How to Get Rid of Cockroaches

La Cucaracha

So when we were moving into the new house, we had a terrible problem with cockroaches. The inspector had told us that he saw signs of it, but the extent of it could not be determined since people were living in the house at the time, and the type of inspection didn't allow them to start tearing into walls and fixtures.

So when we got there after we took possession of the house, we saw the first few cockroaches just hanging around the corner of the ceilings of every room. We hadn't moved in and were taking the opportunity to clean up the house. The cockroaches were obviously a priority.

We bought a few flea/roach bombs and set that out. For the first day it seemed to work, but they kept coming back in the same numbers as before.

Then one day as we were cleaning the kitchen cabinets floating along the kitchen wall, I decided it'd be easier to just take them down and clean them that way.

The cabinets have lighting on top underneath a plastic light diffusers typically seen hiding the long fluorescent tubes. So as we lifted that and took a look at the light fixture, we saw cockroach city. It was so gross we decided right then and there to rip the entire floating cabinet structure out the wall and into the garbage.

loads of cockroach poop

cockroaches, cockroach corpses and cockroach exoskeletons
After seeing this, it meant war.

So we initially tried lacing the house with boric acid. This is sold in powder form at the pharmacy to treat pink-eye. It generally is safer for pets so if it's around in small quantities it shouldn't be a problem if the dog tries licking some of it.

Mix one part powder (not granular) boric acid, two parts flour, and one part cocoa powder.

The cocoa powder baits the roach, the flour makes it stick, and the boric acid kills them.

So the boric acid does not kill them right away. It takes time. I've heard a number of explanations how this works:

1. boric acid scratches at their coating causing the water inside them to evaporate more readily and the die of thirst
   
2. boric acid causes them to have really bad indigestion and they die because they can't digest their food
   

We think this may have helped, but unfortunately, it wasn't helping fast enough. We were on a schedule and needed to move in quickly.

The second way to alleviate a cockroach problem is to seal the house as much as possible. Cockroaches get through cracks between the walls, the floors, and the light switches and outlets. For most cracks and holes we used caulk, for holes we used putty. For the light switches there are a number of things you could fashion gaskets out of to prevent roaches from crawling through. This pretty much stopped the roaches from getting through to most of the rooms and centralized the problem into the kitchen and bathrooms.

Then thirdly I waged a nightly and morning campaign of roach bombing. Since the house was empty this wasn't a problem lacing our stuff with the bad smell. I tried a couple brands and my favorite is Raid Fumigator Fogger

This worked really well in the bathrooms, and the kitchen problem decreased significantly after several days of treatment. The best part of it, is there is no residual mess to worry about after than throwing away the canister.

After we moved in we barely saw any cockroaches. Perhaps once every couple days. Then eventually, once a week. It's been about a week and a half since I saw a cockroach so it seems to be getting better. *knock on wood*

To kill cockroaches that we see, we kept around a spray bottle of soapy water. The soap prevents the cockroaches from breathing and the die from asphyxiation. This mostly worked, but it took some time. Sometimes I'd watch them run away and the just keel over a few seconds later. Sometimes, they'd almost get away and would need a few more doses of spray to drown them. Bigger ones tend to survive longer. I guess you could also just get a can of bug spray at this point which would probably work instantaneously.

As for the cabinets, we've given up on them. They remain empty. It's a gross thought picturing our food going into the cabinets that we didn't throw out. We bought wire shelves on casters so we can move them around as we slowly renovate.

The plan is at the end of the year, after we get a feel for the house and what we want to do, we can start to remodel the kitchen and put in all brand new fixtures.