How to understand that there are cockroaches in the apartment
- Black dots. If small dark balls appear on dishes, kitchen shelves, or wallpaper, alas, they were left behind by cockroaches. This is what their waste products look like.
- Specific smell.
- Clutches with eggs in corners and crevices. If you find them, you can, of course, be glad that your apartment has officially received the “cockroach-friendly” status, 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.
- A 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 will make contact. Most often, black (up to 3 cm in length, kitchen) or red (up to 1.3 cm in length, Prussian) cockroaches appear in houses.
Dirty and disgusting
It is not difficult to recognize cockroaches. Adults are brown or light brown in color. Males have wings, while females do not. Juveniles can be almost black in color. Despite the fact that cockroaches have wings, they very rarely use them, since they prefer running to flying. As a rule, they grow up to 16 mm in length.
These insects are not just disgusting, they carry a lot of germs and bacteria into your home, since the habitats of cockroaches outside of it are far from the most sterile. They pollute the area around them with an incredible amount of waste (which can stimulate an allergic reaction), including shed skins. To make matters worse, when the colony reaches a high density, a persistent cockroach odor appears, similar to mold.
Recommendations for controlling cockroaches
Another problem is the red cockroaches' ability to reproduce incredibly quickly. And when you are wondering how to get rid of cockroaches forever, it is the rate of reproduction that will become the biggest obstacle. Therefore, it is necessary to take all possible measures once you see one cockroach in your house or apartment.
Why did they come to you?
- You have a lot of delicious food. Cockroaches also love to eat. Only if you eat sandwiches in front of the computer, they are content with little: the remaining crumbs. And they also have enough open garbage bags or buckwheat scattered in the kitchen drawer.
- You have plenty of water available. A good lunch needs to be washed down. Therefore, puddles near the sink and a leaking shower stall will come in handy.
- Your neighbors have plenty of food and water. No matter how hard you try to destroy pests, all your efforts may be frustrated by the stubbornness of your dirty neighbors. If you can’t come to an agreement with them, it’s enough to seal your own home: eliminate cracks and cracks.
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Physical methods
As mentioned earlier, the physical method of exterminating cockroaches includes different options. It could be slippers, a newspaper, or even a vacuum cleaner. It should be said that these methods are environmentally friendly, but not the most effective. After all, with their help it is impossible to kill all the individuals that appear in the apartment at once.
When choosing a physical method of exterminating such insects, give preference to special “traps”. As a rule, the owner of a home where unpleasant insects have settled will only need to glue the “house” and peel it off, replacing it with a new one when cockroaches appear in it. All devices of this kind are made according to the principle of a box in which adhesive tape impregnated with flavoring is placed.
The latter uses a sweet aroma that attracts cockroaches (for example, honey, vanilla or chocolate). It is worth saying that it is unlikely that it will be possible to completely rid the entire apartment of insects. They are mainly used as a prophylactic agent in order to destroy individual individuals.
No less interesting is the method that uses a liter glass jar, the edges of which are smeared with honey. Place peeled and chopped onions in gauze on the bottom of the container (you can take garlic or another strong-smelling product). The jar is brought to the baseboards and turned so that it lies on its side. In order to simplify the “task”, you can put a wooden ruler in the container, along which the “uninvited guests” will crawl into it. For the greatest effect, the bottom of the jar is sprinkled with boric acid.
Among modern means against cockroaches, Chinese-made traps stand out. All of them are perfect for those in whose apartment red-haired individuals have settled. As for housing where black cockroaches have bred, in this case, alas, it will not be possible to get rid of the “uninvited guests”. As a rule, Chinese manufacturers make “houses” so small that large individuals cannot fit into them. Therefore, it is best to choose another method.
Effective remedies for cockroaches
Traditional methods
Boric acid is a strong poison for cockroaches.
Once in the digestive tract of an insect, it affects its nervous system. The cockroach becomes paralyzed and dies from suffocation. It is best to use boric acid in powder; it can be bought at any pharmacy. The Lifehacker Telegram channel contains only the best texts about technology, relationships, sports, cinema and much more. Subscribe!
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- Sprinkle the powder along the cockroach paths: along baseboards, near watering places (toilet, sink, shower). It will settle on the insect's legs, and when the cockroach begins to clean them, it will end up in the stomach.
- Make delicious baits: mix mashed potatoes, egg yolk, sugar or flour with boric acid and roll the resulting mass into balls. Place them wherever harmful barbels can run.
Ammonia has a strong odor that cockroaches do not like. Therefore, they tend to quickly leave the premises treated with this substance. To get rid of cockroaches, add ammonia to the water when cleaning floors, shelves, walls and ceilings.
