What to do if cockroaches appear in the apartment

Where do cockroaches come from in an apartment?

Contrary to stereotypes, cockroaches can appear not only in an unkempt, dirty home, but also in a clean, tidy apartment. There are several main reasons for their appearance.

  • Migration from neighbors. If people live next door who do not take care of home cleanliness, and parasites breed in their apartment, then sooner or later all the other residents on the floor will encounter unwanted guests, cockroaches will run from apartment to apartment through opening doors. Sometimes insects can migrate through ventilation holes, cracks in walls, and adjacent balconies.
  • Migration from a garbage disposal or basement. Especially often, residents of the 1st and 2nd floors suffer from parasites; if utility services do not maintain cleanliness and order well, the proliferation of insects among sewage and garbage becomes inevitable.
  • With purchases and parcels. You can accidentally bring cockroaches into your home along with newly purchased household furniture or appliances if the insects are found in the store and get into the goods. Sometimes parasites can even travel from country to country along with sealed parcels.

Thus, cockroaches can accidentally get into absolutely any apartment. But at the same time, it depends on the owners themselves how quickly and abundantly the insects will breed around the house and how easy it will be to remove them.

  • The main condition for cockroaches to reproduce is access to water and food debris. Parasites are extremely unpretentious and can survive by feeding on crumbs, rotten garbage, low-quality food, microscopic food particles in the sink and on the table. In this case, it is enough for food waste to appear in open places at least from time to time - parasites do not need to eat every day; they can easily go without food for several weeks.
  • Warm temperatures in the apartment and the presence of many secluded corners behind furniture and baseboards also contribute to the proliferation of parasites. The more cluttered the room is, the more difficult it is to control the appearance of colonies and remove them in a timely manner, since insects hide in hard-to-reach places and lay their eggs there.

Important! In general, insects can appear in absolutely any apartment, but it will be easier to remove them from a clean and neatly tidied home than from a room in which there is unsanitary conditions.

Sticky traps

When a large black cockroach appears in an apartment, you can also use traps of another type to destroy it - small cardboard houses, usually sticky inside. In the middle of such a house there is a bait that is tempting for cockroaches; they confidently move towards it, not knowing that they will remain inside forever, since they are firmly stuck to the walls.

All manufacturers succeed in making sticky traps, so you can safely purchase any boxes - using any of them gives a good result, and does not pose a danger to humans and other animals.

Methods for removing cockroaches from the house

Catching cockroaches one at a time and destroying them with a blow from a newspaper or slipper is an extremely ineffective strategy. To remove large black cockroaches or small red insects, it is necessary to act on the entire colony and not allow the parasites to multiply. To achieve this goal, several methods are practiced.

  • Etching. In this case, obviously poisonous food remains are placed on the cockroaches or problem areas of the apartment are treated with toxic agents with a pungent odor. Cockroaches eat the poison or inhale toxic fumes, after which they quickly die. In general, the method is considered effective, but it has a drawback - only those insects that come into direct contact with the poison die. Other cockroaches remain alive and can reproduce successfully.
  • Freezing - parasites cannot tolerate low temperatures, so they can be removed using extreme ventilation of the room. The disadvantages of this method include the fact that it can only be used in winter, and besides, not only insects, but also communications and indoor flowers can suffer from a decrease in temperature.
  • Treating the premises with insecticides - in this case, toxic substances make it possible to remove not only insects that have come into direct contact with the toxin, but also their relatives, which the cockroaches subsequently successfully infect. The method is very effective because it helps to remove the entire colony, but it may require a temporary move from the apartment, at least for a couple of days.

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To remove parasites from an apartment with minimal effort and time, it is worth familiarizing yourself with all existing methods.

Poisonous gels

So, if there are black cockroaches in your apartment, how to get rid of them? Special poisonous gels, which, as a rule, are sold immediately in large syringes, have an excellent reputation among consumers. They are already ready for use, and you only need to apply the poison in small drops to the baseboard around the entire perimeter of the room at a distance of 10 cm. Black cockroaches will disappear in approximately 3-7 days.

Manufacturers producing gels “Raptor”, “Liquidator”, “Killer”, “Dohloks”, “Globol” know very well how to effectively get rid of cockroaches, and provide the opportunity for everyone affected by a similar problem to do this.

How to remove cockroaches at home using traditional methods

If the colony of cockroaches is not too large and has appeared quite recently, then first you can try home remedies to solve the problem. It is likely that traditional methods will be sufficient.

How to quickly remove cockroaches from an apartment at low temperatures

Cockroaches love warmth, so in the winter they can be removed by freezing the room. The advantage of the method is that you practically don’t have to put in any effort. All you need to do is open the windows when the temperature outside is below freezing and leave the apartment for 3-4 hours to allow the room to cool down properly.

If the temperature in the apartment drops below - 5 °C, then not only the parasites will die, but also their clutches of eggs. However, the method has a number of disadvantages:

  • extreme temperature drops with central heating running can lead to rupture of pipes and radiators;
  • there will probably be places in the apartment where the temperature will not drop to the required values, and, therefore, parasites will be able to survive there;
  • freezing can destroy indoor plants, which simply have nowhere to put them when the entire apartment is ventilated.

Also, electrical appliances may suffer from a sharp drop in temperature, especially if some of them remain turned on.

How to remove cockroaches yourself with plaster

Gypsum powder can be used as a poison. The apartment is treated as follows: gypsum is mixed with flour, cereal or sugar, and then placed in a place accessible to cockroaches.

Along with the edible product, the insect will inevitably eat the plaster, and when it enters the cockroach’s stomach, it will become wet and harden. This cruel method is quite effective, but only cockroaches that have tried the prepared mixture die when using it.

