Here in the Bay Area, we’ve got several environmental factors that could motivate cockroaches to come crawling indoors. Prolonged droughts can dry up food and moisture sources for all types of cockroaches, causing them to seek the moisture and food in your home to make up for their losses. The occasional cold snap can drive them into your home, seeking warmth in the winter. And even when the weather is excellent, human habitations still have easier pickings than the great outdoors for most cockroach varieties. That means there’s no real cockroach season; you’ll have to work hard to keep them out of your house all year long.
Common Bay Area Roaches
Here in the Bay Area, we’ve got several roach species to watch out for in homes and businesses alike, including:
- German Cockroach: This roach is one of the worst roaches to get in your house. These small, tan to light-brown bugs breed incredibly fast, meaning you could have up to fifty roaches in your home for every roach you actually see.
- American Cockroach: These roaches are larger than most of the roaches you’ll see in your home or business. The American cockroach can grow up to two inches long. They’re also very dark and sometimes get mislabeled as the palmetto bug.
- Oriental Cockroaches: These dark, segmented roaches are sometimes mistaken for beetles because they don’t have long wings like other roach varieties. Oriental cockroaches are rarer to see inside, but you could still run across them here in the Bay Area.
Cockroach Prevention Tips
Cockroaches are fantastically disgusting. They love to hang out in truly horrendous places like sewers, rotting corpses, and garbage dumps. Their unfortunate taste in hangout spots is why they’re so prone to spreading disease.
Cockroaches are known or suspected to spread over 40 different pathogens, including some deadly and dangerous illnesses like salmonella, typhoid, and dysentery. Given how disgusting and dangerous they are, roaches are one pest that you should be motivated to prevent – especially since they’re so challenging to get rid of if you do wind up with an infestation.
As we said above, cockroach season is all year long. So you’ve got to take anti-cockroach measures all year long. To prevent cockroaches, a deep clean is a great place to start. Vacuum your house and wipe all surfaces to eliminate crumbs and smears that don’t get picked up during your routine cleaning. Ensure to get underneath heavy appliances, especially ones where food is stored and cooked, to get grease runoff and possible spills that roaches could be living off of. Also, clean out the backs of cupboards and make sure dishes are spotless when they’re put away. Cockroaches can survive on just a few crumbs, so it’s vital to get them all to avoid attracting these bugs.
Other Measures You Can Take Include:
- Keeping your indoor and outdoor trash covered with tight lids
- Storing pantry foods in airtight containers
- Cleaning up right away after meals
- Sealing all cracks and holes in your home’s exterior
The Best Cockroach Elimination For Your Infestation
Do-it-yourself (DIY) cockroach elimination is not all that effective. Baits and traps don’t do much more than reduce the roach population around your house, making room for new generations to mature and start breeding again. Fortunately, there’s a better way.
Here at Bay Pest Solutions, our anti-cockroach treatments are effective for all types of cockroaches and won’t just reduce your roach population but exterminate it entirely. So give us a call or visit our contact page to set up your service today!