How to Get Rid of Cockroaches

 Summary

 – Focus on Cockroaches

 – Method 1: Use roach traps

 – Method 2: use roach gel

 – Method 3: dehydrate roaches to exterminate them

 – Method 4: use boric acid baits for roach treatment

 – Method 5: kill cockroaches with an insecticide product

 – Method 6: hire a pest control company

 The sight of a cockroach usually causes an intuitive feeling of repulsion, which is based on the reality that this insect, which reproduces at an astonishing speed, is often a vector of viruses and bacteria.

 In an individual house, it is possible to get rid of it, mainly with traps or gels, preferable to insecticides, which are very effective but toxic for animals and children. When you live in a collective building, individual treatment of cockroaches may not be sufficient: a pest control company can then intervene to treat all apartments simultaneously.

 Discover how to fight against cockroaches.

 Focus on cockroaches

 The words “cockroach”, “cockroach,” and “cockroach” refer to the same insect. Cockroach (from the Latin Blatella) is the scientific term, while the standard language uses the words “cockroach” or sometimes “cockroach”. In Quebec, we speak of “cockroaches”, in the West Indies of “ravets”.

 During the day, the cockroach buries itself in a dark corner; especially at night, the insect comes out of its hiding place to look for food. Omnivorous, it feeds on vegetables, fruits, sweet foods, meat, fats, paper, cardboard, fabric, and the corpses of its fellow humans.

 The adult cockroach can enter a building through a tiny crack of 1.5 mm. It then circulates along the technical ducts and garbage chutes, contaminating all the apartments in a building. Gravitating in suspicious places, the cockroach is often a vector of pathogens (virus, bacteria) and can also cause respiratory allergies in some people.

 The cockroach reproduces amazingly, and an infestation occurs very quickly. In addition, after single fertilization, the female cockroach stores the male’s semen and can lay 100,000 eggs during her lifetime without repeating the mating.

 Necessary: as soon as you see even one cockroach, react immediately and alert the neighbours, the owner, the property manager, or even the city’s sanitation department.

 Method 1: Use cockroach traps

 Cockroach traps are small boxes you place on the floor or sometimes vertically on the walls for adhesive traps.

 Set up traps:

 – first, in the kitchen and water rooms,

 – but also in other rooms, allowing you to determine how far the cockroaches go.

 There are two types of roach traps: glue traps and insecticide traps.

 Use glue traps

 Harmless to humans and pets, glue traps contain a bait that attracts roaches and are coated with a sticky substance that captures them.

 These traps are not sufficient to exterminate all cockroaches (a subsequent insecticide treatment is necessary), but rather to:

 – Determine the degree of infestation and the most frequent points of passage according to the number of roaches caught in each trap.

 – Verify that there are no more roaches after insecticide treatment.

 Use traps with insecticide

 Insecticide traps also contain a bait that attracts roaches, plus an insecticide that does not kill them immediately but allows them to return to their lair, where they die after infecting others.

 Hermetically sealed, these traps are harmless: there is no risk of a child or pet getting poisoned by playing with them.

 Method 2: Use an anti-cavity gel

Cockroach gels are pretty effective, come in a ready-to-use syringe, are safe for people and animals, and don’t need any particular safety measures. After ingestion, the cockroach is killed in a few hours or days, depending on the product. Its corpse, devoured by its fellow cockroaches, will also exterminate them.

 With the pusher of the syringe, apply small points of gel in all the dark corners:

 – under sinks and basins, behind and the bathtub;

 – under toilet drains;

 – behind the refrigerator and other major appliances;

 – in the corners of closets;

 – around the garbage disposal or in garbage rooms.

 Tip: after an infestation, repeat this treatment, both curative and preventive, every 6 months.

 Method 3: Dehydrate roaches to exterminate them

 Another way to get rid of cockroaches is to sprinkle a little diatomaceous earth in all their favourite places and areas of passage, which, containing particles of silica, cracks their shell and causes their death by dehydration.

 The diatomaceous earth acts physically and not chemically. It has the advantage of not being toxic for humans and pets.

 Use diatomaceous earth sold for insecticide use in small powdered cans: you will avoid inhaling silica particles that are irritating to the lungs.

 Tip: the ancients used to sprinkle baking soda on roach nooks and crannies, which, when ingested by the insects, also kills them through intestinal disorders and dehydration.

 Method 4: Use boric acid baits for roach treatment

 Boric acid is sold in pharmacies in the form of powdered sachets. It is cheap and very effective, killing the roach within hours of ingesting pellets containing this product. To make these pellets:

 – Mix boric acid with sweetened condensed milk (which cockroaches love) so that you get a paste that you shape into pellets; soft at first, they harden in 30 minutes.

 – Place the pellets near air vents, in dark, hot corners, and anywhere roaches are likely to be.

 – Repeat after 3 weeks to destroy the next generation of roaches.

 Important: Do not place pellets within reach of small children. Wear disposable gloves and wash your hands afterwards, as boric acid is toxic.

 Method 5: Eliminate cockroaches with an insecticide

 Cockroach insecticides are highly effective and come in powder, spray or canister form. Spray or fog products are best because they make it easier to treat the dark corners where roaches hide.

 – Spray them in all dark areas.

 – Also, spray baseboards and door frames.

 Important: these insecticides are toxic to animals and children.

 Method 6: Call a pest control company

 If the cockroach infestation is recurrent, especially if you live in an apartment building, call in or ask your landlord to call in a pest control company.

 Using adapted products and treating all apartments on the same day will eliminate the infestation.