Pest infestations can be quite a menace. They make your home uncomfortable. One of the most common of these pests are cockroaches. Roaches causes nuisance anywhere they occupy. This article will show you when and how should you get worried about roaches infestation.
How Many Roaches is an Infestation?
When dealing with cockroaches, numbers matter a little. Cockroaches are mostly nocturnal animals. You rarely find them during the daytime. Most species especially the German Roaches spend 70% of their time in holes and crevices.
Cockroaches rarely move about except they’re looking for food. Sometimes, they decide to move from the space they hide when the place becomes too crowded. In that case, they are multiplying. The fleeing cockroaches have to find another home.
So, whenever you find a cockroach, you might not be getting the full story. It might be that there are a few cockroaches in your home. Possibly, it can be that they are hiding from plain sight.
Most professional pest control personnel give a range of what a roach infestation looks like. From 5 – 10 is light roach infestation. Between 10 and 25 is a moderate infestation.
Anything more than 25 is a serious infestation. Remember that whenever you see a cockroach in your home, it’s a sign that roaches have swarmed your home.
ALSO SEE: How to Get Rid of Roaches in an Apartment
How to Tell You Have a Cockroach Infestation?
As you already know, it’s hard to know if there are cockroaches in your home unless there’s an infestation. Due to the nature of roaches, you might be sleeping when they move around to gather their foods. Cockroaches are hard to find. Rather than finding roaches in your home, look for signs. Roaches signs are easy to spot.
The following are some pointers to the presence of cockroach in your home.
Movement of Roaches
What better signs is there to tell you that there are roaches in your home than seeing them moving about your home?
Cockroaches are social insects and mostly move in groups. When you see a single roach, look around, you might find its companion.
Roaches also tend to move fast. You might be mistaken to think where you saw them is close to the hole or hidden place they crawled from. But, they might have moved far from their holes before you saw them.
One thing however is true whenever you see roaches moving about your home. You need to do something about them.
Seeing Roaches Droppings in your Home
Roaches droppings are easy to spot in your home when there is an infestation of roaches in your home. However, it’s hard to tell if what you saw is cockroach droppings. Because cockroaches feed on almost anything, the color of their feces is not reliable. Also, the fecal matter of smaller roaches is tiny that you might not notice until a closer look. The color is usually between brown and black.
For larger cockroaches, the feces is solid and shaped like a cylinder. They are also either black or brown. Don’t mistake the fecal matters of cockroaches for mouse or small rats as they tend to be similar. A common pointer is that most large cockroaches drop excrements with ridges that run from tip to tip.
Be careful when dealing with the feces because cockroaches are vector for some harmful bacteria.
Pungent Smell in your Home
Another sign that you might be dealing with a roach infestation is the presence of pungent smell in your home.
Cockroaches secretes a smelly chemical that attracts other roaches. The reason they do this is unknown.
The smell is more active innursing or breeding sites. Also, because they eat all manner of stuff, the smell from their activities range from mouldy to oily. However, do not assume that any pungent smell is from cockroaches.
When you notice that kind of smell, look around for cracks on the walls or floor. Also be sure to check if there’s foodstuff nearby.
Shed Skin of Roaches
The outer skin, which in actual is part of its skeletons, cockroaches are exoskeletal animals, can be a pointer to an infestation of roaches.
Cockroaches change their skins more than 5 times and sometime up to 8 times, if they live long.
Like their feces, they don’t require special toilets to shed off their skin. So, they leave them behind.
Multiple skin shed means trouble. At that point, you have a cockroach infestation on hand. At that point, you should be thinking of is how to get rid of them.
Damaged Properties
Roaches destroy things that they come in contact with. They could chew leather materials. When they run out of food in the house, be sure that they’ll eat up your leather shoes.
They also eat books, foams and other soft materials. It’s rare that they eat wooden materials although, some species do so.
An infestation of cockroaches might see them swarming on your clothes. Your clothes will get eaten. Their fecal material on the other hand can stain your clothes.
But check properly. Cockroaches are similar to rats in their destructions. A careful check means that you won’t assume wrongly.
Finding Roaches Eggs
The probability of you finding eggs of roaches even in a heavy infestation of roaches is low. Very low. This is due to the secretive nature of cockroaches. If seeing them during daytime is winning a football game, think of finding their eggs as a lottery.
Well, you might stumble on their eggs during an infestation. So, finding their eggs should not be ruled out.
You will find the eggs in a colony. Composed of multiple eggs with glue holding them together.
Why Should You Be Worried?
There are several reasons you should be worried about roaches’ infestation. The following are why you should take roaches infestation serious.
Health Risks
Cockroaches are detrimental to health. According to the World Health Organisation, cockroaches are unhygienic scavengers in human settlements.
Although, they rarely bite, they carry more than 30 bacteria. Cockroaches are vectors of harmful pathogens. You risk food poisoning, if they crawl past your food. Their limbs can scratch, injuring its victim. That can be a safe passage for diseases to get to its victim.
Damage to Properties
Your clothes, books, leather materials and even beddings can be destroyed by roaches. Since they are very fast, and with their scent method of drawing others, a night can be enough to cause enough destruction to some of your valuable properties.
Untidy Space
Cockroaches can turn your living space on its head. If you don’t notice it soon enough, the droppings, shed skins and pieces of destroyed items can cause your space to be untidy.
Where to Find Roaches?
Now that you know about some things about roaches, it’s best to find them before they are many enough to be a risk in your home. That’s not to say a few are not a danger.
Kitchens
Your kitchen can be a refuge for cockroaches. It’s the perfect place to be. A bit warm. Availability of food most times. They can drink water from the sink too.
Cockroaches can hide inside cabinets, shelves and cupboards. If these cabinets are not built into the wall, cockroaches can hide under them. The space between them and the wall can also house them.
They also like warm places and can hide inside kitchen appliances. Don’t forget to check any kitchen tool you’ve not used for a long time.
Bathrooms
They can also hide in bathrooms around the less wet areas. Since they feed on almost anything, they’ll find soap, toilet papers valuable. They’ll also feed on your hair and skin cells that remain after you bath. Sounds creepy? That’s roaches for you.
Drains
Cockroaches can also dwell in drains. They’ll avoid getting in contact with the liquid. A way to check if they dwell in your drains is to check around cracked areas. Damaged drains can also be a fortress for them.
What Next?
Infestation of roaches can be quite a terrible thing. However, there are several things you can do to prevent them spawning up in your home.
- Keep your home tidy.
- Seal up cracks and holes on the walls.
- Fix up faulty drains.
- Check hard to reach places from time to time.
If you follow those steps, there are chances that cockroaches will go away. A further step will be to get a pest control company to keep them at bay.
