I’ve spent a few half days helping out a woman who is down on her luck. The cockroaches are pretty thick. She has bombed them in the past.
Is there a bait or something that will get rid of them.
It is in rural Kansas. We don’t have any in our house so it isn’t a big problem here I don’t think.
I just thought I’d ask. It must be just miserable living with them.
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Replies
The best way I have seen is to get some Boric Acid in powder form. It takes a few days but in the meantime she can get some cans of spray to keep them at bay.
I was overrun with them after the pigs in the apartment next door were finally evicted and their place fumigated. The Boric Acid worked well, but I tried the traps first and they are worthless.
I just read a piece on cockroaches, and there is some kind of chemical that is extraordinarily effective on these critters.
I would suggest calling a few exterminators in your area and find out if they will sell it for DIY applications. Many will.
"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
-- Bertrand Russell
napalm
We always get it right!!!
the third time....
"Almost certain death, small chance of success.... What are we waiting for???"
First eliminate the things that attract them, moisture and food. A tiny leak under a kitchen sink or vanity, supply or drain line, can support a colony. A leaking wax ring under the toilet or minor roof leak are similar. Roaches don't like dry conditions. Dry out the interior and they will flee to the outside where the living is easier.
Similarly eliminate access to the food. Some folks use a lot grease. Bacon fat is a taste treat for roaches. Where is condenses on walls and tiny amounts on floors and corners can support roaches for years. Any food is the same way. They can live for years on the glue used to hold the labels on soup cans ans even on soap. Mostly you see this in highly infested areas. Mostly roaches, like people, are lazy. Make things tough and they move on to greener pastures.
Once you eliminate the food and water the problem will about eliminate itself. Borate powders are good. You can spray them behind toe-kicks and confined spaces like under tub enclosures.
Then work on sealing the building. Caulk, copper foil, gaskets and threshold seals are all parts of it. Remember that a roach can enter through a tiny hole. Seal them out with a physical barrier.
Insecticides have a place they can act as a chemical barrier. I like Bengal brands. Their dry spray is effective and long lasting. Sprayed around thresholds and around windows they protect the perimeter. Under and behind the refrigerator and within cabinets provide a area-denial strategy.
I'm down here in Florida where roaches are everywhere. Rich, poor, sloppy or so meticulous you could assemble microchips everyone has at least a few roaches. Mostly they stay out of sight so the good folks get to think they are above the problem. I crawl under houses, dig in cabinets and walls and go into attics and can safely say everyone has a few.
For initial knock-down, where there is a heavy infestation you have to get on top of, bombs are good. But I have found the normal spray bombs are only really effective at chasing the critters into hiding. My favorite is Raid Foggers. These units are canisters that are dropped into water and produce a smoke that rides air currents into corners, cracks and tight spaces where roaches hide.
Read and follow the directions to the letter. Use enough, the directions will guide you, to do the complete job well. It may take six or more of even these effective units. Don't cheap out. Good thing they are sold in packs of three. Any areas not treated will become a safe haven and stronghold for roaches.
Once you knock down the population work hard eliminating or isolating any water or food they can get to so the area is less attractive to them. Seal and spray the perimeter as much as possible to keep them out. Done in concert these steps can make seeing a roach, even in buggy Florida, a rare event.
In Florida I thought everyone had a couple geckos to eat the roaches, no? When I visited a friend in Gainesville, I saw a gecko on the wall inside and was surprised and was even more surprised at how casual she was about it when I pointed it out, she just said, "Oh, they're good because they eat the roaches."
For my house in Florida, we used a professional exterminator. They started with about two months of interior spraying to knock them down, then we've been on a program of exterior perimiter spraying 4 times a year that has worked really well, even with our kids leaving "treats" in hidden corners of the house.
Boric Acid powder purchased at your local Pharmacy mixed with confectionary sugar. Make sure to keep it away from pets. It is also good for ants. The trick I used was a small margerine container with holes in the sides covered over with bricks to keep pets away from.
It goes without saying to get rid of trash as quick as possible.
I have found that in my old apartments that wheat wall paper paste attracks them like magnets. If you wall paper use vinyl paste.
David
Several others have mentioned it too, boric acid mixed with a bit of powdered sugar.
Not as fast as napalm but it does work.
You know whats in a lot of the "cockroach proff your house" mixes? Boric acid.
Doug
I was a Pest control operator WAY back..we used Dursban, Dursban LO, Baygon, and Ficam. All indoors. Outdoors, we used malithion,sevin, and chlordane ( see it was a while back)..
