Burn it all down
November 9, 2019 8:43 AM   Subscribe

Advise me on roach sitings and how to get rid of the *****ers. Complication: new house, a couple of innocuous bug sitings, and prior apartment had roaches but was regularly sprayed.

Since moving ~ a month ago, we have seen 4 roaches, possibly different species.
-first was in the basement, medium sized. Found and killed it.
-small one in the living room, dead in glass of water left out overnight.
-medium sized one on a bakers rack I bought on FB marketplace and had just brought inside, spotted after moving coffee machine and accessories onto it that had been on the kitchen countertops. Escaped into a hole in the rack and not spotted again.
-inside a kitchen cabinet, husband said it was larger than #3, killed. I am trying to tell myself this was the same as #3, but he doesn’t think so.

After spotting #2, I bought roach motels and placed 4 in the basement. After spotting #3, I placed 2 in the kitchen.

I have also see a couple spiders around the house, a large brown beetle on the stairs, and a couple of those curly things in the basement.

Our basement is unfinished and has a sump. There’s some sort of lip on that edge, perhaps in case of overflow? Not sure.

The first floor has a front and back door. Front door opens to the sidewalk/street with not much going on. Back door opens to the driveway/small patch of soil with overgrown vegetation (on our list of projects to tackle!) and the trash and recycling cans are out there.

The house is recently built, city rowhome, connected directly on both sides with a firewall. There’s a coffee shop down the street but no huge dumpsters.

Our last apartment had a roach problem, stemming from the trash chute/combined vents. We got our apartment sprayed, but they didn’t spray regularly. I constantly found dead baby roaches in the cabinets and it was awful. We also had a downstairs storage area that was not treated and was adjacent to the dumpster room.

We tried to take precautions when moving, and wiping down the items in cupboards.

So basically... how much do I have to worry about an infestation? What precautions should I be taking? Google is somewhere between “burn it all down” and “nbd.

To top it off, I am extremely squeamish about bugs in general, have had nightmares about giant roaches coming for me, etc. So while I have no problem setting the traps, I haven’t been able to work up checking them except for a glance in their general direction.
posted by DoubleLune to Home & Garden (12 answers total)
 
I would assume that if you have seen more than one that you have an infestation on your hands. I would call an exterminator if I were you.
posted by fancyoats at 9:03 AM on November 9, 2019 [2 favorites]


Re: them maybe being different species - roaches molt multiple times before adulthood and their shape changes a fair bit between babyhood and adulthood, so just because they look somewhat different doesn't necessarily mean they are different species.

I would get an exterminator in for your own peace of mind. But also, please remember that roaches have no interest in you and can't hurt you, they are just annoying and gross. Try not to let this take over your thoughts. You are safe.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:55 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


Roaches can hurt you though - they're powerful allergens and trigger asthma.
posted by entropone at 10:05 AM on November 9, 2019


Boric acid powder. Cheap & really works.
posted by flug at 10:43 AM on November 9, 2019 [3 favorites]


The issue is that even bug bombing your house isn't going to get rid of them forever if your neighbors don't bomb at the same time. If they can travel at all between units (likely), they'll just go next door and come back when it's safe. I'd talk to an exterminator and then your neighbors to see if you can club together on a full building bug bomb.

Please take care of yourself during this, overwhelming anxiety is so challenging and I'm really sorry you have to deal with this. If you're having allergies, it may be best if you stay away from the house as much as possible until it's taken care of. If that's not possible, at least get a good hepa filter for your bedroom.
posted by ananci at 11:32 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


I've had really good results against the small ones with those roach motel traps. LOTS of traps.
posted by thelonius at 2:08 PM on November 9, 2019


I'm going to go with "nbd" four roaches is not an infestation or call-the-exterminator territory. I used to live in the southern US and it would not raise my eyebrow to see four roaches in a day, and my last few years down there were spent living in an impenetrable modernist concrete box. It's sort of a joke down there that non-southern tourists can't handle the truth about the roaches, so they have a euphemism - "palmetto bugs". So maybe this is a regional thing but I would not have in it me to get worked up over 4 of them.

Boric acid ("Borax" laundry detergent) can work wonders, highly recommend. They also are highly attracted to coffee grounds, I used to use that to make traps (put grounds in a container with water and line the top of it with vaseline - they'll drown).

I'll skip the story about the time I made a 5 gallon bucket trap and left it near my trash cans one summer. Let's just say the local population was severely reduced that day.
posted by bradbane at 3:56 PM on November 9, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'd thrown out some traps and some boric acid but not freak out. The spray is nasty, nasty stuff and I personally think people are fucking insane to cover their houses and belongings in it. It's a neurotoxin!
posted by fshgrl at 4:26 PM on November 9, 2019


We have "palmetto bugs" here - actually big American cockroaches, like 1 to 1 1/2" long. They can fly. They live outside in leaf litter but seem to have a communal desire to homestead.
I tried hotel type traps, not much luck, nor with bait stations other than the ones that have a liquid in them, but still not good enough.
Then I read about mixing sugar 50/50 with baking soda and leaving paper plates of it around in "likely to be foraged" areas. That ended the problem. Evidently the baking soda destroys the roach digestive tract. And I don't have to worry about the cat getting into it, or poisoning the house with who knows what insecticide.
posted by rudd135 at 7:58 PM on November 9, 2019 [3 favorites]


I rolled my eyes when Mrs. TheCoug suggested mixing boric acid with agave nectar to combat roaches in our kitchen, and was delighted to be proven wrong. Worked like a charm!
posted by TheCoug at 7:23 AM on November 10, 2019 [2 favorites]


I wouldn't necessarily discount that you have 2 different species. My apartment has had roaches ever since they did some roof work. 99% of the time it's the small American type, but I've seen the larger German types as well. The glue traps work pretty well in corners. My building, 5 units, gets sprayed usually quarterly.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:01 PM on November 10, 2019


I had a random-roach sighting in my pier-and-beam house, perhaps maybe 2-3 in a year's time, but then maybe 8-10 the second year. In searching for a solution, I came across a bait that squirts out kinda like a tiny caulk-gun. I put some on some notecards (so as not to stain the surface I were to squish the food out onto) and placed those cards next to areas I had seen spotted any. Haven't seen any in over a year since then.

It is my understanding that roaches will cannibalize on other roaches; when one dies with the food in their system, the roach that eats them will also die, and the one after that, etc.

(#notasponsor) Brand is Combat(^tm) Max Roach Killing Gel, and the lady at the ranching supply store I asked about them, said this particular brand worked for her very well.
posted by Quarter Pincher at 9:19 PM on November 12, 2019


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