Cockroaches - small unpleasant apartment dwellers - always cause a feeling of disgust, rejection and hostility, as their appearance provides the owner of a living space with a lot of problems. For a long time, the whiskered insect manages to go unnoticed (since it leads a nocturnal way of being), lives quietly in comfortable conditions, and quietly multiplies. If the mustachioed creature had the imprudence to catch the eye of the landlord, it means that a lot of insects have divorced, so they need to be urgently disposed of. Why is it not recommended for a person to coexist calmly, so to speak, in a neighborly way with cockroaches?
What little cockroaches look like
A well-known saying goes: “The enemy must be known in person.” What do small cockroaches look like? Such insects are characterized by a wide abdomen, short wings and a flat shape of the body. The most important organ of the body is the tactile antennae, which provide the insect with orientation in space. Three pairs of paws are equipped with suction cups and claws, helping to move on any surface. The high speed and agility inherent in small cockroaches cause their penetration into the narrowest gaps, moving not only in the space of the apartment, but also through basements, sewers, attics, garbage chutes.
Cockroaches - carriers of diseases
From walks on their chitinous covers, cockroaches bring a host of a variety of pathogenic bacteria, helminth eggs and fungal spores that have got in the way of their tangled route. In just a few hours, this whole set may appear on the kitchen table, products and utensils. In addition, cockroaches - small pests - are omnivores and are equipped with a mouthpart that can grind any food. A considerable range of pathogenic microorganisms is also present in the digestive system of cockroaches and can cause diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, gastroenteritis, dysentery, salmonellosis, mycobacteriosis.
The danger is represented by the chitinous covers remaining after molting, the remains of deceased individuals, and dry excrement. Mixing with house dust, such substances enter the human skin, digestive tract, respiratory tract and can cause a number of serious illnesses, including allergic rhinitis, bronchial asthma, and dermatitis.
The presence of baleen insects can be determined by the unpleasant smell in the apartment, which most often comes from black cockroaches. This is especially noticeable with a significant accumulation of them. How to get rid of home cockroaches in the apartment?
About the little black cockroaches
A black cockroach is a prominent representative of its compatriots, it enters apartments mainly from sewage, basements and garbage bins. There is an observation that this individual does not rise above the 5th floor, so it causes the most trouble to residents of lower levels. Small black cockroaches in the apartment, the presence of which indicates a poor sanitary situation in the room, do not disdain any food; in its absence, they feed on leftovers from the bin.
The breeding rate is superior to the red brethren, who also prefer to live next door to a person.
The red cockroach (in the common people “Prusak”), characterized by an elongated body and a light red color, so firmly chose the living quarters that getting rid of him and his brethren is a rather tedious and lengthy task.
By the way, such insects regulate the number of their numerous colonies independently.
If small cockroaches appeared: what to do?
Effective preparations in the fight against cockroaches is the Dichlorvos aerosol, which ensures the rapid death of insects, provided that they are outside their burrows at the time of processing. Surviving individuals after weathering the chemical will calmly return to their former way of life. A drawback in the application of this method is the danger of poisoning by pairs of toxic chemicals of pets, for which such treatment is sometimes fraught even fatal.
Small cockroaches in the bathroom, in the kitchen and in the apartment as a whole can be destroyed by gels (Dohloks, Liquidator, Killer, Raptor), sold in large syringes and ready for instant use. The product should be applied along the plinth around the room perimeter in small drops at a distance of about 10 cm from each other. Just a week later, cockroaches do not come in to stay in the apartment they have lived in and leave it forever.
Cockroach Traps
Safer and more effective in the fight against cockroaches are traps (for example, Raid or "Raptor"), representing small round boxes with poison inside and several entrances.
Such devices are equipped with special Velcro, so they can be attached almost anywhere. A long exposure period, safety, lack of fumes and harmful odors are the advantages of using such products. A trapped red cockroach infects itself and infects other relatives.
