How to get rid of cockroaches in an apartment forever. Cockroach repellent

The problems of protecting private houses and apartments from insects become especially urgent when the summer season begins. Pests can multiply very quickly under favorable conditions. They are even able to colonize new territories within just a few days. If there is enough food in the house, then the colony multiplies and expands at a truly frightening pace.

If we talk about the most common pests in our homes, it is worth highlighting:

- cockroaches. Considered one of the most ancient forms of life on the planet, it is very difficult to get rid of them on your own;

- bedbugs. They lead a very hidden lifestyle, only going out to hunt at night. They feed on the blood of domestic animals and humans. Bed bugs are especially dangerous to young children;

- fleas. They penetrate into people's homes, usually settling on pets or human shoes. They can inflict painful bites.

Note that the fight against small pests must begin when they are first detected. The faster you take measures to eliminate them, the greater the chances of a positive result of the fight. Next, let's talk about how to deal with insects that have settled in the house.

Fighting cockroaches in an apartment

What cockroaches look like
There are a lot of ways to fight cockroaches, and each has its own disadvantages and advantages. It is also important to consider how long ago pests appeared in the house, whether there are pets, and whether it is possible to leave your home for a while.

The most famous ones that will help make domestic cockroaches go away and how to get rid of them forever:

Crayons

The method is quite effective, but has one big drawback - the toxicity of this product /

If there are animals or children in the house, then you need to use the product with extreme caution.

Gels

They are convenient because they can be applied to the most inaccessible places, into which a child or animal is unlikely to be able to climb, they also have an “infection effect”, an insect that comes into contact with the gel will poison everyone else when it returns to the flock.

Sprays

The spray will destroy pests.
Aerosols effectively kill insects that come under their influence.

However, it does not affect well-hidden cockroaches and is dangerous for animals and children.

Sticky traps

They act on the principle of bait, have a delicacy smell, thanks to which insects crawl onto the sticky surface and stick tightly.

Important! The product is ineffective, because it only works on those insects that have climbed into the trap, and does not neutralize insect eggs and their larvae

Does vinegar help against cockroaches?

This product is not intended to poison parasites, but only has a repellent effect on them, which can be considered a disadvantage of this method.

Vinegar is used only to combat a small number of insects and to prevent their reappearance in the room. As long as this irritant is present in the favorite habitats of cockroaches, they cannot return there.

Vinegar for home pest control

Everyone wants a cockroach repellent that is cheap, effective, and has no toxic effect on pets and small children. Vinegar may well be such a remedy. Many people have already tested whether cockroaches are afraid of vinegar, and the effectiveness of vinegar against domestic cockroaches has already been proven. The principle of its action against cockroaches is quite simple: these insects are very afraid of an acidic environment, this smell causes them significant harm and the likelihood that they will escape is quite high.

You should not expect that immediately after pouring vinegar, cockroaches will immediately fall into piles; it is quite difficult to kill them in this way, but it is possible to eradicate them.

Vinegar

A homemade vinegar-based spray is especially popular in the fight against Prussians. It’s quite simple to prepare, you will need:

• one teaspoon of vinegar;
• a few drops of essential oils;
• approximately 500 ml of water.

Note! All components for the spray are thoroughly mixed and poured into a spray bottle for more convenient and precise use. Treatment must be carried out primarily in places where insects build nests and in those where they feed. These could be ventilation grilles, baseboards, hidden areas of furniture where the Prussians could easily settle down.

The second available method of using vinegar against cockroaches is to place small bowls filled with vinegar in places where cockroaches may accumulate and feed. Thus, the Prussians will not be able to get to their favorite places, they will be left without food, and most likely they will go to get food for themselves in other places. This method is only suitable for those who do not have pets or children at home, who can easily get to the saucers with vinegar.

Using acetic acid against cockroaches has both its pros and cons. Among the advantages are the low cost of such a product, the effectiveness of the effect, provided that the treatment is carried out regularly, as well as the lack of toxicity for people and animals.

The most common disadvantages include the need for daily treatment of the apartment for several weeks, a constant unpleasant smell in the apartment, as well as the fact that cockroaches do not die from vinegar, but simply change their habitat. And often, as soon as the treatment of the apartment is stopped, the insects return to their former habitat, and even in greater numbers than before.

How to use

There are many essences - there are apple cider vinegar, grape cider vinegar, exotic rice cider vinegar and others, but only the usual 9% vinegar essence helps in the fight against cockroaches. The rest can, on the contrary, attract insects with their aroma.

Use both pure vinegar and a spray based on it. When treating large open spaces, a cloth soaked in acetic acid will help. They wipe it with:

• furniture;
• floors;
• walls;
• sinks and other plumbing fixtures, etc.

To see how cockroaches escape from hard-to-reach places, prepare a spray in the following proportion: per glass of water - a tablespoon of vinegar and 5-6 drops of essential oil with a pungent odor. For processing, use an empty package from any household product with a spray bottle; water is first poured into it, then the rest is added and shaken. Spray vinegar spray into cracks, narrow spaces behind furniture, behind carpets, baseboards and corners, heating radiators - everything where a hand with a rag cannot fit.

The kitchen space is treated especially carefully - from the cabinet and shelves to the trash can and grille on the ventilation hole. The refrigerator door also needs treatment - rubber coating around the edges.

Effective use of vinegar as a deterrent is only possible with constant periodic treatment of the area. To consolidate the effect, wash the floors with vinegar: a tablespoon per liter of water. However, you should take into account the nature of the floor coverings so as not to see tarnished parquet or discolored linoleum.

An undiluted essence poured into a saucer, which should be placed in places where the insect drinks - in sinks, in a bathtub, etc., will also help to lime cockroaches. It is advisable to wipe the surfaces dry so that no moisture remains. The effect will be strengthened by blocked access to food - all dishes are washed after eating, food is removed from the table and all crumbs are swept away. There should be nothing edible left. By the way, in order not to make the removal of cockroaches endless, do not glue anything indoors on flour or starch paste. This is excellent food for cockroaches, and it will be very difficult to remove them, for example, from under wallpaper glued to such glue.

What other folk remedies can you use against Prussians in an apartment?

Turpentine
Boric acid is rightfully considered the most effective folk remedy against insects in residential areas. Its method of exposure is quite aggressive for insects; it is best to treat your home with acid while wearing seals and a medical mask on your face.

An equally effective method is to use ammonia. It works on the same principle as boric acid. A significant disadvantage is that ammonia quickly dissipates, so the treatment will have to be done quite often, daily and several times a day.

You can also scare away insects using bay leaves, geranium, and pyrethrum. Prussians are extremely sensitive to pungent odors, and such methods can force insects to leave their homes in search of a new one. The action is quite mild, but if there are not a whole horde of cockroaches in the house yet, then it is possible to get the desired effect.

On a note! Kerosene and turpentine also have extremely unpleasant odors, but you need to be prepared for the fact that you yourself will also have to constantly inhale the unpleasant odor.
It is better to move to another home during the treatment; such strong odors can cause at least constant headaches in a person.

How effective is it?

It is worth talking about effectiveness only taking into account all the accompanying factors. For example, if you notice a cockroach running around in your kitchen, you need to immediately treat the surfaces, it will definitely come back and more than once, and the smell of acid will signal danger, they will not come back again.

Let's consider another option, when the situation is not very simple and you have a large number of baleen insects. You have to look at things realistically; it is almost impossible to treat absolutely the entire room, which means that it is quite possible that they will sit in a secluded corner and not leave the home. After all, the sour smell will not kill them, but will simply scare them at the moment. Another disadvantage is that the scent fades and will have to be renewed regularly, which is also almost impossible. Therefore, in this case, the use of stronger chemicals will be required.

Another situation is that there are no cockroaches in your apartment, but you know that your neighbors have very favorable conditions for these insects and you are worried that sooner or later they will appear in your place. Here the option with vinegar will be most effective as a preventive action. After all, when they come to visit you, they will receive a signal of danger and leave.

Ventilation of the room after treatment

After treating the apartment with vinegar against cockroaches, all windows should be closed for a while and not ventilated. This method of fighting Prussians is based precisely on their intolerance to the vinegar smell. It is better to leave the home for a short time, leaving it completely clogged, since such a concentrated smell can negatively affect the residents of the apartment. It should also be remembered that some furniture may deteriorate from constant exposure to acetic acid.

Advantages of using vinegar

There are quite a few advantages, and the main one is that acetic acid is environmentally friendly. Concerns that pets may somehow suffer from this product are exaggerated: the pungent smell of vinegar also affects them, so neither cats nor dogs will climb into the saucer with the prepared mixture and will not lick it off the baseboards.

Other positive points:

• vinegar is cheap and available;
• the treatment can be reused without restrictions;
• Use acetic acid to safely treat areas where food is prepared.

The effectiveness of the product will increase if you use various combinations, changing the recipe - for example, using mint, eucalyptus, camphor and other essential oils in turn, first checking the sensitivity of household members to their smell.

How to remove cockroaches if they won't go away

Treatment of an apartment to destroy cockroaches
If ancient insects refuse to leave the premises they have owned, and all attempts to exterminate them only end in a decrease in the population, then the issue should be approached more globally and seriously. Most likely, you will have to turn to the services of a pest control service. Before such a procedure, it is necessary to remove all food products from the house and move to other housing for a while.

