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How to get rid of roaches in my house


How To Get Rid Of Roaches In Your Home: A Complete Guide [2022]

Unfortunately, they’re common pests, and they can be difficult to get rid of. If you have roaches in your home or apartment in areas such as kitchen cabinets, the attic, or in your bathroom, it’s important to get rid of them fast.

Here at Smith’s Pest Management, we help homeowners throughout Northern California, from Marin to Monterey, get rid of pests. Our team offers professional cockroach control services to help you reclaim your space and get life back to normal.

In this post, we’ll share the best and fastest ways to get rid of roaches for good, and everything you need to know about your various options.

Here’s an overview of the roaches you’re most likely to see indoors:

German Cockroaches


Image: LMBuga via Wikipedia / CC by SA 3.0

The German cockroach is the most common cockroach in the U.S. Because they breed so rapidly (each egg case can produce 20-40 baby roaches), even a single female in your home could produce a cockroach infestation of more than 30,000 individuals in a single year.

Unlike other roach species, the female German cockroach carries her egg pouches with her until they’re ready to hatch.

This means infestations spread easily and can be difficult to contain.

All cockroaches have flat, broad bodies with long hind legs and antennae. Their wings lie folded flat on their backs, and most are black or brown.

The German cockroach, however, tends to be light-brown with two dark, parallel stripes that run down the body from the head to the wings.

Brown-Banded Cockroaches


Brown-banded roaches love warm, dry areas, and are commonly found inside walls or electronics like televisions or refrigerators.

A flying cockroach, this species hates water and doesn’t like to live in moist or damp places.

They are about 0.5” in length, and tend to be dark brown. Both males and females have light yellow bands on their wings and abdomens.

American Cockroaches


 Image: Gary Alpert via Wikipedia / CC by SA 2. 5

While the American cockroach isn’t the most common roach species in the U.S., it is the largest.

It’s also one of the longest-lived – with lifespans of about two years.

These roaches are sometimes called the “sewer roach” or “palmetto bugs.” They can reach 1-3” in length and tend to be brown or reddish-brown with light yellow edges around their bodies.

What Attracts Roaches to My Home?

Regardless of what kind of roaches you have in your home, one thing is certain: you don’t want them there.

In addition to giving you the creepy-crawlies, roaches can trigger allergies, spread disease, and create an unsanitary living environment.

Fortunately, the first step to getting rid of roaches is understanding what’s attracting them to your property in the first place.

Here are some of the most common culprits:

1. Food sources

Roaches are omnivores, meaning they’ll eat anything. They are particularly fond of starches, sweets, greasy food, and meats.

Easy sources of food – like dirty dishes in the sink, pet food on the floor, or crumbs on the counter will draw them in.

Roaches also love garbage, so make sure to take the trash out regularly and keep all household garbage cans tightly sealed.

2. Shelter

Cockroaches enter homes for shelter.

Depending on the species of roach, they may live behind picture frames, in hollowed-out wood, in damp places like beneath the sink or behind the toilet, or in the backs of your electronics.

As the temperature dips outside, roaches will venture indoors.

They love quiet, forgotten areas, and may live underneath large appliances, in the corners of basements, and the attic.

3. Location

If you’re wondering “why do I have roaches in my clean house?” we understand.

Solving a roach problem can be frustrating – especially if you’ve been careful to avoid common attractants.

Unfortunately, some locations are just more appealing to roaches than others.

Species like the American cockroach don’t need unsanitary conditions to thrive – they simply enter through a gap in a window seal or a door left open and start establishing themselves in your house.

4. Water

Like all animals, roaches need water to survive – and they’ll enter even the most sanitary homes to find it.

Leaky pipes and faucets are common attractants, as are open showers and pet water bowls.

5. Landscaping

While roaches love to live inside, they’ll also enter your yard in search of food, shelter, and water.

Standing water in birdbaths, gutters, and flowerpots will all attract roaches, as will food sources like birdseed or fruit plants.

How Roaches Enter Your Home

Shelter, food, and water attract roaches to your home, but how do they get in? The most common way roaches enter your home is through tiny cracks and gaps in windows, doors, and other areas.

Here are some of their favorite access points:

1.

Cracks and Gaps in Windows and Doors

Cracks and gaps in your home’s doors and windows are the top way roaches make their way into your home. Doors that aren’t sealed properly and windows that don’t close entirely are perfect access points for roaches.

2. Holes in Pipes and Vents

Another common entrance point for roaches is through holes in pipes and vents. If you live in an older home with vents that have holes or don’t properly seal, it’s an invitation for roaches to come inside.

Check your vents when you replace or service them and keep an eye on pipes and plumbing fixtures for holes or other potential roach access points.

3. Hitching a Ride on Furniture and Other Items

If you’re bringing used furniture or other items into the home, check them for roaches, first. These insects can hole up and hide in used items, only to emerge once they’re safely inside your home.

How to Get Rid of Roaches Naturally: 6 Home Remedies

If you want to get rid of roaches without chemicals such as bombing, foggers, or sprays you’re in luck. There are a handful of effective home remedies that will send these nasty critters packing and many of them are not harmful to children or pets.

