I live in an apartment building where there are about 10 apartments in a row. Some of them are separated only by wooden walls and there are a few ducts that lead to who knows where.
I keep a clean house and I try to keep food and crumbs off the floors and counters and tables, yet for some reason, there’s roaches, probably from other apartments who have them.
Ugh. I fear roaches more than anything in this world. They are my biggest phobia. I cannot live with them…and I’ve lived here for five years now and they’ve never been this bad. Never THIS bad. I’ve seen one or two over the years, yeah, but now I’m seeing at least three or four daily and it’s freaking me out.
So I’m pleading and asking everyone: Help. What works best? What things have you noticed gets rid of them the most? Because right now all I’m doing is using a rolled up magazine to quickly bash any I see all while screaming like a little girl. I panic, though, so oftentimes any I see escape into the depths of a drawer or cupboard…and I can do nothing but just shiver at how many there are that I don’t see.
I had Raid, but it doesn’t seem to do much good.
I’m getting pretty desperate. I have a regular exterminator coming on Tuesday and then every Tuesday thereafter but in the meantime and betweentime, how do I help get rid of them? Any tips/hints/home remedies/ways to get rid of them?
Basically first thing you want to try is Borax/boric acid. Borax is also the last thing you want to try. It’s highly effective and much safer than organophosphate poisons.
I’ve dealt with several apartment infestations using liberal dosing of plain old 20-mule-team Borax, deployed in lines like a firebreak. In every case Borax led to total victory.
Of course, you can still pay people lots of money to poison you if it makes you feel better.
I second borax as the best roach killer in the universe. We had roaches in our old place and after putting it out, we didn’t have a problem with them again. Just had to make sure to put fresh borax out every once in awhile.
Keep ALL your cabinet foods in plastic containers. Even items that haven’t been opened yet. Do your dishes IMMEDIATELY after a meal.
And the Borax thing.
And a formal complaint to your apartment manager.
I had a bad problem with roaches in an apartment building. They bombed the building regularly once the complaints became frequent and numerous enough. That means protecting all your food, opening your cabinets, flipping up your cushions, etc.
FYI, Roaches like warm places. My roommate had dead roaches in the plastic dial window of her alarm clock.
If you have a neighbor that leaves their garbage bags parked outside their door in the hallway, narc 'em out.
My first apartment was a student tenement and Roach Motel. The last few months we were there, they renovated some of the first floor apartments. The carpet they ripped out was BLACK. And I’m not exagerrating, it was so filthy we couldn’t tell what color it was or if it had any kind of pattern to it.
Boric acid (Borax) works pretty well for the most part. We’d still see one once in a while, but then we bought more bottles. I think we went through 5-6 bottles of that white powder. Under the fridge, the sofa, behind all the furniture. Taking a look around after we moved our furniture out, my GF commented that it looked like the end of Scarface, with the cocaine everywhere.
Seconding keeping cereal, bread, etc, in plastic containers with lids. I remember blearily pouring myself a bowl of “Roach Flakes” one morning… Also don’t keep corrugated cardboard boxes, roaches lay eggs in those. You can get plastic bins or tubs to keep stuff in.
I rented a roach-infested house in school. I put a band of boric acid/RoachPrufe all around the baseboards in the kitchen and the problem was resolved quite nicely.
I rented an apartment that was (not apparent when I rented it but) a total roach-haven.
It was an older apartment with lots of cracks and nooks and crannies. My boyfriend at the time got a caulking gun (the kind that foams like hair mousse? I am NOT savvy in this area) and filled up all the nooks and crannies, and then we laid lines of boric acid behind all the furniture, the windowsills, under the doorway, etc., etc…
We also laid out lots of those Raid egg-killers. They basically make the female roaches infertile so they can’t breed…so they don’t work immediately, but they do wonders within a couple of weeks or so.
Within three weeks I never saw another roach.
Gotta be careful with the boric acid of course. If you have pets be hyper careful they won’t get into it/walk through it/etc.
I deducted the cost of all of this from our rent, and told the landlord why. He was fine with it.
If you’re renting, you shouldn’t have to pay for your own pest-control.
Having spent the majority of my adulthood in developing countries with tropical climates, I have a far closer acquaintance with roaches than I would like.
Borax is right. Also the advice to keep everything in plastic containers - this will not make the roaches disappear, but better a roach population forced to subsist on the glue from cleaning solution labels than one eating your raisins.
Apartment living, you say? Forget right now the idea of never seeing a roach again. It’s a fantasy, unless the entire apartment building can be tented and fumigated. The best you can do is minimize the number you see.