Freezing. Cockroaches are cold-blooded creatures. They stop reproducing and weaken at temperatures below +7 °C. However, this method can only be used in winter, preferably in severe frost. It’s enough just to leave the windows wide open for a day (or better yet, two). It is necessary that all rooms freeze to –10–15 °C.
A trap will help if there are not many cockroaches. It can be done at home. Grease the inside of a wide-necked jar, deep enamel or glass bowl with oil, grease or petroleum jelly, and crumble bait into the bottom: cookies, bread, sugar. Insects will be drawn to the smell of something 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 in the kitchen or bathroom overnight and be sure to kill the pests in the morning. They can be poured with boiling water or sprayed with insecticide.
Chemicals
The market is rich in a variety of specialized products: from sprays and crayons to nanotechnological 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.
Repellents
Scientists have created a large number of various means to combat insects. These include traps, insecticides, repellents, as well as electromagnetic and ultrasonic repellers. Some of these drugs can be successfully used to protect a home from the invasion of insects running from neighbors.
Ultrasonic cockroach repeller
For these purposes, it is better to use poisonous baits and glue traps, as well as repellents of natural and chemical origin. The insecticide is not suitable for these purposes; most often it poisons rather than repels insects. You can order barrier protection against pests using long-acting microencapsulated insecticides.
How to get rid of cockroaches forever
If you live in a private house, it will be enough to thoroughly poison the insects once, and then regularly take preventive measures so that the insects do not come to visit in the future.
But if you are the happy owner of a home in an apartment building, you cannot do without coordinated actions with your neighbors. Agree with all residents and carry out pest control at the same time. Otherwise, it may happen that cockroach troops from another floor will enter your neutralized apartment again and again.
Crayons
In the 1980s, a new method appeared to combat domestic cockroaches in an apartment. To protect army food supplies from pests, the defense industry developed the Mashenka chalk, which quickly gained popularity among the people. The product can still be found on store shelves today. But it is important to consider that its composition is significantly different from the previous one. Due to the ability of cockroaches to adapt to poisons, the active substances have changed several times. Today these are the pyrethroids deltamethrin and zetacypermethrin, which have contact-intestinal activity and paralyze the central nervous system of insects.
The chalk is extremely easy to use. You just need to “draw” with it in places where you often encounter cockroaches. Typically, this is near the kitchen stove, dining table, trash can, sink, bathtub, toilet, and so on. After running along the white stripe, the pest will stain its paws, and when it starts to clean them, it will eat poison. Death will occur within a few hours. In addition to Mashenka, pest control crayons are produced by such brands as Clean House, Titanic, Tornado, Domovoy and others. They differ slightly in composition.
Preventive measures
- Keep your home tidy. To destroy pests, one single cleaning is not enough; it is necessary to clean regularly. Store food in an airtight container, remove crumbs from the table, and keep an eye on areas where pets eat. It would be a good idea to check your kitchen drawers for any spilled grains. It is advisable to wash dishes immediately after eating, rather than storing them in the sink with food leftovers inside.
- Take out the trash. Don't keep trash in the cabinet under the sink or stack overflowing bags by the front door. Get into the habit of regularly walking to trash cans (or the garbage disposal), and place a container with an airtight lid in the kitchen.
- Fix leaks in a timely manner. While 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 tank, sinks, pipe joints) for leaks. In addition, do not forget to wipe the surfaces in the bathroom dry after active bathing. Well, it’s better not to overuse the sailor’s method of washing floors (this is when a bucket of water is poured onto the deck at once).
- Repair cracks. If your neighbors are not clean, make sure your apartment is inaccessible. Inspect the walls, ceiling, corners of the room: there may be cracks. They should be puttied. Cover the ventilation holes with a special fine mesh, through which insects will not be able to crawl.
Do whiskered pests bother you? What methods do you use to protect your apartment from cockroaches? Share your tips in the comments.
An ounce of prevention is worth a kilogram of fight.
No matter how hard you try to control cockroaches, all your attempts may not be successful. Sometimes they just appear out of nowhere. But, of course, measures still need to be taken.
There are several ways to prevent them from invading your apartment. Cockroaches are attracted to a variety of boxes and may also come into your home with packages from grocery stores. Therefore, try to check all items before bringing them into the house if you suspect that you may be introducing cockroaches. For example, you spent the weekend in a not-so-clean hotel, the same goes for the things of your child who is returning from the institute dormitory for the holidays.
If the infestation of your house or apartment has already begun, you can be sure that the cockroaches are planning to stay with you for a long time. If you leave them without food, they will turn to a diet of soap, toothpaste and even books. And if you forget to leave dirty dishes in the sink, the cockroaches will have a real smorgasbord, which will not help you in the fight against them.
Given that they typically live in warm, cluttered areas (which is their natural habitat), insects often choose kitchens and bathrooms as their home. Although food can attract them to the living room and bedroom.