Here are a few we recommend:

1. Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth, or DE for short, is an excellent natural insecticide. Composed of pulverized, fossilized algae, DE’s particles are sharp and dehydrating. When roaches come into contact with DE, it damages their exoskeletons and dehydrates them to death.

Purchase some food-grade DE and sprinkle a light coating on any surface where you’ve noticed roach activity.

Pros: Effective, affordable, safe for kids and pets

Cons: Messy, requires re-application, you will have to locate and dispose of dead roaches after each DE treatment

2. Baking Soda

Baking soda is one of the fastest, easiest ways to get rid of roaches – and it’s probably something you already have in your pantry. To make a DIY roach bait, dice a handful of onions and sprinkle them with baking soda.

Place this appetizer in a shallow dish anywhere you’ve noticed roach activity. When the roaches consume the baking soda, it creates gasses in the roaches’ stomachs, causing them to burst.

Pros: Effective, non-toxic, affordable

Cons: Pets may consume the onion mixture (onions are toxic for dogs), messy, requires you to locate and dispose of dead roaches

3. Boric Acid

Boric acid is a naturally-occurring compound. A mixture of water and boron, it shows up in fruits and plants.

And while it’s harmless to people and pets, it’s deadly for roaches. When cockroaches come into contact with boric acid, it sticks to their legs and wings. When they ingest the powder, it acts on the roach’s nervous and digestive systems – killing it rapidly.

To use boric acid to get rid of roaches, sprinkle a light dusting onto a paper plate. Put an orange peel or spoonful of peanut butter in the middle of the plate and place the whole thing anywhere you’ve noticed roach activity.

Pros: Effective, affordable, natural, non-toxic, easy

Cons: Can be messy, requires several applications or treatments, may not be ideal for homes with pets or young kids, requires you to track down and dispose of dead roaches 

4. Borax

Borax is a readily-available laundry product that’s excellent for killing roaches. For best results, combine equal parts borax and white table sugar. Dust the mixture any place you’ve seen roach activity. When the roaches consume the borax, it will dehydrate them and kill them rapidly.

Pros: Effective, affordable, kills both adult and baby roaches  

Cons: Can be messy, requires re-application, requires you to track down and remove dead roach bodies

5. Citrus

Citrus is a tasty treat for humans, but it’s a repellent to cockroaches. The smell of lemons, specifically, deters roaches. Add a few drops of lemon oil to the water you use to mop your floors. The scent won’t be detectable to people, but it will send roaches packing.

Pros: Effective, affordable, ideal for homes with kids and pets

Cons: Does not kill roaches – only deters them

6. Essential Oils

Essential oils are a great natural roach repellant. For best results, purchase peppermint or lemongrass essential oil and mix it with a bit of water. Spray the mixture anywhere you’ve seen roaches.

Pros: Effective, affordable, safe for kids and pets, non-toxic

Cons: Does not kill roaches 

How to Get Rid of Roaches Inside the Home: 5 Conventional Methods

Looking for more conventional options to solve your roach problem? Here are some of the fastest ways to get rid of roaches:

1. Use Glue Traps to Identify Problem Areas

Glue traps are an effective way to identify roach problem areas and resolve infestations.

The smell of the trap lures roaches in and, once they step on the strip, the glue traps them.

For best results, place store-bought glue strips in any place you’ve noticed roach activity, including behind the refrigerator or under the sink.

Pros: Effective, safe for kids and pets (as long as the strips are hidden), fast-acting

Cons: You must monitor strips for a few days or weeks and change and replace them when they become filled with dead roaches 

2. Set Bait Stations

What kills cockroaches almost instantly? Bait stations. Typically, these bait stations come in a long tube and can be placed anywhere you’ve noticed roach activity.

The smell of the bait attracts roaches who then eat the poison. When the roach travels back to its home location and dies, the other roaches will eat it, passing the poison through the group.

Pros: Effective, fast-acting

Cons: Bait stations look unattractive around a home, can be toxic to kids and pets, will leave dead roaches around the home, dead roaches may be consumed by non-target species like birds and other animals – poisoning them as well

3.

Caulk all Entry Points

While glue strips and bait stations can be effective to get rid of roaches, they won’t do much good if new roaches are constantly entering your home. With this in mind, use caulk to seal gaps and possible entry points. Pay close attention to gaps between walls or tile, worn-out weather stripping, or gaps in door and window seals.

Pros: Effective, safe, affordable

Cons: Caulk wears out over time, so you must check and recheck access points routinely

4. Use a Liquid Concentrate

Purchase a liquid roach deterrent concentrate at your local home improvement store. This concentrated liquid is designed to be diluted and sprayed into cracks and crevices where roaches like to hide.

If you need a more comprehensive solution, you can also add a bit of the concentrate to a mop bucket and mop your floors with the solution. This option will deter roaches overnight and keep them from coming back.

Pros: Effective, fast-acting, affordable.