When we got here to this house, it was overrun with the bastids..being as we were not actually living in here yet, I sprayed a strong malithion inside..killed everything 'cept the spiders and freakin lady beetles.
I don't mess around when it comes to roaches..I abhorr them.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Why look here?
In some areas of Africa roaches are considered as something of a good luck sign as they eat bedbugs.
I wouldn't know a bedbug if it hit with a bat..never saw one...maybe my roaches ate them..LOL
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Why look here?
Thanks too all of you. I'll print these out and see if i can get something going. I'm just one of the people involved in this "helping out" so I will try. She is ashamed about the condition her house has gotten into, but from what i can see has gotten used to it. There almost has to be an intersesion by the group, but she has a sense of pride so we have to tread gently.
There are a bunch of issues in the house. I was washing out my brush in the kitchen sink (after I got the broken light to work) when she came home yesterday and she discretely told me that the sink drain doesn't work. I scurried out of there before she emptied the bucket under the sink. She said it has overflowed MANY times in the past. The kitchen was carpeted but now it looks like a matted kind of black material with tufts of fabric in areas. This must be the source of the horrid smell. I throw open windows when I get there but it is pretty bad regardless. It's a mix of the rancid food, the insecticides she has sprayed over the years, and air fresheners.
There is ALWAYS open food in the kitchen.
When she got home she said she was going to start getting some social security and would like me to remodel parts of her home. I'm the only builder in the group. She said she had a dream of having a set of doors on the outside wall going out onto a deck. Living in this mess she still has dreams! I politely told her that I liked the way it was set up now with no pay. She thinks I'm being generous but really I don't want to work in these conditions. I'm kind of grossed out by it and saddened at the same time. I was working with a farming couple yesterday, so they are doing most of the grunt work thankfully. Farmers can't be too sensitve because of the work they do.
I wiil print up your advice and discuss it with the group. I believe change needs to happen, but we need to treat her with respect. How do I get her to channel the dream of having expensive doors in her kitchen into cleaning up food EVERY time?
get rid of the carpet
Having lived in New York City for maybe a third of my life, I could consider myself an authority on dealing with cockroaches, often called the City's official Bird....
These are extremely robust critters. A cockroach can live for an endless time on the nourishment it can draw from the ink in the period at the end of a sentence in a magazine. Getting rid of accessible food in a place that is infested with them will not get rid of the bugs; it will simply slow down their reproduction. However, any place that has ever had cockroaches will probably always have at least a few--it is generally considered impossible to get rid of 100% of them. Live cockroaches are routinely found in the debris by crews demo-ing a burn-out.
Therefore, to prevent any remaining insects (after a primary extermination) from contaminating food, all food must continue to be stored in bug-proof--which is to say watertight--containers. I used 5-lb glass honey jars with screw lids as canisters for all dry foods. Big mayonnaise jars work well, too, as do 2-litre home canning jars. 'Tupperware' type plastics are okay, but are harder to keep clean on the outside than glass jars.
For things that don't fit in jars, you need a bug-proof cabinet. I used my grandmother's old ice-box for dry storage (I plugged up the drip tube). An old, unplugged fridge works well, too.
For the initial extermination/evacuation effort, fogger bombs work quite well. In a bad infestation, this kind of initial treatment may have to be repeated two, three, or four times in the first three or four weeks.
Once the population inside the house has been knocked down to the point where you only see perhaps one per day in daylight, long-term treatment can take over. Boric acid does work, about as well or better than anything else I know of. It needs to be dusted in behind bookcases, cabinets, under kicks, along baseboards, into switch and plug boxes, etc. And it needs to be renewed on a regular basis. In a heavy infestation area with high risk of re-infestation from an outside source (like, an apartment building in the city where you can't control how clean your neighbours keep their place), a good interval would be every two to three months. Insect census is the key here. If they start increasing, re-dust immediately, don't put if off for a few days....
One last comment. I agree with the poster who said, "Get rid of that carpet." It is a certainty that it is not doing the kitchen floor itself any good...and it will create a barrier to fog or other poisons from penetrating down where there are certainly large numbers of roaches hiding.
