What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see or hear about cockroaches? Often associated with dirt and filth, the sight of a single cockroach can stress you out as the thought of it roaming around a specific area in your house or worse, your entire home.
Not only that, but cockroaches can also trigger asthma attacks or allergies as the saliva, feces, and shed body parts of cockroaches contain allergy proteins. What’s more is that like a giant magnet of bacteria, cockroaches can help spread diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid fever, and cholera.
You see, getting rid of pest infestation in Singapore can be a challenge, especially cockroaches as they can multiply fast. This begs the question of whether their existence can be rid off completely from your home or a specific area in your house.
There are various ways to completely get rid of cockroaches from your home, but before that, you should take out what’s attracting them to your home in the first place, like taking out a number from an equation.
WHAT ATTRACTS COCKROACHES INTO YOUR HOME?
Cockroaches have been in existence for much longer than any of us. Regardless of that, roaches are like any other pests out there, searching for food and water sources which can be easily found in your home.
With Singapore’s warm and humid climate, cockroaches are often attracted to:
– Excess moisture found in dark spaces or crevices
– Leftover food in empty containers
– Crumbs on the floor or counters
– Dirty dishes left in the sink for days
– Smelly, dirty garbage
Now that you know what attracts them into your home, here’s how you can repel cockroaches from making a home in your home. It can be as simple as taking out the trash on a daily basis to getting a professional pest control to help with ridding cockroach infestation from your home.
HOW TO GET RID OF COCKROACHES?
As mentioned earlier, cockroaches thrive when they have access to food and water sources. By limiting their access to such sources in your house, you’re taking that out of their living equation.
Environmental management
Make sure to store all the foods in your house in tightly covered containers to keep them out and wash the dishes after every use. You should also clean all areas in your house regularly so that no fragments of food or organic matter remain in the house. Taking out the trash daily will also help to repel them from your home.
Additionally, you may want to recycle those newspapers or cardboard boxes you have lying around your house as cockroaches can breed in them, making it their home. Alert your building management if there’s any sign of excess water in the basement or areas underneath your building.
If you notice any crack in your home’s foundation, be sure to seal it as cockroaches can enter your house through it. Besides that, you may want to install door sweeps as cockroaches can crawl in under the doors.
Chemical control
Environmental management alone isn’t enough to repel cockroaches from entering your house. It all boils down to additional resources such as chemical traps or baits, liquid concentrates, and boric acid.
Like any other curious beings, cockroaches can be eliminated using chemical traps or baits which you can find in supermarkets or home improvement stores. As the cockroaches become curious about the bait, they may get caught in the sticky substance, which effectively traps them inside.
Another type of chemical control is liquid concentrate, one that’s designed to hinder cockroach infestation. You can spray the liquid into cracks and crevices where cockroaches are likely to hide.
If you’re concerned about the effects of chemical control of cockroaches on your family’s health, you can also opt for a DIY approach by mixing equal parts of boric acid, flour, and sugar to make a dough. Place the balls of dough around your house where you think the cockroaches are hiding. The boric acid will kill them as they feed on the flour and sugar.
However, if you have a furry friend around your house, this approach is not recommended as boric acid can endanger the life of your pet.
If all else seems to fail, it’s best to contact a professional pest control to help address your cockroach infestation issue. At PestBusters, we offer an integrated pest management programme, designed to strike out and fully eliminate pest infestations.
Don’t wait too long to contact us as you may prolong the chance of pests breeding around your house. Contact us at (+65) 6288 2828 or: (+65) 9180 9990 or enquire online today for a total removal of pests!