Cons: Contains toxic ingredients, not ideal for homes with kids and pets. 

5. Hire a Pest Management Professional

For best results, hire a professional roach management team like Smith’s to get rid of your infestation once and for all.

Professional teams know how to locate and eradicate roach infestations safely and effectively, without putting your kids, pets, or household at risk.

Pros: Effective, safe, long-lasting, can deal with roach infestations both indoors and outside the home

Cons: Requires a larger upfront investment than DIY options

Roach Bombs: Avoid if Possible

When wondering how to get rid of roaches without an exterminator, some people turn to roach bombs.

Also called “foggers,” roach bombs spray a pesticide into the air.

When the pesticide falls to the ground, it coats indoor surfaces and kills target pests. Most roach bombs are designed to be placed in the center of the room and activated.

Unfortunately, roach bombs are extremely toxic, and we recommend against using them. There are safer and more effective ways to get rid of your roach infestation.

Pros: Fast-acting

Cons: Toxic, flammable, most effective only for flying roaches, not suitable for homes with pets or young children, requires you to vacate the home while the roach bomb works 

How to Get Rid of Roaches Outside Your House

If you want to prevent cockroaches in your house, you have to start by limiting their numbers outside your home.

Here’s how:

1. Clean Up

Remember: roaches need three things to survive – food, water, and shelter. While you can’t eliminate these things in the outdoor environment, you can make your landscaping less welcoming for them.

Here are a few tips:

Pros: Effective, affordable, makes your landscaping look beautiful

Cons: Does not kill or get rid of roaches – only makes your landscaping less appealing for them

2.

Use Sticky Traps

Sticky traps aren’t only for indoor use – you can place them outdoors, too. Lay sticky traps down any place you see roaches entering your home, such as cracks around doors or windows, or foundations.

If you’re not sure where the roaches are coming from, lay the traps down in a few locations and check the traps daily to identify high-traffic routes.

Pros: Effective way to identify roach routes

Cons: Unsightly, time-consuming

3. Place Bait

To decrease the number of roaches entering your home, kill them with bait before they get inside.

Since roaches like to keep the top or side of their bodies pressed against something as they walk, your bait stations will be most effective when placed next to outbuildings, ledges, corners, fences, or the foundation of your home.

Pros: Effective, fast-acting, long-term solution

Cons: Toxic, can be dangerous for kids, pets, and other animals

4.

Spray Pesticide

One of the more effective ways to get rid of roaches is to spray a pesticide around the perimeter of your yard and home. These sprays are long-acting (many last three months or more) and will kill roaches on contact.

Pros: Effective, long-acting

Cons: Toxic, can be dangerous for kids, pets, and other animals 

How do Exterminators Get Rid of Roaches?

If you hire a professional exterminator to get rid of roaches, what can you expect?

Here’s how our team at Smith’s Pest Management does it:

Step 1: The Inspection

Our cockroach control experts will arrive at your property to inspect the infestation. We’ll look for areas where the roaches are accessing your home, and sources of moisture or food that may be enticing them.

We’ll also identify the species of cockroach you’re dealing with and formulate a plan for cockroach control.

Step 2: The First Treatment

Based on the information we gleaned during our initial inspection, we’ll develop a treatment plan for your home. Since cockroaches can be a difficult pest to eradicate, we take a two-step process to get rid of them.

Depending on the severity of your infestation, our preliminary treatment may include baiting, monitoring, trapping, or spraying the cockroaches or providing education, cleaning and sanitization services, or insect growth regulators.

During this step, we’ll place cockroach monitors to gauge activity.

Step Three: The Follow-Up Visit

Once we’ve deployed our initial treatment, we’ll check our monitors and deploy additional treatments, as needed. The result is a complete end to your infestation, as quickly as possible.

How Do I Keep Roaches Out of My House?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Keep roaches out of your home in the first place with these simple tips:

1. Clean the House

First things first: start by removing everything that could attract roaches.

Any homemade roach killer you employ will be more effective if you make your home as unwelcoming as possible before using it.

Here are a few items to check off the to-do list:

2. Get Serious About Storing Food

If you want to keep roaches out of your house, eliminating food sources is critical. One of the best ways to do this is to store food in airtight glass or plastic containers.

Store perishables in the refrigerator, and avoid leaving fruits and vegetables out on the counter.

3. Clean Kitchen Appliances

Remember: roaches love fat and grease, and your kitchen is a great place to find these tasty treats. With this in mind, keep the stovetop, dishwasher, and other cooking appliances clean.

Pay special attention to areas like the drip pans under stove burners, the backsplash, and your garbage disposal.

Additionally, make sure you’re wiping counters and tables after you cook each night. To add an additional layer of protection, add a few drops of lemon oil to your cleaning water. The scent of citrus will keep cockroaches from coming back.

4. Get Rid of Newspapers and Cardboard Boxes

Roaches love newspaper and cardboard boxes because they make excellent breeding and nesting material. To prevent roach infestations, recycle or get rid of old newspapers and used cardboard boxes as quickly as possible.

