How to Get Rid of Roaches

 The first thing to realize when you have a cockroach infestation is that these pests are resilient and it's easy to give them a hospitable, safe harbor. This means they are difficult to get rid of, and it's going to take some work to eradicate them.

So, you don't want to be hospitable to these disease carrying creatures.

And, unfortunately, you will have to destroy the ones who've invaded your home.

While it is true that professional exterminators have stronger chemicals and are trained and equipped to eradicate pests and keep you, your family and your pets safe at the same time, there are ways to deal with the problem before you invest in their services.

If these do-it-yourself measures fail, you might have to call on some extra help from the professionals.

Getting rid of roaches can be hard work, but once you do you are free at last!

Source: By User Preiselbeere on de.wikipedia (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.0-de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Keep Home Clean and Tidy

Roaches like to make their nests in cluttered up places where they can hide and are safe. They cover paper bags with their hormones and make them their home. They hide in cardboard boxes full of stuff. Stacks of newspapers are another favorite place for roaches to hang out.

They are also very attracted to food and water. Fix the leaky faucet. Clean up the kitchen so that there are no crumbs or drops of sauce on the counters and floors. Don't leave food out at all, keep it sealed in containers and tucked away, in the fridge preferably.

Don't make your home hospitable to roaches; don't make it a place where they can nest and find food and water.

Before and after you make efforts to poison them, and in general, you should clean and keep your home free of debris, inside and out.

  

Homemade DIY Poison and Bait

When creating a bait and poison for cockroaches, you have to know what attracts them, what kills them and how their bodies are structured. Their bodies by the way are built so that they breathe through their exoskeletons. When their bellies get something on them that suffocates or poisons them, they are done for.

For this reason, one of the simplest weapons against these pests is soap and water; put in a spray bottle you can spray these creatures with it and it will stick to the pores on their bodies and they'll suffocate. Of course, you probably are not going to be able to get all of them with that weapon. To get a better number of them, you'll need traps and baits.

Roaches like cocoa powder and sugar. Boric acid kills them. So a mixture of these ingredients is likely to both attract them and kill them. To make the mixture into a nice little ball that they will find, add some flour and water. Use about a half cup of cocoa powder, half of sugar, a cup of boric acid powder (Borax), make into a dough.

Roll the dough into little balls and place them at base-boards, near cupboards, under the sink, wherever you've seen the roaches. The roaches will eat the poison and also carry some of it to their nest to kill off the rest of the family.

Another product on the market that kills bugs is Diatomaceous Earth, which is not poisonous to people but kills bugs when it gets into their exoskeletons. Sprinkle some of it where the roaches frequent, it will kill them off.

Nephthalene balls, or moth balls, can be effective in repelling roaches too, when put in strategic areas where they like to hang out.

There are also professional grade sprays that you can use on the bugs, such as cypermethrin or Demon WP; these kill the bugs and have a residual effect so that their families don't carry on their tradition. Spray this on the perimeters of your home and in the basement. Another very effective professional grade insecticide is Cy or Kick CS.

It should be noted that sprays meant for the outside of the home will be even more effective inside, but should be used with caution and you shouldn't stay in the home after you've used it. If you spray it in the house, leave for a day and come back and open up the house to air it out and stay out for an hour or two.

Another method that can be effective is using a plastic soda bottle as a bait and trap. You cut off the curved top, invert it and stick it in the bottle; put some beer inside and lay the trap where the bugs go; they'll go inside, won't be able to get out and drown.

There are also many various traps on the market, many of them attract the critter and get them trapped inside its casings and poison them simultaneously.

Of course, none of the poison should be directly near food or dishes (remove them from areas treated before you use any insecticide) and, any dishes and areas affected should be cleaned thoroughly after you've used insecticide. Keep yourself safe during this whole process.

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Keeping a clean and tidy house will help keep roaches away.

Source: Toms Baugis, Flickr. Some rights reserved.

An important step to keeping the roaches away is keeping the home clean and tidy, and going along with that you should seal off the bugs entry-way. They enter through cracks and crevices inside and outside of the home. Home improvement and repair is another way of keeping the pests away. Find out where they are entering and seal it off, calk it, etc. It is important to keep these potential entrances sealed, in general, whether you know the pests are entering through them or not.

You can also sprinkle these areas with your mixture of boric acid and cocoa powder too. If they come around, they'll get poisoned and carry the poison off to their families, so that you kill many of them with one stone. It's the efficient way.

Of course, this will all take time. Like I said, these bugs are resilient and it could take a few cycles of going through this process of laying out poisons and traps and keeping everything neat and clean before you get rid of them entirely.

And, of course, if all else fails, you might have to call the professionals. They have license to use powerful chemicals and are trained to keep you and your family safe by using methods that both kill off the roaches completely but do not endanger your health.

You might have to call the professionals to get rid of those cockroaches.

Source: By U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Michael O'Conner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons