A big problem for many apartment residents is the appearance of cockroaches. They are one of the most common pests living near humans. They can be installed both in residential buildings and in various commercial and industrial buildings. Cockroaches are no longer so harmless to humans, because they carry many diseases, and their presence worsens the sanitary condition of the home. As soon as at least a few insects are found in the apartment, you need to immediately begin to destroy them, otherwise there will be many more of them.
Places where cockroaches gather outside human habitation
If for these insects proximity to humans is vital, then negative emotions predominate in society due to one-sided symbiosis: from the manifestation of individual feelings of disgust to infection with dangerous diseases. Most often, cockroaches settle in unsanitary places, namely:
- Landfills
- Abandoned Cellars
- Garbage chutes
- Garbage bins
The proximity of such elements to human habitats determines the increased risk of insect infestation of housing. Human housing is ideally suited for the life of cockroaches: an abundance of food and water, as well as dark corners where they can hide during the day, comfortable temperature and humidity, and rare competition with other representatives of the animal world.
Chemicals
Cleaning and folk remedies alone are not enough to rid your apartment of cockroaches forever. To combat Prussians, you will certainly need to use various insecticidal preparations. Let's talk about the most popular chemicals.
Aerosols and sprays
Today, people use aerosols less and less to kill barbels, since there is a risk of the sprayed product getting into the human respiratory tract and the likelihood that cockroaches will be able to adapt to it. You will have to use different aerosols each time so that the insects do not become accustomed to the same composition.
Gel preparations
Such products are the most widely used means to combat cockroaches. The gel necessarily contains a toxic active substance and a fragrant bait, which attracts pests. It is applied in the form of solid strips or tracks of drops in places where insects are most concentrated.
A number of gel preparations are bitter, which can scare away pets. But it is better to refrain from using the gel in places accessible to them.
Traps
Today, you can buy various types of cockroach traps in specialized stores. Or you can make it yourself from small boxes in which you need to make one small inlet hole. Inside such a device you need to put a fragrant bait. Every day, caught cockroaches need to be shaken out. A toilet is best suited for this.
An industrially manufactured electric trap kills all Prussians entering it with a discharge of electric current.
Glue houses
This device looks like a house, inside of which there is a tasty and aromatic bait. But its walls are covered with adhesive tape, to which all the paws of the long-horned beetle, attracted by the pleasant aroma, are glued. As a result, the insect dies. It is surprising that the parasites that came later are not afraid of the corpse of their relative in the house. They also stick to the tape and die. Having placed such a device in the evening, in the morning you can see that it is filled to the top with dead cockroaches.
Methods for cockroaches to enter an apartment
Where do cockroaches come from in an apartment? There are several main settlement routes:
- Expansion of the area of residence.
- Forced migration from neighbors.
- Using contaminated items or items.
Cockroaches reproduce extremely quickly. Therefore, soon after taking over a certain environment, they begin to lack nutritional resources, and the insects spread to nearby objects. The area inhabited by cockroaches can be huge. Sometimes it’s an entire entrance to a residential building.
The destruction of cockroach nests in their former habitats forces the animals to relocate. If cockroaches appeared, the reasons for this could be renovations at the neighbors' house or even general cleaning.
Cockroaches can also appear in an apartment through the use of objects that were previously in their places of residence. For example, they like to bask in the back wall of the refrigerator or microwave oven, under the hood of a table lamp, so buying used equipment is fraught with the risk of infesting your home with insects. Cockroaches breed inside household appliances and can damage them.
Can they live in microwaves, laptops and how to get them out of there?
In connection with the development of technology and the emergence of various household appliances, mustachioed animals began to settle directly in electrical appliances. Many people do not understand how insects can live in microwaves and not die, but nevertheless, this is so.
Therefore, let's find out the main places where cockroaches live? Very often, they choose TVs, toasters or microwave ovens as their habitat, where they are warm and comfortable, where they feed on leftover food and can live there for a very long time.
To remove cockroaches, it is recommended to use several methods:
- put the device on warm-up for 30 minutes;
- expose to frost from eight degrees cold;
- Place bait soaked in boric acid into the device.
When heated at high power, they will not fry, but will escape from it and return after a while.
In the cold, all pests in the microwave should die, and there is a risk that the microwave oven will fail.
Boric acid must be added whenever the microwave is not in use.
Televisions, especially tube ones, are also considered one of the most popular places. Insects feel great in system units, computer monitors, and live in radios.
Insects are warm and cozy there; they can only be removed by disassembling and cleaning the device from the inside; using boric acid in this case is not recommended.