Against Cockroaches - Boric Acid
You can "treat" cockroaches with the worst poison for them, causing a fatal outcome - boric acid. It is recommended to sprinkle with such powder a place where there is a garbage bin, baseboards, sinks, vents, a bathroom, a toilet. For a person, such a drug, inexpensive in cost, is completely harmless, so you can safely sprinkle suspicious surfaces on it. It is worth considering that insects are very sensitive to a powder harmful to them and for the most part feel it a mile away. In this case, you can play on the specific features of cockroaches: curiosity.
Baleen insects are very curious. If, for example, you put a bright candy wrapper on the windowsill and watch it for some time, then a cockroach or even several that will come closer to an unfamiliar object for the purpose of its study will appear in the field of view .
Therefore, boric acid can be disguised as an attractive ball. To prepare the poison, you need to mix 30-50 grams of the powder of the drug with raw egg yolk (either bread crumbs or grated potatoes) until a mushy state. Then you need to stick small balls (with a diameter of about 1 cm) and spread them in places where mass accumulation of cockroaches is supposed to occur. It is advisable to perform this operation at night. Small cockroaches will not feel the disguised boric acid, but they will certainly begin to examine the ball itself and, touching the antennae, will doom itself to death.
Since insects do not transmit a signal of danger to relatives, new individuals will approach the cunning bait, become infected and crawl away terminally ill. You can completely get rid of cockroaches with this method in 3-4 weeks, depending on their number. There is a chance of re-emergence of cockroaches; it may be hatched offspring left in the eggs by a female insect. Therefore, the method with boric acid is recommended to be repeated, and cockroaches - small and large - will disappear forever.
Killing composition: flour + alabaster
An effective remedy for cockroaches - red, rather unpleasant insects - is the combination of alabaster and flour in equal proportions. The resulting mixture should be sprinkled with the largest concentration of insects. Alabaster, when ingested, freezes, turns into gypsum, which causes the death of baleen individuals.
Cockroaches are small, brown and black insects that do not tolerate the smell of ammonia, so a washed floor with the addition of this substance will scare them away for a while.
Beer against cockroaches
You can insidiously take advantage of the love of cockroaches for beer, which is poured in a small amount on the bottom of the can, the inner edges of the glass containers are oiled with petroleum jelly and left in the place where the insects supposedly live. The next morning the bank will be filled with cockroaches. With this method, only those specimens that crawl out of their holes will die. Females laying eggs and packing them in the ooteca - a special chamber at the end of the abdomen, will remain inside and are guaranteed to ensure the appearance of new offspring instead of destroyed.
Method of chilling and scaring away
Cockroaches do not like low temperatures: at -5 ° C they fall into suspended animation, at -50 ° C they live only 30 minutes, at -70 ° C they die in a minute. Therefore, in ancient times they were chased out in villages, so to speak, chilled: in winter, they didn’t drown the hut for two or three days, they went to spend the night with their neighbors.
In order to prevent cockroaches on their own territory, it is recommended to use substances that repel them. These are fresh cucumber peeling or green bay leaf.
Curious facts
Fans of killing cockroaches in a sudden way should know about the extreme resistance of such insects to physical damage. Therefore, it is not enough to slam it, it is still necessary either to rub it thoroughly, or to sprinkle still dead with boric acid and release it to your relatives.
Curious information: thanks to a specific gene called by scientists "knockdown", cockroaches can mimic their own death. Sensing the smell of poison, the insect loses consciousness, falls with its paws up and stops breathing.
Having recovered for a certain period, he comes to himself and calmly continues his wrecking activity.
Preventative measures
As a preventive measure against the spread of cockroaches in the home, it is recommended to use the following recommendations:
- Keep in the kitchen and in the apartment as a whole perfect cleanliness. There should not be crumbs on the tables and floor, oily deposits on the walls. The trash can should be taken out in a timely manner, not putting off until tomorrow.
- Seasonings in glass, hermetically sealed containers.
- Wash dishes and sink in time.
- Do not leave open containers with ready-made food and food bags.
- Close the air ducts with a grill or fine mesh.
- Cockroaches can live for several weeks without a head, as evidenced by repeated experiments.
- Many species can fly (synanthropic American or Lapland cockroach).
- Baleen insects may not breathe for 40 minutes. This property helps to retain water in the body when it is impossible to replenish it.