Advice! Using this method, you can remove cockroaches from the refrigerator, but you must first remove the food from it, and then thoroughly wash the inside of the unit.

How to remove cockroaches using boric acid

Boric acid is a deadly poison for insects and helps remove them - this method of control has long proven its effectiveness. The recipe for removing cockroaches with boric acid looks like this:

  • The yolks are removed from raw eggs and mixed with boron powder to form a thick paste;
  • roll small balls from the resulting slurry and let them dry a little;
  • The balls are placed in those places where cockroaches appear most often.

Tempted by the smell of the edible yolk, the cockroaches will try the poison along with it, after which they will inevitably die. However, if you try to remove cockroaches in this way, it can take a lot of time - up to a month.

Attention! When placing boric acid pellets around the house, it is important to ensure that they do not accidentally end up in human food. If there are animals or small children in the house, you will have to abandon the method of removing insects altogether; it will be too risky.

How to remove cockroaches from an apartment forever with ammonia

You can remove black cockroaches from your apartment using ammonia. In this case, the goal is not to poison the cockroaches, but to scare them away from their usual place and force them to leave the apartment.

The fact is that insects have a very developed sense of smell, with the help of which they find the smallest remains of food. If you properly treat the favorite places of cockroaches with ammonia, the pungent smell will confuse them and also cause irritation of the respiratory tract.

The room is treated as follows:

  • 1 small spoon of ammonia is diluted in a liter of water;
  • moisten a rag and sponges in the resulting solution;
  • carry out a full wet cleaning - you need to wipe the floors, window sills, baseboards, doorways and furniture.

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You need to carry out the treatment wearing gloves and a protective mask, and after the procedure, thoroughly ventilate the room. After this, the sharp ammonia smell will become imperceptible to people, but will remain strong for insects and will help remove them.

How to remove large cockroaches from an apartment with kerosene

A good way to get black cockroaches out of your home is kerosene, which is deadly poisonous to most insects. It should be used as follows:

  • Kerosene is mixed with olive oil and shampoo in a ratio of 2:1:3;
  • fill the spray bottle with the resulting mixture;
  • spray the solution over surfaces, furniture and floors in the apartment, paying special attention to treating hard-to-reach corners.

Kerosene has a paralyzing and suffocating effect on parasites, disorients cockroaches and leads to their death. A special advantage is that the substance also affects egg laying - after proper treatment, new cockroaches will no longer appear.

Another method

Still wondering how to get rid of black cockroaches in your apartment? We offer another proven method.

You will need the yolks of raw eggs; they must be mixed with a mixture of boric acid to a paste. This consistency will allow you to form anything you want out of the mass. Make small balls from this paste and give them time to dry thoroughly. Then place the balls in places where insects are most likely to appear. The innate curiosity of cockroaches will guarantee the effectiveness of this product. They will not stop exploring interesting, tasty-smelling balls, and thus your goal - the insect's contact with the poison - will be achieved.

For those who are looking for a way to get rid of black cockroaches quickly, this option is unlikely to be suitable, since it will take 3 or maybe even 4 weeks to kill the insects.

How to remove cockroaches using specialized means

If none of the home methods help, or you simply don’t want to prepare solutions and poisonous mixtures, you can use ready-made specialized products. Among them, we can list several that are particularly effective.

  • Traps - you can buy them at any hardware store. The trap is a small box in which bait is placed - a poison lethal to cockroaches with an edible aroma. Tempted by the smell, the cockroach climbs into the trap and eats the poison, and then goes off to infect its relatives. You can also find electric traps on the market that kill cockroaches with an electric shock when the insect gets inside. However, their effectiveness is lower, since to completely get rid of parasites it is necessary that every cockroach be in the trap.
  • Dust is a product based on the substance pineronyl butoxide. The powder should be scattered along baseboards, under sinks and bathtubs, behind furniture, near the trash can and in other places. You can also prepare a liquid solution according to the instructions on the label and treat the apartment in the same way. The dust is left for 4-6 hours, and then the surfaces are wiped with soapy water or soda solution.
  • Aerosols. It is very simple to remove red cockroaches using sprays; you need to generously spray them over all problem areas, close all the windows in the house, and then leave the apartment for several hours. After returning, you need to open the windows, ventilate the room and carry out wet cleaning. Of course, you only need to spray the aerosol while wearing a respirator, having first removed all household members and pets from the room.

In addition to dust, aerosols and traps, you can find crayons and gels against cockroaches in hardware stores. They are usually used when the population of parasites is small, they treat door and window openings, door frames and furniture walls, the edges of the sink and the floor around the trash can.

Preventive actions

The best way to combat cockroaches is to prevent their occurrence. To prevent parasites from appearing in your apartment, you must:

  • seal all cracks and cracks in walls, window frames and door frames;
  • stretch mesh over windows and ventilation openings;
  • control the serviceability of plumbing - cockroaches often appear in houses with leaking taps and toilets, since they have access to water at any time;
  • dispose of the trash can promptly;
  • wash dishes immediately, without leaving them to sour in the sink for a long time;
  • Do not scatter leftover food and crumbs around the apartment - ideally, eat only in the kitchen.

It is also necessary to carry out a thorough wet cleaning twice a week; it will help clean the room from random unnoticed crumbs, stains and food debris.

The best method is boric acid

If there is a black cockroach in your apartment, the most popular and safest way to get rid of it is to exterminate it using boric acid powder. It can be freely found in pharmacies, it is inexpensive, and to treat an ordinary apartment it is enough to buy only 50-150 grams. This method, unlike many modern and super effective chemicals, is completely harmless to humans and various animals. The product does not leave any sharp unpleasant odors, and the effectiveness is great - for cockroaches there is hardly a more terrible poison.

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