Cockroaches are among the most common pests in Texas. Cockroaches enter homes, offices and just about any structure in a variety of ways. Typically outdoor creatures, cockroaches inhabit wood piles, decaying trees or even sewer systems.
They can enter your home through loose-fitting doors and windows, where electrical lines and water pipes pass through walls, up through sewer lines or in seasoned firewood. Their ability to flatten their bodies allows these pests access to homes through even the smallest of cracks and crevices. Cockroaches even gain entry from infested boxes, grocery bags, beverage cartons, furniture, appliances or bags of dried pet food.
A Cockroach infestation is a real hazard to your health. While relatively harmless themselves, they can contaminate food and kitchen utensils with excrement and salivary secretions. Roaches crawl through dirty areas and then walk through your home tracking around bacteria and germs. They contaminate food by shedding their skins and waste products that can trigger allergic reactions, asthma and other illnesses, particularly in children.
Cockroach Facts:
- Cockroaches have been around since the time of dinosaurs!
- A cockroach can live almost a month without food.
- A cockroach can live about two weeks without water.
- Some female cockroaches only mate once and stay pregnant for life!
- Cockroaches can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes!
- Cockroaches can run up to 3 miles an hour.
- Roaches primarily come out for water, not food
- A roach can live a week without a head. It dies after a week due to lack of water
- A cockroach that has just shed it is skin is white and has black eyes. It takes 8 hours to reproduce the skin layer.
- Laboratory female roaches are able to reproduce without aid of a male. They produce all female offspring
- Cockroaches thrive in all conditions and live in the desert and the arctic
- Most roaches have the ability to fly, but not all do.
Although many think that cockroaches are afraid of light, they are not. They prefer darkness but are not afraid of the light. To a cockroach, light means "man here," so they scurry to get away. Some people think roaches must have eyes in the back of their heads, but they don't. They do have tiny little hairs that gage the air movement around them, so they feel you; they don't see you from behind.
Roaches love onions and they do eat meat. Roaches are omnivores so they will eat just about anything including dead animals.
The reason substances like boric acid work to kill roaches is that they routinely clean themselves and each other. Thus, boric acid on their bodies will be consumed and kill them, and some of their friends. Boric acid can be made into a paste with flour and sugar and used as bait.
Proper sanitation, both indoors and outdoors, effectively limits cockroach populations. This can be done by cleaning up all spills immediately, and frequently cleaning areas beneath and behind cabinets, furniture, sinks, stoves and refrigerators. Sealing cracks more than 1/8 of an inch from foundation and exterior walls, as well as immediately attending to leaky faucets. However once an infestation goes unchecked it may be necessary to hire professional pest removal services to combat the spread of the infestation.
So if you have a cockroach infestation, call John Moore Pest Control today or use the form below to schedule an appointment.