockroach activity areas and hiding spots such as narrow cracks and crevices. You can also mop your floors with a small amount of liquid treatment to deter roaches.
Glue Traps
Technically, glue traps are best used for monitoring cockroach activities as well as catching them. However, you can also use these traps to eliminate a small cockroach infestation or the occasional lone invader in your home. Glue traps have a smell that lures roaches into the trap; once inside, the glue traps them. To increase your chances of wiping out an entire colony, it’s best to combine glue traps with other pest control methods.
Maximum Pest Control For Cockroach Services
Hiring a professional pest control company is the most effective and guaranteed way to get rid of a cockroach infestation. Maximum Pest Control Services licensed and bonded exterminators have been getting rid of cockroach infestations from residential and commercial business for more than 10 years. We will do a detailed inspection 1st of your home to identify cockroach problem infested areas and attractants. Using safe and highly effective methods, we will eliminate the pests and reduce the chances of future cockroach re-infestations. Contact Us Now (905) 582-5502.