5. Seal Cracks and Entry Points

Roaches can squeeze their small bodies through tiny gaps and cracks. To prevent them from gaining access to your home, seal cracks in the home’s foundation and install door sweeps to block gaps under doors.

You’ll also want to check for gaps around windows, and around holes used for gas, plumbing, and electric lines, and crawl space vents. Use caulk or sprayable foam to seal these cracks and keep your home roach-free.

6. Fix Leaks Right Away

If you have plumbing leaks in your home, fix them as quickly as possible. Even a tiny pipe drip is enough to provide roaches with the moisture they need to survive.

In addition to fixing leaks, regularly inspect sinks, refrigerators, appliances, and faucets to ensure they’re not leaking or producing excess moisture.

Are Roaches Taking Over Your San Francisco Bay Area Home? We’re Here to Help!

Our team is here to help you get rid of roaches permanently. We provide top-quality pest control services to residential and commercial customers in Northern California – from Marin to Monterey.

Don’t settle for living with roaches – call our team for fast, effective roach control services: (408) 871-6988

10 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Roaches and Keep Them Out

You probably know the feeling — the stomach-dropping moment when you hear a faint scuffle on your floor and look up to see a large, dark roach scuttling across your room or kitchen. No bug infestation is a particularly fun experience, but roaches somehow take things to a whole new level.

Scot Hodges, vice president of technical services for Arrow Exterminators, says cockroaches fall into two categories: domestic or peridomestic. 

Because of this difference, Hodges likes to classify the arrival of peridomestic roaches as either an infestation or invasion. 

How to identify types of roaches Getty Images; Rachel Mendelson/Insider

Hodges says being able to identify different roach species, as well as if they're domestic or peridomestic, will help you understand how and why roaches might be entering your house in the first place and which methods to try first.  

How to get rid of roaches

The best way to get rid of roaches is through exclusion, or by eliminating reasons for them to invade a house as well as ways for them to get in. RHJ/Getty Images

Hodges says there's no singular silver bullet approach that will completely eliminate roaches from a house, but rather a combination of many to help deal with the problem. These methods help mitigate small invasions. An exterminator should be called in the event there's a larger issue.

Exclude roaches from your home 

The first line of defense when combating roaches is to "use the pest's biology to outsmart it," according to Amy Cross, the project coordinator at the National Pesticide Information Center. In other words: eliminate any causes for why they might be entering the house. 

Here are a few important roach resources to secure:

Food: Roaches need food to survive, and if it's available in your home, they'll try to stick around. Wipe or vacuum up any crumbs on floors, tables, and counters. Don't leave food unsealed in your pantry. To ensure it's out of reach of pests, store open pantry foods in airtight containers. Roaches also eat substances we don't consider food, such as hair, soap, and toothpaste. Try to keep your home clean and store away any potential items that roaches may try to feast on.  

Leaks: Water is another resource that supports roach life inside of your home. If you have any leaky pipes or areas where water pools or drips, such as underneath sinks or in basements, roaches are likely to congregate there. To drive away roaches, fix any leaky pipes and replace leaky faucets. Repair any other places where outside water can enter your home, such as a leaky window or roof. If your basement is moist, try using a dehumidifer or sump pump.

Hiding spots: During the day, cockroaches often hide in dark areas. Stacks of cardboard boxes, newspaper, and other clutter can make perfect hiding spots for roaches. Break down the boxes and recycle them instead of harboring a potential roach hideout in your home. 

Points of entry: Close up points as many points of entry as possible. This could include affixing a door sweep to cover the crack between the bottom of a door and the ground, or sealing up any holes in the foundation of a house.  

Outdoor foliage: Hodges also says to maintain clean gutters, and to keep a vegetation-free zone with your landscaping by eliminating any foliage hanging over a house and not adding mulch when it's not necessary. 

Collect and dispose of roaches with glue strips

Glue strips are one of the safest and most effective solutions for killing roaches, says Hodges. 

Glue strips are sheets or tubes covered in a sticky substance and they can quickly catch cockroaches within 24 or 48 hours. While Hodges says these won't work for large infestations, they can help with monitoring the severity of a roach situation and indicate the severity of an issue. 

Important: If the glue strips catch a bunch of roaches, you have a large infestation and should consider calling in a professional exterminator. 

Bait and kill with boric acid

Boric acid is a stomach poison that roaches don't have any resistance to. A roach must consume the boric acid for it to work. 

However, it does come with a few caveats, as both Cross and Hodges point out. First off, Hodges explains it's a slow-acting agent and takes a while to actually kill roaches. On top of that, Hodges states people often panic and use more than necessary.

"The rule that we use when applying any type of a dust insecticide is that if you can see it, you've put out too much," Hodges says. "If the roach sees that big old pile [of boric acid], they're just going to walk around."

To attract roaches to the boric acid, mix it with equal parts sugar and water. Put the mixture in an open jar and place it where you've seen roaches. After roaches consume the mixture, they'll eventually die.

