May not sound like a dumb question, but this isn’t my first rodeo, but it’s the first time I’ve lost.
In my 20s, myself, gf and bf moved into a house crawling with roaches. She and I spent the first night smashing as fast as we could go. The wall behind the fridge was “black” with roach shit. Easy money. We cleaned like hell and laid boric acid powder everywhere. A new generation of tiny ones came along, died quickly, that was that.
Had roaches in this house for years now. I’ve tried the above trick, no love. Got some poison a friend recommended, works OK, but they’ll be back. Had an exterminator in. He gave me some great tricks and his treatment worked great, but I can’t afford $40 a month until this is finally resolved.
And the kitchen isn’t filthy! My wife cleans and wipes it down every day. Not a deep clean of course, but again, it’s not filthy. There are a few around my desk because I often eat here, I get that bit.
They seem to be in the appliances and wall sockets. Pulled a smart socket today, filthy with roach shit, front and back. They’re coming out of the walls! I could probably figure a trick to bag and nuke the appliances, but the walls?!
HUGE bonus would be some advice on trapping them to feed our chameleon! When my wife sees one she’ll trap it in a little tupperware container and toss them in the lion’s den. I’ve tried some methods I found online, not a single catch. Which is embarrassing because I’m pretty handy, understand basic biology, should be a no-brainer.
If I don’t figure this soon, I’m importing some Huntsmen spiders from you Aussie cunts. No wonder my wife thinks lizards are good luck in the house. (Philippines, Florida, same difference.)
H E L P
From what i remember from the documentary Joes Apartment i think you have to befriend them.
And host their party’s. Man I loved that movie. Repeatedly getting mugged at the beginning had 10 year old me dying.
I professionally managed many buildings… A big part of that was pest control.
Let me just cut through all the things that we try that don’t work and just tell you what works :
Edit
Food preparation - for all food storage areas, hot or cold, appliance or not, move everything out and deep clean. All food must be stored in sealed containers. Emotionally prepare yourself to make some sacrifices in convenience, and you’re going to have to get rid of food that you can’t sequester, such as large amounts of potatoes, etc. Go get coffee cans, whatever you can find at the thrift store, and get your food sealed away. Giant “Rubbermaid” sealed bin containers if you have to. To state it bluntly, you are going to need to live this way, very strictly, until a few hatch cycles have completed, and the worst of the problem is mitigated.
Area preparation - Make your home hospital clean and get rid of all garbage, loose food, or anything that would be an attractant. Get degreaser, and do the tops and interiors of all cabinets, clean the accumulated grease under your range hood, you know what I’m talking about figure it out. Move everything at least a foot away from the perimeter of the home. You may not skip any areas such as closets or crawl spaces, you need to do the work and be meticulous.
General Application - Heavily dilute it with water according to the instructions. Wear a proper filtration mask. Use a pressurized sprayer and spray in about a 4 cm wide band. Generally it’s applied around the perimeter of the home at the baseboards. All areas must be clean and dust free prior to application. It is accepted to be safe for humans and pets once dried. They state 4 hours as dry time but realistically it’s 40 minutes, depending on the humidity of your region.
Kitchen Under Sink / Dishwasher Application - Remove everything from under the sink, wash, spray the floor perimeter and just around the plumbing cut outs on the back wall. Remove dishwasher kick plate, unlock the wheels, disconnect water in/outs, pull dishwasher out, clean behind thoroughly, spray edges of the whole enclosure. Inspect underside of the dishwasher for leaks. Apply powdered borax liberally on floor, before pushing it back and hooking everything back up.
moreedit: The reason it is so important in the above areas is because there’s unfinished wood edges, there is typically only unfinished subfloor under the dishwasher (no tiles, hardwood, vinyl). These areas have moisture and wood, and that’s a lovely habitat. They will use the dishwasher food trap as well as plumbing leaks/condensation as a moisture and food source. Not always, but most of the time ‘home base’ is one of those places.
More Kitchen Application - Pull out oven and fridge, wash the appliance exteriors, the walls, cabinets, and floors, then spray floor perimeter. Remove oven drawer, thoroughly wash in washtub, thoroughly clean accumulated debris from bottom of oven rails. Clean interior of oven. Clean fridge freezer interior and exterior. You are safe to push the appliances back once the spraying is done, since nothing will touch those areas you don’t need to worry much about drying
Although many times, conditions that attract roaches in the first place are beyond our control, my experience shows most of the time we unwittingly invite the problem by neglecting certain ways of living. In my own life, I live in an overall cockroach-infested building, but there are exactly zero cockroaches in my place, because I keep it clean and there’s nothing here for them to eat - no reason for them to be here. If there’s any stragglers that make it up from the grease filled kitchen ventilation of my downstairs neighbor, they’re quickly murdered by the borax strategically placed at points of potential ingress.
moreedit: Never use the consumer-grade “roach killer” sprays. Despite the marketing boasts, it just drives the colony to spread around the environment. And another tip - various methods of compressed air lets you blow powdered borax under your dishwasher and into other difficult areas.
Impressive reply. Thanks on behalf of Roach killers everywhere.
No offense, but if I had a roach problem this bad I would find a way to afford $40 a month for an exterminator even if I had to cut back to bare utilities only. Maybe even no electricity and cold showers until they were gone.
Fumigation after envelope repair.
You need to, or preferably a pro, need to go around and seal up every possible incursion point and then gas the fuckers.