Cockroaches can settle in any apartment or house, even if sterile cleanliness is maintained, they can move from neighbors, and you can bring them with you in your bag. It is very difficult to get rid of pests; they can live for weeks without food, they tolerate cold, and very effective means are needed.
There are a large number of different means of combating them, but all efforts may be in vain if they come from neighbors. Calling a special service will help to destroy them for a long time; it is best to negotiate with your neighbors and carry out the treatment at the same time.
The following brands have proven themselves well: Raptor, Clean House, Raid, Combat, Get, Global, Executioner, Dohlox, Regent.
Also proven products are Karbofos, Fas, Forsyth.
So, we found out why cockroaches appear in the apartment and how to deal with them.
Interesting facts about cockroaches
The fertility of cockroaches and, accordingly, the speed of capturing new areas is explained very simply. The female lays up to 12 capsules with offspring throughout her life cycle. Each oviposition contains 20-60 young individuals.
In the cold, young cockroaches cannot develop; positive temperatures are required for their active reproduction. Thus, a long-known method of combating the invasion of cockroaches in Rus' is freezing out huts.
Cockroaches are able to survive exposure to radiation 15 times higher than normal for humans. However, irradiation has a detrimental effect on their reproductive function.
What is a black cockroach?
Black cockroaches (the Latin name of the species is Blatta orientalis) have been neighbors of humans since time immemorial, a constant source of trouble and problems for them. The body of the cockroach, covered with a black-brown chitinous shell, is about 3 cm long (but can reach 5); antennae and hairs are located on the legs and head, providing the insect with orientation in space. Thanks to their flat body structure, excellent vision and excellent sense of smell, large black cockroaches can easily penetrate even the most inaccessible places. They move at high speed.
The temperature in apartments and houses is very favorable for their reproduction, which they do throughout the year. The female black cockroach lays 2-3 cocoons during her life cycle, each containing about 16 eggs, from which offspring are produced after 40 days. The larvae of cockroaches are light in color; they acquire their black tint after several molts. The lifespan of cockroaches ranges from 4 months to 4 years.
The large black cockroach has jaws that are capable of chewing solid food. And special bacteria living in the intestines of insects facilitate the digestion of almost any food. If you deprive a pest of its usual food, it will begin to eat soap, paper, fabric, and will not disdain shoe polish or electrical wiring. Cockroaches are no strangers to cannibalism: often their own eggs, larvae or even remains become food for their fellow tribesmen.
Unlike the Prussian (black cockroaches are at odds with their red-haired counterparts and always lose in interspecific struggles), black cockroaches develop more slowly. By the time it reaches puberty, the female red cockroach will have time to breed more than one offspring. Therefore, the increase in the number of huge black insects occurs more slowly than the red ones, which, however, does not make them less dangerous to humans.
How cockroaches move into private homes
Although the question “what causes cockroaches?” Residents of high-rise buildings often ask where cockroaches come from in private houses located far from neighbors, it is also known. Insects can be brought unnoticed from a trip, in a suitcase, entering the house along with packed clothes or shoes, as they easily gnaw through polyethylene. After all, cockroaches often live in hotels and inns. You can also bring a cockroach from a grocery store, where food is stored in large storage areas. One pregnant female found in favorable conditions is enough for the development of the population. Or simply a cockroach can get into the house with one of the guests who has an invasion of them in the apartment.
Cockroaches, their varieties
There are several species of these insects around the world:
- “Prussians” or redheads;
- black;
- American;
- Madagascar;
- Australian cockroaches are rhinoceroses.
Almost all of them belong to synanthropes, individuals living with humans. Only the Madagascar and Australian species live in tree bark and burrows. Red and black species are common in our area. The most numerous colonies are among the Prussians, due to their activity. It lives all over the world, adapts to any conditions, displacing its fellows, black cockroaches. They are twice the size of Prussians and live in basements and sewers, sometimes ending up in apartments in multi-story buildings. Gradually, the black individuals cannot withstand the pressure of the red ones and disappear. Prussians reproduce much faster and hide their offspring.
The quiz "Matryoshka" mentions the ability of these insects to move in all directions of the plane. In the answer to the question of the Matryoshka game “Who can crawl up” (episode 584), cockroaches took an honorable second place after spiders.
Where do cockroaches come from in clean rooms?
The reasons why cockroaches come from in conditions of non-compliance with sanitary standards are clear: crumbs of food in the dining room, unwashed dishes, rotting waste - this is a breeding ground for their reproduction. But in addition to human food waste, cockroaches can feed on indoor plants, paper and leather products, and even wallpaper glue. Therefore, mustachioed tenants can settle in almost every human home. The main thing is access to a water source. It is known that cockroaches cannot live without water for more than a week, while without food they can survive for several months. In the absence of food in the human sense, cockroaches may begin to eat, for example, books. Moreover, American scientists, in the course of their research, found that cockroaches can remain alive even without a head.
The following sequence of colonization of human housing by cockroaches predominates:
- kitchen;
- bathroom;
- living rooms.
Residents of the first floors located above basements or basements are at risk of infesting an apartment with cockroaches. Basements are usually damp and warm; conditions for the growth of the cockroach population are favorable and contribute to the expansion of their habitat upward through the ventilation duct and hoods.
What do cockroaches eat if there is no food anywhere?
Cockroaches consider many foods as food sources. For example, in search of starch, cockroaches will eat not only potatoes, bread or pasta. The group of food starches for them includes book bindings, paper, wallpaper and glue on the back side.
For protein, cockroaches consider dead insects, animal skin (such as the soft inside of the skin), and even human hair and nails as viable food sources. They will also eat their young if food becomes scarce. In fact, cockroaches have been known to bite people, although this is extremely rare and only occurs when the infestation reaches catastrophic levels.
Cockroaches prefer callus skin, eyelashes, dead skin flakes and nails rather than living tissue. This is because the cockroach's jaws are quite weak. Their sideways moving mandibles are great for carrying and chewing bits of their diet, but those same jaws will have a hard time piercing your skin. It is easier for them to feed on the keratin and protein found in your nails and hair.
It rarely happens that a scavenger like a cockroach does not have enough food. Outdoors, cockroaches can eat decaying plants and dead wood. In sewer systems, they make the most of waste, sewage and water, especially since many species of cockroaches thrive in damp, dark places. So what do cockroaches eat if there is nothing around? Nothing really. Many species of cockroaches can live up to a month without food if they have water. Even if you set out roach traps and bait, even if you clean your home, it may not be enough to stop the roaches waiting outside or inside your walls. You can't starve them. Only a pest control professional who can guarantee pest safety and relentlessly protect your home will give you an absolute advantage.
Where do cockroaches live in an apartment?
Darkened, remote corners of the kitchen and bath are favorite places for cockroaches to establish their nests. But when there is no longer enough territory, you can find their hiding places in the most unexpected places:
- under door frames;
- in the back and behind kitchen cabinets;
- in accumulations of dust on the cabinet;
- under linoleum;
- on bookshelves;
- in wardrobes;
- in crevices;
- behind the refrigerator;
- under the baseboard.
Cockroaches are nocturnal animals. Their reproduction in the secluded corners of the apartment may go unnoticed for some time. If insects appear outside their shelters during the day, the size of their colony has increased too much. This is fraught with unpleasant consequences in addition to aesthetic rejection - cockroaches can carry infectious diseases and attack sleeping people.
Anticipating where cockroaches most often come from, the following measures are taken:
- restriction of free access to food and drink;
- regular ventilation of the home;
- frequent general cleaning;
- use of special repellent devices (plates, crayons, powders, aerosols);
- elimination of cracks and dust collectors;
- elimination of garbage chute.
Where cockroaches hide: the best places to hide a colony
Cockroaches hide in flocks in places inaccessible to humans. They can be found: behind radiators, under and behind the refrigerator, kitchen cabinets, behind the bathtub and sink, in the cracks of the walls and floor. Insects can also get into electrical appliances and damage them. One of the favorite hiding places for parasites is the gaps under baseboards and window sills. In corners and on hinges of kitchen cabinet doors. They go out hunting for food at night and hide during the day.
In the quiz from the Odnoklassniki network “Matryoshka” (episode 315), this question was asked to people. The most common answers were: cracks (39%), furniture (17%) and head (8%). The last habitat of cockroaches is more difficult to fight. “Matryoshka” has not yet answered this question.
If you find at least one individual or the presence of their waste, it is important to inspect hard-to-reach places, nooks and crannies
Sudden disappearance phenomenon
Over the past ten years, there has been a significant decrease in the number of cockroaches (we are talking about synanthropic species that lived next to people in apartments and private houses). Scientists put forward several versions to explain this phenomenon:
- the emergence of more advanced insecticides;
- improving the sanitary condition of residential premises;
- reducing the amount of food stored in homes;
- better packaging of products, reducing paper packaging in favor of plastic;
- timely cleaning of garbage chutes and waste removal.
Garbage removal
Among the possible reasons for the decline in the cockroach population are also the widespread use of genetically modified foods and widespread radio frequency radiation.
