You know you have a cockroach problem if:
• You can smell a strong unpleasant oily or musky odour (it indicate a long-term infestation or that a lot of cockroaches are hiding nearby).
• You suddenly start experiencing continuous allergic reactions (cockroaches do carry lots of allergic particles on their body, and they usually transmit those through feces or shed skin).
• You start seeing an unknown black pepper-like stain (the fecal spot of cockroaches).
• You hear on-and-off crawling motions during night time (cockroaches can run 80cm per second, which equals to 15-50 times of their length per second).
• You find signs of its egg cases laying around the floor. They look like a miniaturized form of a fragmented coin bag or hand gun bullet case, and it is as small as ½ the size of a Singapore 5-cent coin (one egg case can hatch several numbers of young cockroaches, 14-44 youngsters).
• Mark down potential cockroach hiding places and check everywhere. Small cockroaches usually hide on kitchen appliances, in cracks and crevices, and under cabinet folding seams; big cockroaches can mainly be found in the manhole, drainage, bin chutes and toilets; if needed, you may use the EcoPCO ACU or Controz AIK aerosol to spray onto the potential area.
What to do when you have cockroach problems:
• The best course of action is to kill the cockroaches by using the efficient aerosol (Control AIK aerosol) or spraying product (Home Pest Control) straight on them. However, beware that choosing the right aerosol is important as some aerosols are specifically formulated for only flying insects and may not be efficient when used against crawling insect like cockroaches.
• If the number of cockroaches are high, or the cockroaches cannot easily be found and directly be exposed to the spray, I suggest to apply the gel baiting to control the cockroach invasion and even bring about the termination of a potential hidden population. The list of products available include Advion Cockroach Gel and Controz Cockroach Gel. When applying the gel baiting, remember to place it near the edge of a wall and to the suspected cockroach hiding place/active crawling area for the greatest possible exposure. (For example, cracks and crevices in the kitchen area, near the rubbish bin, in the cabinet or drawer and around the floor trap area). You may apply the gel in a size of a small green bean diameter (<5mm) but placing a little bit more may bring better and quicker results:
How to prevent cockroaches from ever coming back:
• I suggest using the Bytrac repellent gel for safety purposes to seal off all possible cracks and crevices that are highly potential places for cockroaches to once again infiltrate your home. It is easy: just squeeze the grease gel onto any small crack and gap to block crawling insects, including ants.
• Bytrac serves as a long-term preventive measure against cockroach-infestation from at least 6 months up to a year depending on environmental conditions. Recommended to use with 0.5 – 1cm thickness (the hole size of the tube has been fixed for the optimum thickness and needs no special adjustment) of the gel layer, and the length will depend on the size of the target cracks and crevices. A tight and complete sealing with the gel is important to prevent the future reoccurrence of cockroaches:
• Housekeeping and cleaning is also essential to reduce the possibility of cockroach infiltration by reducing the amount of food and water left out on the counter/table. This practice alone will help create a non-preferable living environment for these cockroaches.
Common Species:
• American cockroach (Periplaneta Americana)
• German cockroach (Blattella germanica)
• Brown-banded cockroach (Supella longipalpa)
Fun Facts
• A recent article claimed that a total of 174 types of bacteria were isolated from 39 smaller cockroaches. Having said that, one single cockroach is capable of carrying an average of 4-5 types of bacteria (imagine when they crawl across your food! Ewwww!)
• Cockroach is omnivorous and a scavenger-like insect; this means that it can feed on almost everything, including cosmetics, beer, potted plants, wallpaper paste, soap, postage stamps, fermenting fruit, pet food, human food, or even their own species’ dead body, and so forth.
• Due to the cockroach’s unhygienic behaviour, they are considered one of the most dangerous disease transmitting insects, for they often carry diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, leprosy, typhoid fever, etc.