Living in a roach zone without having a roach problem requires a certain amount of dedication to maintaining sanitary conditions. If this nice old lady isn't going to maintain those conditions once you and your fellow volunteers set her up, the problem will just return. Part of your effort, as you pointed out, I think, will be in educating her gently so as not to wound her pride. Roaches have a nasty connotation to them, and many people are ashamed of the need to take continual prophylactic action. But the fact is, 'insectologists' believe they are one of the most difficult species to control on earth. It has been said by serious scientific types that if we ever do manage to turn this planet into a ball of radioactive slag, the cockroach will survive and make a successful return to ecological viability.
The only other species this difficult to control is the common cold-blooded vermin, politicus n. americanus....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
David-Can't add to the advise on the roaches, except to remind you that they are easy to take home. You might want to keep extra clothes handy and watch out for the toolbox. By the way, what you are doing is a good thing. It's nice to see there are still people around that care. Bless you.
Don
My main business is buying repo properties and managing my rentals.
I still have some off market stuff for extreme cases and try to buy peoples old chloradane for emergencies. I ran an add on the radio call in show and managed to get 4 gallons total. That stuff has bailed me out on several occasions. As you know it lasts for a long time and will get the egg hatch in later weeks. Ive never had a reinfestation when using it. But it is dangerous to use and not advice to use here.
I talked to an exterminator the other day and he suggested a lot lighter mix for termites than is labeled. He told me a very light amount will kill a termite . Do you remember the mix?
I dont really know about an old lady thats living in her home taking care of somthing as serious as a heavy infestation of roaches , but I can share how I knock them in the head. I have to exterminate quickly and surely for a new renter or a home for sale must have no signs of them and the turn around is often as short as a few days.
If I have two weeks I use Permethrin or Diazonon in heavy mixes. I dont believe it takes a heavy dosage to kill a roach but I do want the chemical to be strong enough to be there in two weeks for a hatch. If I only have a few days is when its an emergrency. Chloradane has a deadly knockdown and stays for months hence the reason it was out lawed?
I start at the top and spray light openings , top trim . inside and out of door casings, remove switches and recepticle covers , slide out dish washers, vacumn every sqaure inch of the house with a powerful vac, spray every crack and crevice in kitchen and bathrooms , Every plumbing& electrical hole going exterior I flood, beams are prone for colonies for some reason I dont understand except for added heat. Repeat full spray in two weeks . If all areas are cleaned and all food is removed , its 100 percent effective in a single family home .
I dont have a clue what you boys did in large apartment complexes!!! That must be a night mare.
Tim Mooney
Chlordane is chemical of the 'Cyclodiene' family of highly chlorinated cyclic hydrocarbons - 'Heptachlor' is a closely related compound, 3-5 times a toxic to insects as chlordane - the chemical is stable and persistant except in the presence of alkaline materials, is such cases it liberates hydrogen chloride and forms non-toxic (to insects) products -
used to be availible as a 40-50% wettable powder, 2-4% dusts, and liquid solutions (oil based) of various strengths -
chlordane and heptachlor are specific nerve poisons, affecting insects with violent convulsions, remaining effective for long periods of time (years/decades, if not degraded/washed away/covered over) -
they are not particularly acutely toxic to mammals, but chlorine has been implicated and is a suspect compound in various malaidies/envionmental effects (whither Chlorox?) - they are persistant bio-accumulaters and once ingested remain in fatty tissue for a long time (ticks bite me and fall off...)
I wouldn't use 'em, but if I did, I'd follow label instructions, only spray inaccessable areas, and not post about it on the internet....
"there's enough for everyone"
Some people prefer to avoid pesticides completely. Personally I think they have a place. Particularly the less toxic and persistent ones to gain control over a population in a timely manner. On the other hand a local co-op eliminated roaches and rats from an entire complex with nothing more than passive measures. They used no traps, no poisons, no chemical agents at all. Several of the children had chemical sensitivities. They relied entirely on cleaning and sealing the buildings and denying the vermin access to food and water. It took quite some time and no small bit of diligence, persistence and patience but it worked. A vast improvement was seen in the first week when they did the initial cleaning and measures were taken to fix plumbing and roof leaks. Took months to eliminate the pests entirely but it can be done.
I dont have a clue what you boys did in large apartment complexes!!! That must be a night mare
The ABSOLUTE worst was Delaware Valley Memeorial Hosp. in Bristol, Pa.
The crawl under the kitchen..on my first outing to spread Baygon and spray dursban...I was on my hands and knees with my flashlite off cuz the access hole was close..as I went in farther, I was kinda hearing a "crunching" sound.
I flicked on the maglite, and there were Thousands if not Millions of dead and living roaches..Oriental and German..EVERY WHERE..including my legs and arms..FREAKED ME THE F**K OUT..
