Cockroach Prevention
No matter where you live, it’s vital to get rid of these nasty, pesky roaches! Now that you have an inkling as to how you can identify them, you can get rid of them. However, it’s not all that easy to eliminate these roaches completely. Once you’ve gotten rid of them first, you’ll have to put in some effort to make sure they don’t invade your home again!
In addition, it’s equally important to also kill all of the young roaches so that their population in your house reduces drastically. Roaches never dwell in clean places, so they can bring in a lot of bacteria into your home, which can be quite disgusting. Apart from the diseases they spread, they also secrete compounds that have a mild odor. Time is of the essence since these buggers can reproduce fairly quickly, so let’s get to it!
There’s a chance that your first few attempts to get rid of your nasty friends may not eliminate them completely. There are various ways in which they can gain entry into your house, which makes their intrusions unpredictable. Before you think about the cure, I would suggest thinking about preventive methods. This especially applies to people who want to prevent roaches from entering their homes, as opposed to those whose houses are already roach-infested. In some cases, it will take up to 8 weeks to eliminate them, but if you’re lucky, it can take as little as 2 weeks. Therefore, it’s better to use preventive methods before anything else.
Prevention:
- An effective method to prevent roach infestations is to maintain a clean home. Roaches cannot survive in clean areas and thus, if you’re clean, it makes it very difficult for them to continue with their antics. Clean each and every corner of your house and make sure it stays that way. Sanitation is very important in order to prevent roaches from invading your space.
- Be sure not to drag any roaches home with you! If you spend some time in an unclean environment, be sure to check all your bags. Regardless of whether you are at a friend’s home, a hotel or a warehouse, if there is a roach infestation it’s better to be safe than sorry. It is very possible for roaches to accompany you back to your home. So, as a preventive method, check everything to make sure they are clean before returning to your abode.
- Make your home unsuitable for them. Make a conscious effort not to leave any food outside the refrigerator at night. Also, don’t forget to wash your dishes! Unwashed plates lying in the sink can turn out to be a huge party for these pests.Since they love warm places, they spend their time in bathrooms and kitchens more than the other rooms in the house. Also, you need to clean your kitchen cabinets by wiping them down from time to time.Seal all your food containers, ensuring that the roaches can’t destroy them.I understand that it’s easy to preach than to practice, but you need to remember that if these roaches enter your home, they make it a point to stay with you for a long time.
- Surprisingly, roaches even feed on other miscellaneous non-food items, especially paper products. Items such as newspapers, books, cardboard, paper bags, etc. can easily absorb a particular pheromone that roaches give off. This pheromone relays a message to other roaches, informing them of the whereabouts of their comrades. It’s also used as a guiding system so that roaches can make their way from place to place. That being said, it’s important that you avoid letting many of these paper products pile up anywhere in your house!
- Leaving food crumbs on the ground is essentially a direct invitation for roaches. Allocate a single room to eat your food instead of eating in multiple rooms. It can be difficult to mop your floor every day, but I would highly suggest doing it at least three times per week to make sure it’s clean. After mopping, don’t forget to mop it dry since roaches will use the water to survive. Be sure to use a minimal amount of water to avoid splashing and spilling too much. Using your handy vacuum cleaner is also a great idea. Not only does your vacuum cleaner help you pick up all of your food crumbs, but it also helps you eliminate eggs and shed skins. The more you vacuum, the more likely roaches will leave your house alone.
- If you live in a warmer climate, you’ll probably find it a bit easier to get rid of roaches rather than preventing them. As the climate gets hotter, it becomes impossible to get rid of them and as a result, roaches thrive in places like Florida. However, even if you reside in a location with warm climates, you need to maintain a clean, dry home. Remember that ‘dry’ is the keyword here, because roaches find it difficult to survive if your home is dry. As an added measure, you can also wipe your sinks, showers and bathtubs dry at night before you to go to bed.
- Roaches love to reside in trash cans and other dirty areas, so you need to pay attention and remove trash cans and keep your yard and other places clean.
- I mentioned that roaches love hotter climates, but the humidity also plays a major role. Simply put – roaches tend to live in places that have high humidity. Therefore, you can control the humidity by using a dehumidifier if you want to prevent roaches from entering your house.
- Roaches can’t survive forever without water. However, they can still survive for at least a week without water supply. Of course, you aren’t supplying any water directly to them, but they are smart enough to figure out where they can find it.The main source is usually a leak somewhere. Since there are various places where water can leak in your home, you need to find them all and stop leakage, if any. Check your shower heads, garden hose, taps, hose bibs, meter lines and toilets to see if there are any leaks. Find a way to quickly fix all the leaks in your house or hire a plumber to do the job for you.
- Roaches usually enter through cracks, so it is very important to find all the cracks in your home and seal them, thus blocking their entrance. It’s important to seal the cracks on the exterior as well as the interior of your house to block every pathway. Of course, this will take some time, but this tactic is the most effective preventive method since you are eliminating their breeding and hiding locations. In addition, check all your kitchen cabinets, floors and walls to identify any cracks and seal them up completely.
- Trim plants that are around your building to increase the light circulation, particularly near vents as this reduces the possibility of dense plants growing there. Since roaches love residing in warm, dark places, trimming plants will reduce their population considerably. In addition, having gravel areas that are at least 10 to 12 inches wide surrounding the perimeter of the buildings can help keep roaches away.
