No. Folks in some areas may think that, because they see them daily. They aren’t that pervasive. It’s not just an American thing, though. The most common roach here is the German cockroach. Our most common rat is Norwegian. So, it’s safe to say that Europe has the same roaches and rats we have.
I live in Hawaii where we get roaches and ants no matter how clean you keep we home. I tried to charge them rent but they always ran away from me when they saw me coming to collect, so years ago I perfected an ant and roach recipe that kills them all quickly:
Save the oil you drain from tuna and mix it with about a heaping teaspoon of boric acid. Mix well, and place into a plastic lid you would have thrown away, like from yogurt, sour cream, etc. I put it under the sinks, on top of the cabinets or in other areas I’ve seen roaches and let them eat it. Place a small amount so they’ll eat it in a few days and it doesn’t smell bad. I will usually make up a batch and store it in a container in the fridge (labeled!) so I can keep putting it out. I use it outside too, to kill those huge sumo sized roaches. I do this about once a month as a preventative. Be careful and don’t let your animals or children get to the mixture.
To kill ants use anything sweet, like corn syrup, jelly, or honey. Mix two parts sweet stuff to one part boric acid. Place it in shallow plastic lids you would have otherwise thrown away. Don’t disturb it. The ants will lay down a chemical trail to find it and take it back to their nest. They’ll mob the stuff for days as they eat it…then they’ll all be gone because they’re all DEAD!
Borax works utterly effectively if you use it right. They can’t outmaneuver it or endure it or evolve around it. Conclusion: you and your workplace weren’t using it right.
Liberal application everywhere on cracks, baseboards, joints, places where counters meet walls. Refresh after a few days.
If it doesn’t kill them, you have something else, not roaches.
I can attest that boric acid doesn’t always work. The house I rent shares a property line with a 7/11 store. Each Spring the roaches and mice come crawling down the hill and re-infest the house. This years roaches were resistant to the ingredients of MaxForce, and I was beginning to lose my head a bit, as the infestation got out of hand quickly.
the exterminators tried something new last week and it’s working like a charm. http://www2.dupont.com/Professional_Products/en_US/Products_and_Services/Advion_cockroach/index.html
In the meantime, I had already ordered some of this: [URL=“http://www.zoecon.com/gentrolIGR.htm”]http://www.zoecon.com/gentrolIGR.htm/URL] and it is working its magic as well. My hope is that this will prevent that one female who misses the bait from re-infesting the house. Also, it will effectively neuter the progeny of any new roaches who enter the premises.
diatomaceous earth is a good idea too. I think I might spread some around in the crawl space. Maybe that would prevent them from making it up into the house. And it wouldn’t expire or need re-application. . .
I found Boric Acid to be highly effective over time. The one thing that reinfests flats are boxes. People go to store (like in Chicago - Aldi) where they are discount grocers so they don’t give you bags so people will use boxes. These have little roach eggs. Remember it’s not the food that has the roach eggs, for instance, like 20 boxes of Frosted Flakes will be put INTO ANOTHER box. That is the box that is infectd.
Then people bring those boxes home and they don’t toss them ASAP.
I can attest that light, demure applications of boric acid don’t always work. The trick is to go heavy. Think of yourself as General Curtis LeMay laying napalm. You want visitors entering your kitchen to stop suddenly and ask, “Ew, what happened here?”
You can clean up the borax after the roaches are gone.
Note that neither this nor any other method will prevent re-exposure to roaches if they keep entering the property.
I don’t have data for box-borne reinfestation, but I always take regard pizza delivery boxes with suspicion and take them out of the house as soon as possible.
I live in an 80 year old wood frame apartment under a live oak tree in North Florida. Call them roaches, call them palmetto bugs, call them big, nasty bastards that fly and bite - point is, every spring they invade. Usually it takes two months, major chemicals, and the help of the geckos that live all around outside my place to take care of them, but this year I won the war in less than a week.
I got a box of Mule Team borax, mixed it up in a big, empty jug with some powdered sugar, and then laid that stuff thickly around any crack, cranny, or hole in the wall I could find. I put it around the tub and sinks. I put it down behind the cabinets and fridge. It looked like the inside of John Belushi’s nose in there. That night was like the great roach picnic - they were everywhere, all in the powder, eating the sugar. BY two days later, they hordes were dead. By the end of the week, so were the stragglers. I haven’t seen one since. I cleaned up the powder and am now happily roach free. Mind you, I also keep my dishes clean, food put away, and cardboard boxes, etc thrown out.