I woulda quit, but I bought the business with a buddy, I couldn't.
Our termite mix was in a 55 drum hooked to a pressure washer pump...IIRC, 4OZ of Clordane was we added to 40 gal of H2O, about 8OZ of Liquid Sevin, and 40 OZ of Dursban.
Inside spraying was 1OZ Dursban to a gal.
Ficam ( great for fleas) is a wettable powder..I ferget how much we used.
Like DD said, hush on the chlordane..I can smell it a mile way..and I WOULD find who has it..it is bad shat. My neighbors son sprayed some for wasps and the wind was coming my way..I read him the riot act.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Why look here?
Lots of good advice above. Especially form 4LORN1 and Dinosaur.
I spent 15 months inspecting HUD housing. I learned from that that nothing will get rid of them if there is food.
Clean, clean, clean.
Maybe you can never eliminate them, but if you keep it clean and do something to kill them, you can get it to where you never see them anymore (at least in this area of Indiana).
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
"Therefore, to prevent any remaining insects (after a primary extermination) from contaminating food, all food must continue to be stored in bug-proof--which is to say watertight--containers. I used 5-lb glass honey jars with screw lids as canisters for all dry foods. Big mayonnaise jars work well, too, as do 2-litre home canning jars. 'Tupperware' type plastics are okay, but are harder to keep clean on the outside than glass jars."
Ditto Dino's words above!
when we lived in another roach haven ... Houston TX ... the apartment complexes sprayed ... we bombed ... and any and all foods were immediately stored "properly" when ya got home from the grocery store.
Houston had the roaches plus it's own set of special bug conditions ...
Cereal had to be immediately opened from a brand new box and dumped into the tupperware containers ... if not ... by the next morning ... you'd open a brand new box to find the bugs moved in over nite!
Have her fix that "open food" situation immediately as well as all the spraying.
even cheap "container sets" from KMart would help.
unless the packaging was glass or sealed metal ... into the tupperware it went.
Jeff
Jeff
Anyone know if it is true that if you squish them the eggs hatch anyway?, or is that a myth.
-zen
If you squish hard enough, they don't hatch. But you have to use a foot with a leather soled-shoe on a hard floor and twist and schmeeer 'em. Otherwise some of the eggs survive.
Simply whacking them with your hand or a newspaper won't destroy the eggs. They are too small.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Cereal had to be immediately opened from a brand new box
Even better is to freeze it at least overnight (flour, baking mixes, etc., too), then put into a sealable container. That's a ziplock in a typical "cannister set", too.
Not only does that keep bugs at bay, it also helps prevent the humidity (or changes in same) from ruining the items too.
Not saving bags (plastic or paper) from the grocery store will also help. The big bulk boxes of bags in the back of the grocery store are a convenient nesting spot with a big, available food supply near to hand.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
see if ya cant get a couple of these
The problem with building homes is that you can inadvertently create an environment that benefits certain organisms and not others.
The same goes for spraying insecticides. She has made the cockroaches slower, but hasn't killed them. So you have a bunch of smaller sickly cockroaches and has completely wiped out all the spiders that could be natural predators on the roach population.
Along with that I think her health and the health of her 13 year old grand daughter's health have been compromised.
It's hard to know because it could be just genetics and I didn't know them before. The grand daughter has pretty bad asthma. Both of them are kind of sickly.
I've also heard that scorpions will clear out roaches.
"Tell me again, Mr. Ledbetter. What's a Mississippi Flush and how's it beat this hand?It's a small revolver and any five cards."
check out: askthebugmann.com for whatever's bugging you.
in all my commerical space i put boric acid in the stud bays as I'm building it... I have yet to have a problem even with food stores...
p
Try http://www.copperbrite.com/roach.html It works real great with us. At one time we had the roofers working on our roofing and had the dumpster on our driveway and there were roaches everywhere. We had to work fast to stop them from starting. It did stop them dead in their tracks.
I found one sure fire way that worked for me. I used to live in a small trailer house. In the summer, when I went away for the weekend, I shut up the house and turned off the A/C. The temperature in that little trailer house probably hit 125 or more. That killed every bug in the house, including a few termites.
When I came home, I turned the A/C back on and went out for a few hours to let the house cool back down.
next best thing to naplam
"Tell me again, Mr. Ledbetter. What's a Mississippi Flush and how's it beat this hand?It's a small revolver and any five cards."