What insect runs 50 times its body length in a second, can withstand up to 900 times its body weight, and can live a week without its head?
If you guessed cockroaches, you’d be right.
Cockroaches are resilient little insects commonly found thriving in dark, damp places, meaning they often carry bacteria that spread disease. Not a welcome guest in your home. So how can you prevent them from moving in?
The first step is understanding what attracts them: food, water, and shelter.
Food
Cockroaches eat the typical diet you think of like sandwich crumbs, Gatorade spills, and peanut butter – but they can also live on dead skin cells, fingernail clippings, hair (including your pets), and even cannibalism in order to survive. Add to that the fact cockroaches can go for more than a month without food, and you have a truly formidable pest on your hands.
This can make it incredibly difficult to ‘starve out’ cockroaches. However, restricting access to their food sources places them under stress, making completementary pest control methods more successful.
Some ways to eliminate food sources:
1)
Clean clean and clean. Cockroaches can make a meal of most anything: spills, crumbs, food particles, grease (they love grease), so it’s important to make sure there aren’t any of these sources readily available in your home.
An example is leaving dishes in the sink; this makes an easy meal for cockroaches – and will definitely attract more. Another food source is grease left on walls or oven hoods. Cleaning these regularly can go a long way in keeping cockroaches away.
It can also be helpful to wipe down counters, deep clean being fridges or stoves, and regularly clean up after cooking. This will make cockroaches look elsewhere for their next meal and, hopefully: not find it.
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Pet food (and water). Fido’s dog food makes an excellent meal for scavenging cockroaches at night – especially because of its high protein content. Regularly storing pet food (and water) will go a long way in keeping cockroaches from having a nightly feast.
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Dirty Clothing. Since cockroaches eat food spills and stains on clothing, (sometimes chewing holes behind in the process), it’s important to keep dirty clothes somewhere it can’t be reached; a sealed hamper or sealed plastic bag are common cockroach safe options.
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Garbage is extremely attractive to cockroaches. It’s a good idea to store garbage in a sealed container outside of your home. An often forgotten attraction for cockroaches is the garbage disposal; this can be remedied by using a cleaning solution after each use.
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Mouse baits. A commonly overlooked food source for cockroaches are mouse baits. While deadly to mice, cockroaches (being the resilient little bugs they are), can easily get nourishment from them. If you have a mouse and cockroach problem, you may be inadvertently worsening one while helping the other.
Water
Just a few of the many places they may find water are leaky faucets, pet bowls, condensation on pipes, soaked wood, sponges, and water from their food.
Following are some ideas on how to make sure cockroaches don’t have the water they need to survive.
Ways to restrict water for cockroaches:
1)
Standing Water Try to remove places that have standing water. This could mean dishes, sinks, pet bowls, and standing water near your home.
A solution for your toilet, however (which you can’t get rid of), is to apply a mixture of petroleum jelly and mineral oil to the inside rim of the toilet bowl. This prevents cockroaches from drinking. It’s suggested to apply weekly.
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Wet Sponges and Rags Rinsing wet sponges or rags with an ammonia water solution prevents cockroaches from obtaining water from them. Another solution is placing them in sealed plastic bags overnight.
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Fix Leaky Faucets Some common areas for leaks are the faucet itself, the base, and the pipes. Replacing the gasket, tightening pipe connections, and cleaning white residue, (white residue at pipe connections is a sign of slow water leakage), are all ways you can make sure no water is available to cockroaches. Something else that’s helpful is placing screens on faucets, which makes it impossible for cockroaches to crawl inside (unlike the photo).
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Pipe Insulation Unfortunately, cold water pipes can create enough condensation for cockroaches to live on in hot summer months. While not likely to make or break a cockroaches water source, properly sealing pipes can be useful to make sure no water is available to them.
Shelter
Cockroaches are drawn to dark, damp, tight spaces; they actually prefer to touch the top and bottom at the same time. They can fit into cracks as small as 1/16”, making many areas you may not have thought of as common hiding places.
Some of these hiding places are light fixtures, moldings, appliances, and baseboards. Really, anywhere that’s tight, dark, and hidden.
A useful tip is certain materials are more likely to attract cockroaches than others. The most comfortable material for cockroaches is paper cardboard, wood, and cloth. They’re less likely to set up home in materials like metal, aluminum, or ceramic, though they’ll certainly use it if it’s the only thing available.
Some ways to clear their shelter:
1)
Clear Clutter
- Clearing out any old cardboard boxes or paper bags (cockroaches often lay their eggs in cardboard), is a great way to make sure cockroaches don’t have the shelter they need.
- Clearing stacks of wood or rags from areas where cockroaches may be will get rid of places that may shelter them.
- Attics with forgotten items are common areas that may be harboring cockroach communities.
- Thoroughly clean any spaces that may harbor cockroaches such as appliances, (toaster, oven, refrigerator) and furniture (couches, armchairs,). Ultimately, anywhere that is warm, near access to food and water, and tight fitting spaces.
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Seal Spaces
- Oftentimes cockroaches enter homes in search of a safe place away from the elements, so try sealing any entries to your home such as around windows, under and around doors, or cracks in walls.
- Go throughout your home and seal off any spaces using caulk where cockroaches could hide. The will (hopefully), make it so cockroaches have no place to run to.
- Some common areas the cockroaches call home are in appliances, cabinets, furniture, behind molding, and around rubber gaskets.
If cockroaches have indeed infested your home – which isn’t uncommon, considering a female cockroach can have over 200 baby cockroaches a year – a pest control company can certainly help you de-roachify your home. If located in Arkansas, be sure to contact PureNature and learn how we can help you with your pest control needs.