There is no solution but the final solution. Traps and poisons are like addressing a leaking roof with a pot to catch the water falling on the floor. God help you if you are on piers or block foundation, your fight will be Sisyphean.
8-yo house on a slab.
I’ve had some success with poison, the kind that comes inside plastic pods and supposedly they chew on it and bring it back to their nest, wiping it out.
Last year I had dozens running around everywhere (house surrounded with garden/fields) last year, this year I’ve only seen 1 so far.
Gentrol point source. It mutates the males so that they’re sterile. It take one generation and then you’ll see them born with crinkled wings. Don’t kill the gross mutated ones. 8 weeks and you’ll notice significantly less. Its also pet safe and okay to be in areas near food. Restaurants use this as their go to. Its just a puck you stick in areas that are the worst.
Releasing the genophage on the krogan, are we?
Had to be me. Anyone else might have gotten it wrong.
This. Got a place just before the pandemic that wasn’t well taken-care-of and had German roaches, assuming that’s what you’re seeing (tinier, and fast as hell) got this kit (granted it was $20 cheaper a few years ago) and rotated out with a couple of the other kits that come after A’s formulation every 6 months. Gone after 2 years. Now I just see the regular ones sometimes- because FL. Saved my sanity.
Also, I wouldn’t advise feeing the critters to your chameleon since you don’t know what the critters have been exposed to or got into, pesticide wise.
First, as an Aussie while I would welcome you to our hairy friends they are actually not doing too great at the moment, so hands off, mine!
That said, cockroach population is almost entirely a matter of the neighbourhood you are in, not the house you are in. If you have a neighbour who’s house is suitable for roaches they will live and breed there and then reinfest your home.
That leads to two main options. Move somewhere without the issue or make your house the most hostile possible place for them.
I don’t know what options you could try that have not already been tried, but I will list a few I have seen work. Roach motels work well. Flypaper under the fridge works well. Some chemical treatments work well.
That said, being diligent and keeping the food for them to a minimum may be the best adjunct. By this I mean making sure food is eaten, dishes are done, surfaces are wiped, and nothing left behind as soon as possible after making meals. Emptying the rubbish bin daily, maybe even switching to a much smaller bench top one so you can have smaller bags. Adding a seal to your rubbish bins in the form of some rubber or silicone around where the lid fits, though this differs depending on your local waste management systems.
First guy from the pest control place said they were from the outside. I let them nuke the yard for several months with no results except for killing off the local ecosystem. (I’ve brought it back five fold!)
It’s nothing obvious like food on the counter. As I said, my wife wipes down every night and I’ve never seen one in or near the trash can.
As my mom used to say “they eat glue. They eat paper. You can’t clean your way out.”
Someone else mentioned the little black plastic traps, those work for us but there aren’t ever many here, it’s preventing not solving.
Have you tried diatomaceous earth (wp:Diatomaceous earth#Pest control) and sealing everything?
Not in this case! I’ll get some.
You can get a duster/blower applicator and blow it into the walls. Talking about removing wall plate for plugs and light switches to blast it in there.
You can also blow it into any crack you see. Baseboards, trim under stuff.
Diatomaceous Earth Powder Duster Applicator
Have you tried fumigation? Like bug bombs or getting an exterminator to do it professionally? You might have to leave your house for a couple of days but it would attack all of them at once that way
You, your gf, your bf, and your wife? I’m very confused regarding who lives here
I was a bit loose with my pronouns. :)
Myself, my girlfriend, my best friend, all moved in together. LOL, that place turned out to be condemned by the city and we had to put in our own windows. It was an adventure.
So, I think this story has two parts to it: one from years ago, wherein he moved into a place with his girlfriend and his best friend; and another from today, wherein he moved into a place with his wife. Unclear if it’s the same person as the girlfriend from before.
Yeah probably a polygroup. Some folks date in groups larger than two 🤷
Its more common among queer folks, and also kinky folks (who are also often queer)
Get that bait gel. They eat it then die back in the walls where others eat it and die.
Glue traps.
Seal up everything. Foam for the larger gaps, caulk for everything else. All baseboards.
We live in a rural area near woods. Big thing for our area is that you have to treat the outside too. You bomb for roaches, they leave for a week, then come right back in when it rains. Boric acid all over the inside where you can, especially behind appliances, and the diatomaceous earth around the house. It doesn’t have to be food grade unless you have chickens or something outside that will get into it, and the non food grade is much cheaper.
An exterminator probably, but you can thin the herd by sitting up a trap.
A large preferably glass or metal bowl, and a small ramp up to said bowl. Put some sugar in the bowl and the next day there’ll be some roaches trapped in the bowl. Empty and repeat…
Also those glue traps work well…
I had a minor but very noticeable infestation a few years ago, I’m guessing from a used blender I bought (picked up from someone at a not very nice looking apartment). Tried all kinds of things, and what finally made it go away was Advion bait gel and a general understanding of where they like to be. Just a tiny dab in lots of places. Obviously start in the areas you see them most, but my understanding is that they don’t really like open areas. So put a tiny bit in every little corner, crack, and hole you can find. From what I remember, roaches will eat their own after they die, which means they’ll ingest that bait gel and one “dose” will cause a nice chain reaction.
If they are coming out of the walls, can you treat the walls? Like pour the boric acid in there.
Here in Florida, eventually every house has to be tented for drywall termites and that kills everything.
And heck yeah all hail lizards. I love those little guys. Once in the time before cell phones I saw an epic battle between a lizard and a palmetto bug, the lizard was wrestling this bug that was its size.
Borax. Lots.