Hodges also encourages people to exercise caution, as boric acid can be toxic in large doses according to the National Pesticide Information Center, and to make sure they're following the instructions on the label when it comes to application.

Note: If you can't find boric acid, you can also use Borax.

Sprinkle some diatomaceous earth

Diatomaceous earth works as a scratching agent or abrasive meant to get spread out on a surface that insects will then run across. The diatomaceous earth will then damage or stick to the exoskeleton, causing them to dry out. 

Similar to boric acid, this option is slow working and oftentimes is applied by people in overly large quantities or incorrectly. 

According to Hodges, using too much can sometimes cause itchy or sore throats with homeowners, and Cross also points out that overapplication can render diatomaceous earth ineffective since the roaches will see it and just crawl around it.

Important: Cross advises against using bug bombs or foggers. The mist often doesn't get into the small spaces and crevices where cockroaches are hiding. Additionally, some species of cockroaches are becoming resistant to some insecticides in many roach foggers, such as pyrethroids.

Add baking soda to your arsenal

Baking soda is another common household substance that you can add to your pest-fighting arsenal.

Mix baking soda and sugar to bait the roaches. When they eat the baking soda and consume water, it will cause their insides to bloat and expand, which kills them.

However, baking soda alone is not as effective as boric acid. But you can combine them.

A 2013 study found that pellets made from a combination of three parts boric acid and one part baking soda were effective at killing roaches, with an average death time of 5 hours after ingestion.

Repel roaches with essential oils

Essential oils can be helpful if you're dealing with a few roaches entering your home from outdoors. 

You can create a spray with at least 2.5% essential oil mixed with water, then spray it around areas where roaches might enter or where you've seen them. 

Here are several essential oils proven to be effective against specific roach species.

Try an insect growth regulator

If you have domestic roaches, such as the German cockroach, or if you think roaches are reproducing in your home, purchase an insect growth regulator product, such as a spray formulated with Pyriproxifen. These products focus on roaches at the egg and nymph stage, often rendering them unable to reproduce or mature into adults, and thus reducing the population. 

Insect growth regulators are best used in tandem with products that kill adult roaches, since they often do not work on fully grown roaches and can take several months to have any noticeable effect.

Use a syringe to apply gel baits

Products that bait roaches with a gel applied via syringe make it easier to cover a wider variety of hard-to-reach areas. Covering more surfaces also makes it more likely that roaches will come across the bait. 

Experts recommend applying small dots of the gel in areas where roaches may forage or enter and leave, such as in corners, under cabinets, and near cracks and edges. It's better to use small dots in many areas, rather than large globs in just a few areas. 

Baits can take one to three days to kill roaches, allowing them time to potentially infect other roaches, as well.

Step on it

When you see a roach, step on it. That's one less roach you need to worry about in your home. 

After stepping on a roach, disinfect the area with antibacterial cleaner to avoid spreading any pathogens the roach may have been carrying. 

Quick tip: If you're afraid that stepping on a roach will release all the eggs being carried on its body, worsening a roach problem, then fear not. According to Hodges, the moment a roach is killed, then all the egg capsules will die along with it. 

Pull out the poison and traps

Sometimes you have to pull out the big guns. Roach poison and roach traps are easy to come by and sometimes instantly effective. Here are some of our top recommendations for killing roaches:

Best roach killer Target; Amazon; Home Depot; Alyssa Powell/Insider

We test and recommend the best roach killers. Find our recommendations linked throughout the story, or check out our favorite products here: 

 

Insider's takeaway

While it's better to leave large roach infestations to the professionals, there are certainly mitigation techniques that can be used to eliminate roaches and keep them from returning to a home. 

Closing up cracks in a house and getting rid of anything that might be attracting roaches in the first place is the best line of defense, and glue strips are also a highly recommended option when it comes to efficiently catching roaches.

You can also try natural methods such as diatomaceous earth or essential oil sprays. But if you continue to see roaches in your home, you might need to invest in chemical methods such as syringe-applied gel baits, insect growth regulators, or roach-killing sprays.

Megan Wahn

Home & Kitchen Reference Fellow

Megan was previously a fellow for the Home & Kitchen Reference team. She is based in New York, and has also worked as an assistant producer at WUGA-FM as well as a content editor for The Oultaw Ocean Project. She also interned with HGTV Magazine in 2019 through the American Society of Magazine Editors summer intern program.  She graduated from the University of Georgia. 

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How to get rid of cockroaches in an apartment forever

December 22, 2021LikbezDo it yourself

At night you went to the kitchen to have a bite, but instead of a cake you found only crumbs and mustachioed swallows thrown in all directions? Congratulations, it's cockroaches! But you should not be afraid, but read: how to make traps, what to buy at the pharmacy so that the insects leave, and how to wash the floors so that they never return.

