For The Hate Of Bugs: How to Get Rid Of The Enemy Called Cockroaches

I've been saying to people that it just seems like there is a cockroach infestation going on everywhere recently. I found a cockroach in the microwave a while back. Imagine my shock, I can't imagine how it got in. So, in my anger, I shut the door of the microwave on it and decided I was going to give it a slow and painful death. I turned on the microwave for 10 minutes on high intensity, sure that no living thing could survive the heat (at least not something so small). By the time I opened the microwave again, the little insect was still strolling around like nothing happened! Who would have imagined that it would survive? I have become sufficiently irritated by the number of cockroaches in my kitchen that I have set out on a personal vendetta against them. It is an 'operation obliterate-the-cockroaches'. This is how I plan to go about it. Pick some ideas or add more on how to get rid of those pests in your home.

1. Keep The Home Clean

A clean home is a natural deterrent to cockroaches, which need food and other factors to live. Starting in the kitchen, keep food out of the way and clean the dirty dishes promptly. Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight. Be sure that you clean up any spills wherever you leave them.

2. Keep Food Sealed And Out Of The Way

Whatever the foodstuffs are, keep them sealed in plastic bags or sealable containers. This goes for whether you put them in a cabinet or a refrigerator.

3. Make Mopping A Routine

It’s easy to drop food on the floor and forget about them. This is especially true if something is transparent, such as juices. Instead of allowing them to stay on the floor to attract cockroaches, mop them up promptly. And when you do this, try to keep from sloshing water on the floorboards since some of this will get behind them and become one more water source for cockroaches.

4. Take The Trash Out Often

Wherever you might happen to keep trash, make sure you routinely take it outside. It might look like trash to you, but it’s an amusement park to cockroaches.

5.  Use Soap And Water

A spray mixture of soap and water will kill a cockroach as quickly as practically anything. Virtually any kind of soap will work, just as long as it is thin enough to go through a spray nozzle. If you can get to the cockroach, try as best as you can to hit his head or lower abdomen, although his belly is your best target if you can reach it. Soap kills cockroaches by forming a seal over his breathing pores and suffocates them.

6. Use A Commercial Insecticide

There are many commercial insecticides on the market today, but the best will be labeled for use on cockroaches. These types normally contain an active ingredient called Cyermetrin. Read-A-Dream is a brand that works well on cockroaches. Sniper is also good, but very strong. You might want to use that only when you will be out of the house for some time.

10.) Use Water Traps

An excellent option to poison traps are water traps which, in essence, attracts cockroaches, and then drowns them in water. This can be done by putting water in a jar and setting it against a wall to attract its victims. Another method is to cut the top of a liter plastic bottle off, turn the top over in the bottom half, and then add several inches of water to the base. Cockroaches will be attracted to the water, then fall into the trap and be unable to get out before they drown.

Via Offexploring.com

If all these fail, there is always the option of packing up and going away for a weekend and getting the professionals to fumigate your entire house. this will even take care of rats, wall geckos and any other annoying things that may be lurking around.

Keeping your home free of cockroaches is practically a never ending process. They keep reproducing so fast, and you'll have to keep killing them just as fast. Once you are rid of them, you need to make sure that your home is kept clean and free of all the things that attract them. If you do that right, they probably won't come back.

Trivia Fact: A group of cockroaches is called an 'intrusion'.

Cover image via Mudfooted.com