A cockroach infestation in your home is likely if you live in an apartment building in a mega-metropolis. Most apartment buildings in big cities have a basement that provides cockroaches with favorable conditions to live and multiply. Sooner or later, these unwanted guests will make their way to your apartment from the basement. However, you can quickly eliminate these pests from your home if you know how.
Here’s how to get rid of cockroaches in apartments:
- Use a gel bait
- Use traps
- Use pesticide dust
- Use chalk
- Use a roach spray
Let’s go a little deeper on this topic, and explore how each of these methods can help eradicate one of the nastiest pests from your living space.
How to identify cockroaches in your apartment
The first thing that you need to look for to find cockroaches in your apartment are sneaky, six-legged pests that move quickly, have flat bodies, are brown in color, and possess a pair of antennae. This description is of the German cockroach, which is the most common type of cockroach found in apartments and homes. The German cockroach resides and breed indoors and enters an apartment through stored goods, groceries, or laundry facilities shared by the residents of the apartment building.
Typically, cockroaches that enter an apartment will be slightly tanned in color and will measure no more than half an inch in size. The cockroaches will be most active during the night and will stay hidden during the daytime. The favorite hiding places of these pests are inside the crevices of cabinets and the cracks in your walls. They can also hide behind the baseboard and around appliances. Additionally, you can find them near the water and food sources in your home.
Keeping this information in mind, places in your apartment where you are most likely to find cockroaches are your kitchen and bathrooms. However, if there is a cockroach infestation in your home, these pests will not stay confined to the kitchen and bathrooms; they will spread throughout your home.
How to perform an inspection for a possible cockroach infestation in your apartment
After you identify cockroaches in your apartment, the next step will be performing an inspection of your apartment to find out the presence or severity of a cockroach infestation in your home. You can do this by scanning your apartment for signs of the cockroach infestation.
However, before you start scanning your apartment for cockroaches, find out where to look and what to look for. To address the first part, you need to look for a cockroach infestation in moist, secluded, and warm places in your apartment.
You should also look near sources of food and water as well as drawers and cabinets. Two places in your home where you are most likely to find a cockroach infestation are your kitchen and bathroom. So, make sure to look there.
So, you now know where to look for a cockroach infestation in your home, but what exactly do you need to look for?
You need to look for the gathering of cockroaches in the places mentioned above. You also need to look for cockroach droppings; these droppings resemble black peppercorns, and you will find them around your wiring system or power supply. The last sign of a cockroach infestation in your apartment that you need to look for is tiny egg capsules that are oval in shape and brown in color. These are left behind by the adult female cockroaches in your home.
Once you have established the presence and severity of a cockroach infestation in your home, the next step will be to eliminate the cockroaches in your home.
How to get rid of cockroaches in apartments
There are several ways to get rid of cockroaches in apartments. However, before you find out the different ways to eliminate cockroaches from your apartment, you need to understand how these pests get there in the first place.
As mentioned earlier, cockroaches enter a home in an apartment building mostly from the building’s basement. These basements are generally dirty, damp, and warm places with a lot of garbage. Cockroaches use this area to quickly multiply before making their way to an apartment in search of food.
If you leave food behind on the kitchen counter or have leftovers on the floor, then you’re inviting these disgusting little creatures into your home. You also invite them when you don’t take care of your home’s overall hygiene. Sometimes, it is not your fault. If you have neighbors that rarely clean their house, have food lying about, and generally have a poor sense of hygiene, then you should get ready to deal with a potential cockroach infestation in your home.
While a cockroach infestation in an apartment is one hell of a challenge to overcome, you can win this battle in several ways. If the cockroach infestation in your apartment is due to a lack of hygiene on your part, then you will be able to overcome the problem with a few proven ways of eliminating cockroaches in a home. However, if the cockroach infestation in your apartment is not of your own making, then you will have to work twice as hard to get rid of the roaches in your home.
The good news is that you can eliminate the cockroaches in your home regardless of what caused them. The process of eliminating cockroaches in an apartment starts with their identification, followed by an inspection to determine the severity of the infestation. Following is what each of these processes entails.
Below are five easy ways to get rid of the cockroaches in your apartment to ensure both your health and peace of mind.
1. Use a gel bait
One of the most effective yet affordable ways to get rid of the cockroaches in your apartment is using a gel bait. These baits are known to kill cockroaches effectively. The bait comes in tube form and can be placed in crevices, within cracks, and around baseboards to get rid of cockroaches in an apartment.
2. Use traps
These are round boxes with more than one entry point. Once the cockroaches enter the box, a poison awaits them inside the trap. The roaches pick up the poison and take it back to their nest, killing all cockroaches living there. But, why would the cockroaches enter the box in the first place? Because they are attracted to the smell coming from it.
The best places to keep these traps are the areas in your apartment where cockroaches are known to gather. You need to consider the kitchen and bathrooms. The traps can stay effective for up to three months, and typically, six traps come in one package. The only con associated with traps is that they can be quite expensive for some people living in apartments.
3. Use pesticide dusts
There are three different types of pesticide dust—boric acid, diatomaceous earth, and silica. Upon ingestion, boric acid can cause toxicity inside a cockroach. On the other hand, diatomaceous earth and silica can damage and destruct the exoskeleton of the pest. The best way to use the pesticide dust is by placing it around cracks in the bathroom and kitchen, around appliances, and inside cabinets.
4. Use chalk
Using a chalk designed for eliminating insects is perhaps the easiest way to get rid of the cockroaches in your apartment. You should use the chalk to trace cracks, skirting boards, and water access points. We recommend using a chalk to eliminate the cockroaches in your home because it is not only effective at killing roaches but also super affordable and safe for any pets in your apartment.
5. Use a roach spray
One of the most commonly used products to eliminate cockroaches in apartments, a roach spray should be applied to areas in your apartment where the roaches are known to gather. Doing this will disinfect the areas with the roaches to get rid of these pests.