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How to understand that there are cockroaches in the apartment

  1. Black dots. If small dark balls appeared on dishes, kitchen shelves, wallpaper, alas, they were left by cockroaches. This is what their products look like.
  2. Specific smell.
  3. Clutches with eggs in corners and crevices. If you find them, you can, of course, be glad that your apartment has officially received the status of "cockroach-friendly", but this also means that the insects will have to be removed twice. First, the main number of pests will be destroyed, then the hatched offspring.
  4. Personal meeting. Cockroaches are curious and sociable creatures, therefore, if you do not pay attention to the alarm bells described above, sooner or later they themselves will make contact. Most often, black (up to 3 cm in length, kitchen) or red (up to 1.3 cm in length, Prussians) cockroaches start up in houses.

Why did they come to you

  1. You have a lot of delicious food. Cockroaches also like to eat. Only if you are eating sandwiches in front of the computer, they are content with little: leftover crumbs. And they also have enough open garbage bags or buckwheat scattered in the kitchen drawer.
  2. You have plenty of water available. A good dinner should be washed down. Therefore, puddles at the sink and a leaky shower cabin will come in handy.
  3. Your neighbors have plenty of food and water. No matter how hard you try to exterminate pests, all efforts can be broken by the stubbornness of your dirty neighbors. If you can’t agree with them, it’s enough to seal your own home: eliminate cracks and cracks.
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Effective remedies for cockroaches

Folk methods

Boric acid is the strongest poison for cockroaches. Getting into the digestive tract of an insect, it affects its nervous system. The cockroach is paralyzed and dies of suffocation. It is best to use boric acid in powder, you can buy it at any pharmacy.

Ammonia has a strong smell that cockroaches don't like. Therefore, they tend to leave the premises treated with this substance as soon as possible. To get rid of cockroaches, add ammonia to your water to clean floors, shelves, walls, and ceilings.

Freezing. Cockroaches are cold-blooded creatures. They cease to multiply and weaken at temperatures below +7 °C. However, this method can only be applied in winter, preferably in hard frost. It is enough just to leave the windows wide open for a day (or better for two). It is necessary that all rooms freeze to -10-15 °C.

Trap will help if there are not so many cockroaches. It can be made at home. A jar with a wide neck, a deep enameled or glass bowl, grease the inside with oil, fat or petroleum jelly, and crumble the bait on the bottom: cookies, bread, sugar. Insects will be drawn to the smell of delicious, and then they will not be able to get out. You can also use a plastic bottle as a dangerous container: cut off the neck and, turning it over, insert it back like a funnel.

Leave the trap overnight in the kitchen or bathroom and in the morning be sure to kill the pests. They can be poured with boiling water or sprayed with insecticide.

Chemicals

The market is rich in various specialized products: from sprays and crayons to nanotechnology lamps and traps. The main thing when working with such things is to carefully follow the instructions and do not forget about gloves and a protective mask.

How to get rid of cockroaches forever

If you live in a private house, it will be enough to thoroughly poison insects once, and then regularly take preventive measures so that in the future insects do not come to visit.

But if you are a happy homeowner in an apartment building, you can't do without actions coordinated with your neighbors. Agree with all residents and carry out pest control at the same time. Otherwise, it may happen that a cockroach landing from another floor will again and again enter your neutralized apartment.

Preventive measures

  1. Keep your home in order. One single cleaning is not enough to destroy pests, it is necessary to clean it regularly. Store food in airtight containers, remove crumbs from the table, and keep an eye on areas where pets eat. It would be a good idea to audit kitchen drawers for spilled cereals. It is advisable to wash the dishes immediately after eating, and not store them in the sink with the remnants of the meal inside.
  2. Take out the trash. Don't keep trash in a cabinet under the sink or store overflowing bags at the front door. Get in the habit of regularly walking to the trash cans (or the garbage chute), and put a container with an airtight lid in the kitchen.
  3. Repair leaks promptly. Whereas cockroaches can survive for weeks without food, they cannot live even a day without water. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly check potentially dangerous places (toilet bowl, sinks, pipe joints) for leaks. In addition, do not forget to dry the surfaces in the bathroom after active bathing. Well, it’s better not to abuse the sailor’s way of washing floors (this is when a bucket of water is poured onto the deck at once).
  4. Repair cracks. If your neighbors are not clean, take care of the inaccessibility of your apartment. Examine the walls, ceiling, corners of the room: there may be cracks. They deserve to be patched up. And close the ventilation holes with a special fine mesh through which insects cannot crawl.

Are you worried about whiskered pests? How do you protect your apartment from cockroaches? Share your tips in the comments.

How to get rid of cockroaches at home: the best remedies

We have been living in an expensively renovated apartment in a good house for 10 years. All the neighbors on the site are decent people. We never had insects and other living creatures.

A few weeks ago I noticed a cockroach in the kitchen. At first I thought it was random. But the next night I went in for a drink of water, turned on the light - and there are already a lot of them, and they are crawling on the table. Every day there are more of them.

Where did they come from and what should we do now? In the HOA they say that you need to call the disinfection service. Will it help get rid of them once and for all?

Yelena

Yelena, disinfestation - that is how it is correct to call a set of measures that help to destroy insects - will most likely help. But it is possible that it will have to be carried out twice, or even thrice. In addition, you need to work on protecting the apartment: clog all the cracks, ventilation and doors.