As soon as the exterminators have finished their work and the cockroaches have been eradicated, it is necessary to wash the entire apartment, wash all the dishes and kitchen furniture, and thoroughly wash the furniture. If we are talking about an apartment building, then the problem may lie in the fact that cockroaches live in several apartments at once and to get rid of them you need to join forces and carry out a global disinfestation of all nearby apartments. Sometimes the scale of the situation is so large that all the apartments in the entrance have to be treated.

Whether or not vinegar helped against cockroaches, reviews will tell you.

Preventive measures

When moving into a new apartment or undertaking renovation of an old home, it is necessary to immediately take preventive measures to prevent the appearance of cockroaches. So it follows:

• remove all layers of old wallpaper;
• fill existing holes and cracks on surfaces;
• cover the ventilation holes with fine mesh;
• check the water supply and eliminate all leaks, adjust the taps;
• Take out the trash regularly and cover the bin with a lid at night;
• store food, cereals, fruits and vegetables in places specially designed for this purpose;
• wipe the sink dry and do not leave dirty dishes behind;
• periodically treat baseboards with special disinfectants.

Anyone who wants to live in a clean apartment and not see cockroaches in their living space will adhere to the above recommendations. The main thing is to maintain cleanliness and maintain order in everything, preventing the appearance of “uninvited guests”.

Reviews

Anastasia, Solikamsk: “For a long time we suffered from an invasion of cockroaches in our house, we thought about how to kill cockroaches in the apartment ourselves and decided to try vinegar, since this method is quite harmless to others, we took the recipe from the Internet.

This is what we did: we made a concentrated spray with apple cider vinegar, and all the ingredients were added there in double quantity, just to be sure. After which we thoroughly sprayed all the corners and baseboards, and also washed the floor with this solution. This type of cleaning was repeated twice a day for several days. There are practically no cockroaches, over the last week only two crawled out, and they were immediately killed, now there is silence. This is a fairly effective method; I will continue to use the solution periodically for prevention.”

Victoria, Anapa: “So my apartment came to be attacked in the form of red-haired Prussians, I tried to place glasses and saucers with a proportion of acetic acid in the corners of the apartment, there was a fear because of small children, there was a fear that they would be afraid of pests. After a couple of days, the cockroaches became noticeably smaller, but they did not disappear completely. It seems to me that the most effective way to combat them would be to combine the use of vinegar and special chemicals. Alone, vinegar only reduces their flock, it does not completely remove it.”

If we compare vinegar with other methods of getting rid of cockroaches, we can say that this method is quite gentle. Chemical agents, as a rule, are aimed at destroying cockroaches immediately. Some folk remedies also tend to kill cockroaches rather than drive them away. These include boric acid or ammonia. If the insects have just appeared and have not yet appeared in flocks in the apartment, you can use vinegar against cockroaches. It is also useful to use vinegar to prevent the appearance of insects in your home. If a more powerful agent is needed, it is better to turn to chemical agents, or combine treatment with vinegar and the use of special destructive agents.

Current issues regarding the extermination of cockroaches

Below are some common questions people ask about how to get rid of cockroaches in your home.

How to find a nest of cockroaches in an apartment?

Nest of cockroaches.

There are certain tips that can help isolate the area of ​​the premises where cockroaches are nesting. Look for visual clues such as insect droppings.

The search begins with examining the kitchen and bathroom. If nothing is found, the next step is to check all the dark, tight spaces in the apartment: the space under large electrical appliances, wall cavities, and internal storage areas (closets, alcoves). After the nesting sites have been found, the above means can be used.

Are cockroaches afraid of vinegar?

Vinegar, especially white vinegar, is another common household ingredient that is touted as an effective cockroach killer/repellent. It can often be found among tips on how to get rid of cockroaches using folk remedies.

But this is a misconception. Vinegar is not used to kill insects. But it is good for cleaning, which forces cockroaches to seek refuge elsewhere.

There is no particular reason for cockroaches to seek refuge in a well-sanitized apartment where there is not enough food and water. One such cleaning will help get rid of most of the insects.

Do cockroaches die when they are flushed down the toilet?

One common way to deal with live cockroaches is to flush them down the toilet. It is a mistake to think that parasites are sent to a watery grave. The toilet bowl is not completely filled with water. Cockroaches will not drown if they can gain a foothold on a dry section of pipes. In addition, they are able to hold their breath underwater for up to 40 minutes. Therefore, flushing down the toilet is not the best option for getting rid of cockroaches.

Why do cockroaches come out to die?

There is no clear reason why many cockroaches are left to die in the open. One theory suggests that this behavior is associated with confusion and body spasms.

Cockroaches, especially those exposed to pesticides, may topple over and die on their backs as the chemical can affect their nervous system and cause them to experience some form of muscle spasm. They are unable to easily return to a vertical position due to the weight of their bodies.

12 natural ways to get rid of cockroaches forever.