Well, I’m moving into a new apartment, and dead cockroaches were found in the kitchen cabinets. Sigh… What are effective remedies for this? I don’t believe the Walmart roach motels or baits are any good, and sticky traps only kill the handful you trap. A few years back, we had an infestation at my last apartment, and management sent around someone with a large - ish syringe filled with something that they carefully squeezed into the corners of cabinets, and in short order, they were gone.
I’d prefer something that gets carried away to kill more roaches, or interferes with their reproductive cycle. I have no pets or children of my own nor any that will visit, so that’s not a concern. Someone will want to tell me of folk remedies or boric acid. Don’t. Someone will tell me about diatomaceous earth. I know of it, but it is not my preferred first line of defense.
Assuming management doesnt do much, what can I do, besides calling an exterminator? It’s a nine apartment, single floor building, located in northwest Tennessee. I think they’re German cockroaches, if that helps.
Perhaps someone can answer something that has puzzled me for years: Why is it that the USA has such a problem with cockroaches when they aren’t nearly such a problem in Europe. I have lived in the UK for most of my 75 years and have never seen one here.
The climate is generally not that different, and we are told that they can handle anything climatic anyway. It’s not opportunity, because my impression is that Americans generally are more careful about hygiene than us. So any ideas?
No folk remedies or boric acid here. I’ve been a satisified customer of this company for many years. They ship professional strength pest control products quickly.
I use Bengal spray, ant and roach killer. It costs more than Raid or the others you can buy at the hardware store but it does the job. I learned of it when I lived in Florida, land of the cockroach. A guy I worked with told me about it and over the years I have recommended it to others. I’ve never had anyone come back and claim it didn’t work.
It does have a residual effect so it lasts, in a protected place, for up to 6 months. I usually spray baseboards and around all the windows and doors.
All joking aside, you’d probably be surprised how much of the US does not have the same sort of climate as the UK. If you look up this map of world climates, for instance, the UK and most of Europe are primarily “Marine West Coast”, but the US has a huge chunk of “Humid Subtropical”, shading down to “Tropical Savannah” in the south, which sounds very much like roach for “easy retirement living - bring the kids!”
Of course, any climate map that sticks Inverness in the same zone as Toulouse isn’t exactly fine-grained…
Finding multiple DEAD roaches probably means the landlord did some kind of extermination before you moved in; in my experience you don’t see a lot of them just lying around. You may not have a problem…yet. If you prefer they not get involved with any further efforts, you can just ask casually if the place was treated for pests before you moved in.
Boric acid is the safest and most effective way to deal with roaches. Get a powder sprayer
or something similar, spray along the backside of cabinets, under the sink, etc. Dust up some fine steel wool and stuff it into any cracks or holes, like around the pipes under the sink.
Safe, effective and cheap. Most pesticides are not something you want to have in your domicile, especially with children or pets.
Yeah, seems to me they did spray already. I’m concerned that one treatment in one apartment won’t fully do the job though. Gonna get the spray that keeps them from breeding, and a good poisoned bait to use with it. Ppl seem to have success with that combination.
What I did when I had a roach problem was call an exterminator and have them do a gel treatment, that is, squeeze blobs of a brown gel along countertop & cabinet corners and edges. This is a long lasting substance that they eat, go back to the nest, die, get eaten by their friends who in turn die themselves. It is unobtrusive and pet safe. You can do a second round 3 months later if you are super freaked out by roaches, as I am.
Since you mention several dead ones in one or more cabinets I would assume the landlord has indeed done some kind of treatment but seeing as most commercial sprays just kill the ones that happen to run over the sprayd areas within 2-3 days of spraying I would be paranoid and get the exterminator anyway. (I probably wouldn’t have rented the place in the first place, if I had seen any evidence of roaches during a pre-rental visit).
It would cost 50-60 Euros to do this, if cost is the reason you don’t want to get an exterminator. I wouldn’t think it would be very different elsewhere.
The nest is possibly connected to where you saw the dead ones, and if situated above, you will most probably see roach droppings.
People have mentioned that the gel is now available in some shops so perhaps you can find it if you are so set against getting an exterminator.
Also, I regret to say that in a multi-unit structure the problem may be emanating from one of the other units. It would be best if you were all trying to fight the problem, but as a new tenant, I don’t know if you want to start knocking on doors to say, “Hi, Im your new neighbor. Can you please spray for cockroaches?”
My social-engineering suggestion would be to knock on as many doors as you can and introduce yourself. “Hi, I’m Face! Just moved in. This place seems great. How long have you lived here? Well, I look forward to being neighbors!” You might get some useful info about the landlord, the property, which parking spot floods when it rains, and so on.
Then, if you have problems (roaches or something else), you can go back and say, “Sorry to bother you, but have you had to deal with this? I sure hope they don’t show up in your apartment, maybe we should all try to treat it at the same time?”
Thanks folks. Yeah, it’s a problem with multi-unit buildings. I’m hoping the stuff that interferes with their life cycle, and the gel poison bait I’m gonna use, spreads and does some damage to other unit’s roaches as well as mine. Gonna use a two-prong attack,ive heard that’s often more effective.