Andrey Nenastiev

lived in Khrushchev with alcohol addicts, hooligans and cockroaches

Author profile

I will tell you about my experience of dealing with cockroaches, how the treatment takes place and what to do after it.

Where do cockroaches come from

Cockroaches usually enter the apartment from neighbors. Not necessarily it will be your neighbors on the site. An infected apartment can be located through several entrances. The whole house will suffer from such an apartment: cockroaches will move along the ventilation shafts, through the cracks in the doors, and in the summer they will crawl out the windows and crawl right along the facades.

It is believed that if you leave bread crumbs on the table or plant unsanitary conditions in an apartment, then cockroaches will definitely start. This is not true. Dirt contributes to their appearance, but does not guarantee it. In search of a place to live, cockroaches usually send scouts - one individual who finds out how it is there, and then informs the rest. Water is of great importance for cockroaches: they like to drink. If there is a leak under your sink and a puddle, and the scout notices this, then it will be more dangerous than bread crumbs on the table.

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Cockroaches can also appear if residents bring them with them, for example, from public transport. This path is less common, since the probability of catching a cockroach and carrying it on clothes to the house for an ordinary person is quite small.

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What to do with neighbors

It is often not enough to treat only your apartment. Ideally, sanitation should be done in the apartment where cockroaches crawl.

By law, the owner must maintain the dwelling in proper condition so that it meets the established requirements and is habitable. If he does not comply with the requirements of the law, you can complain about him to Rospotrebnadzor.

Art. 30 ZhK RF

Theoretically, you can even try to bring him to administrative responsibility under Article 6.4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation for violating sanitary and epidemiological requirements for the operation of residential premises. Sanctions under this article for citizens - a fine from 500 to 1000 R.

But usually people live in such apartments who are not interested in any sanctions other than imprisonment. It is difficult to get something from such tenants. And in order to evict or deprive them of their homes, more compelling reasons are needed.

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You can also put pressure on the management company. By law, she is obliged to regularly carry out disinfestation and deratization - measures to eliminate rodents - in non-residential premises: basements, entrances, prams.

clause 9.2 Sanpin 2.1.2.2645-10

If cockroaches run around public places, the Criminal Code will be held administratively liable for violating legislation in the field of ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological welfare of the population.

For example, in Komi, the management company was fined 10,000 rubles for cockroaches on the complaint of a resident. insects. The proceedings reached the Supreme Court of the Republic, but it upheld the fine.

Art. 6.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation

However, usually everything ends with the fact that the neighbors gather and chip in to process the problematic apartment. The main thing is to provide access to it when the exterminator arrives. They talk heart to heart with the landlord or offer him something in return for loyalty.

How to fight on your own

Cockroaches can sometimes be destroyed by yourself. For this, gels, aerosols, pill traps and various types of poison that dissolves in water are used.

Gels contain a poison, a bait and a fatty substance that keeps the product liquid and prevents it from drying out. Some gels contain components that cause rejection in pets.

Cockroaches take the bait, eat the insecticidal gel and carry the poison on their feet. When an infected cockroach dies, others eat it. This is how the poison spreads throughout the colony. Cockroaches begin to die within 1-2 days after gelling the apartment. Manufacturers say that in general, gels last up to two months.

If one gel does not work, you can try another. But you need to look at the composition so that the main active ingredient does not match. It can be chlorpyrifos, hydramethylnon, fipronil, lambda-cyhalothrin and others. Sometimes there are two or even three insecticides in the gel.

The gel is said to have helped if, two months after it stopped working, cockroaches no longer appear.

A simple and cheap cockroach remedy is a gel that is applied to baseboards. These are offers on Yandex Market

Boric acid may also be suitable. It is relatively safe for humans, but for insects it is the strongest poison. If a cockroach eats it, it becomes paralyzed, and then suffocation occurs.

There are two ways to use boric acid:

  1. Use it on skirting boards, ventilation shaft edges, pipe joints and any other surface where cockroaches can run. This is ineffective, since boric acid itself is tasteless, and there is little chance that cockroaches will eat it just like that.
  2. Mix 50 grams of boric acid with raw egg yolk and make balls. Spread them out as bait in cockroach habitats. You can also add flour, powdered sugar, vanillin and starch. Cockroaches react to smell: the more fragrant the ball is, the more likely the insects will eat it.

Before using any poison, you need to clean up the room: cockroaches should not have a choice what to eat today.

Boric acid is inexpensive and is sold in any pharmacy. These are offers on Apteke-ru

Insulation of the apartment

Even if you managed to eradicate the cockroaches on your own, it is useless when they have a well-trodden path to your apartment. New insects will come to replace the fallen ones. So that's what needs to be isolated.

Ventilation shafts. This is perhaps the main entry route for cockroaches. If the shaft is closed with a standard plastic grate, behind which there is a mesh, this is not enough. Usually the diameter of the mesh cells is 4 mm, and cockroaches easily crawl through it: they can flatten and sometimes are able to get into a gap as thick as a notebook sheet. For reliable insulation, they buy organza - a thin fabric for needlework in a very small cell. It is important to attach it without gaps.

