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by Santaanacanyon on July 21st, 2003

Santaanacanyon

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What works best in getting rid of roaches?

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  • by Stephanie Davies on July 31st, 2003

    Stephanie Davies

    Ahh roaches, lovely little critters that invade your home, and wouldn'tseem to die if you dropped an atomic bomb on them - they would just clean off their antennae and keep on truckin!

    The good news is, I have had "experience" in the past with this very problem (read that as a 3 and half year headache and pest control bills that could break a millionire).

    The first place to start is a clean home. People may not always *get* roaches from having a dirty home, but they tend to stick around when the eating is good. So to start, make it a rule to never leave food laying about, always keep your dishes washed, vaccuum like a maniac, and keep everything as clean and spotless as you possibly can! Roaches generally do not like to hang around in clean places.

    Secondly, you are gonna want to kill off as many as you can. You will find that there are literally hundreds of commercially prepared treatments for cockroach infestation. You also have the choices of professional extermination, bombs, foggers, etc, etc.

    One thing to know about all these treatments vs. roaches, is that cockroaches are HIGHLY adaptable insects and can become "immune" or resistant to certain chemical treatments. To illustrate:

    Let's say cockroach #1 is living in Bobs house. She's pregnant, and is about ready to have lots of baby cockroaches. Bob decides to spray her and her other roach friends with Raid. The Raid kills off, say, 95% of the population. But cockroach #1 survives, and starts to build up an immunity to Raid. She has her babies, which move to Joe's Apartment next door (yep that was an intentional joke). Being already somewhat immune to Raid, Joe might try to kill them with Raid, but will onlyl kill about 5% of them.

    So in summation, the treatment you may use may not work on "your" roaches. You may have to mix and match a few different kinds to get the best result.

    Now for the good news.

    One treatment that works extremely well on almost any infestation of roaches, is Boric Acid. It comes labled under many different names as roach treatment (frequently is called Roach-Proof), but is always a powder, and is blue or white in color.

    After you have finished getting your house super-clean, just sprinkle the roach-proof anywhere you can, along baseboards, doorways, underneath appliances, and anywhere roaches can hide.

    Roach hotels do a pretty decent job also if you buy the souped up kinds.

    Professional exterminators do a really good job, but are extremely expensive.

    Sprays, such as Raid and similar products, don't really do a very good job, and really only work if you can spray a roach directly on the head with it, and even then sometimes it doesn't!

    So basically, you want to look at cleanliness, treatment, and further prevention (keeping things clean!). You may have to use several combinations of the above suggestions before the roaches completely go away, but it *is* possible to eliminate them! Best of luck to you!

    Comments

    • How does Boric Acid kill the roaches?

      Santaanacanyon

      by Santaanacanyon on August 2nd, 2003

    • Thorough and well-written. Thanks for sharing your knowledge & experience.

      Jodie44

      by Jodie44 on June 22nd, 2005

    • Very informative answer.

      mistje

      by mistje on July 6th, 2008

    • I think you covered everything!

      Babycakes

      by Babycakes on July 6th, 2008

    • Hi Babycakes! How are you? And hi to you, too, mistje!
      Hope your weekend is going well:)

      Jodie44

      by Jodie44 on July 6th, 2008

    • Hey Jodie! Feeling blah today, no reason just blah. What's happening at your end!?

      Babycakes

      by Babycakes on July 6th, 2008

    • Hi Jodie and Babycakes! My weekend is going good... did some cleaning, had a glass shelf installed in the kitchen for our stemware and beer glasses, and now I'm studying the ol' Dutch. Hugs to both of ya!

      mistje

      by mistje on July 6th, 2008

    • http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-fires6-2008jul06,0,6152509.story
      This is what's happening at my end! I'm safe, but it's been an awful 4 or 5 days.

      Jodie44

      by Jodie44 on July 6th, 2008

    • Wow Jodie...I hope you are far away from those flames! Stay safe!

      Babycakes

      by Babycakes on July 6th, 2008

    • You are in my thoughts Jodie... please stay safe! :(

      mistje

      by mistje on July 6th, 2008

    • Thanks y'all, really, I'm fine! Scary for a while there, though.

      Jodie44

      by Jodie44 on July 6th, 2008

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