10 Good Habits to Develop to Never See Flying Roaches Again
May 17, 2019
Next to termites and rodents, cockroaches are probably the most disgusting critters you can find in your homes. Do you want to know what’s even worse than roaches? Flying cockroaches! As if being germs on six legs wasn’t enough, God decided to give them wings to spread their bacteria-infested insect bodies all the more.
Flying roaches are known to make even the toughest, most macho of men run and scream like little sissy girls when they flutter in their presence. Macho or not, if cockroaches are fluttering all over the place, maybe it’s best to call pest control services.
But sometimes, there is no quick fix to a flying roach infestation. The root cause is, ultimately, the habits we develop. An unclean kitchen or room may be the reason why flying roaches have developed a preference for your home amongst others. In order to eliminate flying roaches for good, here are 10 good habits you need to develop.
Habit #1: Cleanliness
Just like any other pest, flying cockroaches are attracted to the scents of improperly stored food and drink. Make sure your kitchen and room are free from food crumbs and stains. Also, store food and drink in airtight containers, so flying roaches cannot infect them. As an added precaution, do store your leftovers in the refrigerator, since cold temperatures repel cockroaches and other insects.
Habit #2: Prevention
Since flying roaches are small, they can fit in through cracks or other openings they may find in your home. Make that all windows and doors leading outside are closed so that flying cockroaches and other pests don’t find their way in your home. Seal any holes you find around your home with screen mesh or cracks with silicone sealant.
Habit #3: Regular Gardening
Flying roaches like tall grass, wet wood, and other damp places they can find in your garden. Getting rid of places where these insects, and other pests, frequently inhabit will reduce their infestations in your home.
Habit #4: Purchasing Roach Motels & Other Traps
If you definitely see flying roaches in your house, one effective way of catching them is purchasing a Roach Motel trap. Place near wall corners (especially in the kitchen) and beneath appliances. Roach Motels attract and trap/kill roaches with glucose bait (laced with poison) inside or a sticky substance inside.
Another effective method to do this is purchase sticky paper and leave them in the same places at night. Chances are, you might find a roach or two the next day.
Habit #5: Get Rid of Cellulose-Based Materials
Roaches and termites love making homes in piles of newspaper, paper bags, and cardboard. Be sure you take these out of your house so these pests don’t have an open invitation to stay in your house.
Habit #6: Call Your Exterminator for Regular Inspection
Because let’s face it, when all the D-I-Y methods don’t work anymore, it’s time to call in specialists to deal with your flying cockroach problem.
Habit #7: Have a Water Spray Ready
Generally, cockroaches fly when they are disturbed. This is why is it terrifying to try to kill them because the slightest irritation could lead them to take flight. However, the very first thing you could do to make sure that they don’t fly is to spray them with water or, better yet, to douse them with a small cup of it. Cockroach wings are very light and they cannot function if it is drenched in water. When the roach cannot fly, it will be vulnerable and you can kill it easily.
Habit #8: Keep the Temperature Low
Cockroaches tend to fly more often when the temperature is hot. The Chairperson of the Biology Department of the University of Texas, Srini Kambhampati, said that “Because of the extreme heat, they may be trying to find a more comfortable place in which to live”. In search of said place, they desperately scour for it which why they resort to flying.
If ever your preventive measures have failed and you see cockroaches inside your home, then try to keep the temperature low so that they don’t fly and become difficult to kill.
Habit #9: Minimize the Amount of Wood Around Your Home
Primarily, you want to minimize the amount of wood in your home to discourage termites from infesting your home. However, for flying cockroaches, you want to minimize this amount that is outside your home. This is because most of the roaches that are capable of flying are of the wooden variety. These types of roaches prefer to live outdoors, moist sources of wood such as wood piles, inside decaying logs, and under the loose bark of trees, logs or branches.
When it comes time to mate, these critters will find their way into your home. Once they do get to reproduce inside your home, they will quickly infest your space.
Also, be careful when bringing in firewood from the outside. These roaches may hitch a ride on these pieces of wood and get to enter your home. When you have the time, seal any holes and openings in your pile of firewood.
Habit #10: Use Dimmers and Keep the Brightness Low
From wood roaches, the males are the more active flyers. The males have also been shown to be more attracted to light than females. When they see bright sources of light from your home, they will try to find cracks and openings so they can enter and find this source. To prevent or minimize this, use dimmers on your lights or don’t open too much light at night.
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https://mynaturalpestsolutions.com/ca/pest-control-richmond-bc/
Cockroaches: Americans versus Germans
May 2, 2019
There are thousands of different species of cockroaches, and the two more easily identifiable, and the two more popular ones from the 55 species found in the US, are the American and German cockroaches.
It is thought widely that these roaches immigrated with sailors when they brought over plants, spices, animals and other insects from different parts of the world.
How do you tell the two apart?
The largest species of cockroach would be the American cockroach, which can measure up to 3 inches (not counting the antennae’s length). They also have the longest lifespan for a cockroach, which in cockroach terms, is considerably long at up to 2 years.
The American cockroach is a reddish brown color. They are a flattened, oval shape. They also have a very distinct pattern on their backs, just below their heads, that looks like the number 8. Immature roaches don’t have wings, but adults do, and while they are capable of flight, they’re not regular fliers and prefer to scamper across the ground with their 6 legs at very fast speeds (up to 3 miles per hour, which makes them one of the fastest insects out there).
Like most of its species, they can feed off a lot of things, from trash to other dead cockroaches.
The German cockroach also has a distinct pattern on its back – but where the American cockroach has a figure 8 pattern, for the German cockroach it’s two dark stripes on their back that are parallel. They’re tan or brown in color, and are known as the most common cockroach found in residential homes in the US and in the world. These roaches are smaller than their American counterparts at about half an inch, and they only live for about 200 hundred days.
While they have wings, similar to the American cockroach, they’re also not regular fliers and prefer to move on the ground instead.
They have been observed to eat common household toiletries like toothpaste, soap, even things like glue. Where the American cockroach will eat another dead cockroach, the German cockroach has been known to kill a live one to eat in more extreme cases of hunger.
Both species can survive several weeks without any food, but will die without water or moisture for more than two weeks.
It is often said that when you see one cockroach, there’s likely a whole colony of them, or as it is more formally known, interestingly enough, a cockroach intrusion.
Another sign you have them in your home is if you see their egg capsules, which are dark brown or a very dark red, which they leave behind glued to walls or other surfaces near sources of food, and many people report a musty smell when there’s a heavy cockroach infestation in an area.
Contributed by: Watchdog Pest Control – Experts in Cockroach extermination
Watchdog Pest Control
3542 East Altadena Avenue
Phoenix, Az. 85028