You can take the simplest coarse organza, and match the color of the walls so that it does not visually catch the eye. Source: online store of goods for needlework "Shtuchka"

Pipes and other communications. See how your neighbors pipes come out. It is easy to check the reliability of the pipe seal - you need to shake it with your hand. If the pipe "walks", then sealing is needed. To do this, buy a balloon of mounting foam and seal all joints with it. Excess then can be carefully cut off with a clerical knife.

They also check the inputs of various cables: Internet, intercom, video surveillance. They also look at how the wiring is going in the house, if there are through sockets that directly connect to a neighbor. If they are, it is better to dismantle them, and cover the holes with putty.

Windows and doors. The front door must be airtight and must not hang on its hinges. If the door is old, put rubber seals.

Install mosquito nets on the windows that fit snugly against the frame.

In the apartment of the Cherepovets janitor, cockroaches crawled along the water pipe until the hole was covered with mounting foam. This photo was shared with me by the exterminator

Disinsection

Disinsection is the treatment of an apartment with special preparations from insects - insecticides. But processing does not mean that the apartment is simply sprayed with reagents. A competent specialist will ask the owners to isolate the apartment, remove debris, and eliminate water leaks before starting his work.

p. 8 Sanpin 3.5.2.3472-17

Exterminators select drugs based on their experience, often by eye, so several treatments may be required: if one insecticide does not work, they will try another.

Specialists use pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, organophosphorus compounds. Generations of cockroaches develop immunity against poison, so it is not known in advance how it will work.

Spraying is carried out with hand-held sprayers - as for extinguishing forest fires - and battery-operated. There are also petrol ones, but they are not used in apartments. They are needed for basements and other utility rooms.

The most effective solution is sprayed from a cold mist generator. This is a gun that converts the drug into fine dust. Such dust penetrates into the most inaccessible places and small cracks. The same installations are used to treat, for example, medical facilities from coronavirus.

Extermination of cockroaches in Moscow

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First of all, the kitchen, bathroom and corridor are treated from cockroaches. In living rooms, the exterminator will not consume a lot of solution if the residents did not see places where insects accumulate. Before processing, it is better to cover the furniture with plastic wrap.

Treatment of the apartment with a cold fog generator. Source: Parilov / Shutterstock

The incubation period for insecticides is two weeks. Cockroaches will not die immediately - they will crawl out of the cracks and actively run, including during the day. You need to finish them off, for example, with a slipper.

If after two weeks the cockroaches crawl again, a second disinsection is carried out with a different solution. How to pay the exterminator in this situation depends on the contract. Some give a guarantee for processing and come for a second time for free or charge only 500 R for a trip. Others ask for 50% of the cost of the first treatment. Still others ask to pay for the trip and the price of the drug.

By law, an apartment is considered free from cockroaches if they are absent from all premises for more than two months.

p. 3.22 Sanpin 3.5.2.3472-17

How I fought cockroaches

Khrushchevka, where I lived, was over 50 years old. Cockroaches didn’t appear right away, but about 5 years after buying an apartment.

We tried to etch them on our own: I smeared the baseboards with gels, my wife laid out pills with poison. In the mornings, we found 2-3 dead insects, but the problem was not fundamentally solved. When they went into the kitchen at night and turned on the light, cockroaches scattered in the corners from the countertops of the headset and cabinet doors.

We decided to sanitize and called the exterminator. On the phone, he explained how to prepare the apartment: remove all dishes from the kitchen, and remove all clothes from the corridor. We hid some of the dishes in the refrigerator and dishwasher, took some out into the hall and covered it with rags. The clothes from the corridor were put on the sofa and stuffed into the wardrobes.

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When the specialist came, he examined the housing for a long time. He advised me to permanently remove the cat saucer with water that was on the floor and clog the ventilation hole.

At the time of processing, we went for a walk. The whole procedure took about half an hour. We paid 2000 RUR for a two-room apartment.

2000 R

we paid for the disinfestation of a two-room apartment

The exterminator said to wipe the door handles and switches with a damp cloth and not to wash the floors for two weeks.

For about a week we found dead cockroaches in the most unexpected places. Some were still moving, and I hit them with a slipper. Heaps of dead insects I raked with a whisk into a scoop and threw away.

No more cockroaches after treatment.

After treatment with insecticides, cockroaches become like drunks

Alexander Kirillov

exterminator

In any, even the largest house, one focal apartment is enough for cockroaches to be everywhere. It is not necessary that the homeless will live there. It happens that these are pensioners or labor migrants who rent an apartment and care little about cleanliness.

Before starting work, we look for traces of cockroach excrement - brown dots. Where there are a lot of them, it means that more solution is needed there. We also recommend plugging all the cracks and joints: cockroaches love them very much. Then we carefully process the room.

After treatment, the preparation dries in 3 hours.

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