Cockroaches are found everywhere, and unfortunately, South Louisiana is no exception. There are few things that can bring on a shudder quite as quickly as seeing a cockroach (or several) scuttling across your kitchen floor. If you see one, you can bet that there are others nearby, and you’re going to want to do something about them.

Are Cockroaches Dangerous?

They can be. Unfortunately, they’re not just unsightly. They can carry diseases. In fact, you may have heard of cockroach disease – that’s actually a catch-all term for a variety of nasty illnesses they can carry, due to their habits of eating just about anything, and frequently living in unsanitary conditions. They can carry poliomyelitis, typhoid, gastroenteritis, dysentery and asthma, to name a few, and as they move from location to location, they carry the diseases with them. As if this isn’t bad enough, allergies to cockroach feces aren’t uncommon, and you can actually inhale the feces in the air – you don’t have to actually touch it.

You can also get sick from eating food that may contain bits of cockroach feces or saliva. Obviously, this is something you should take seriously if you’ve seen roaches in your home. They’re not going to go away on their own.

So How Can I Control Cockroaches?

If you want to be certain that cockroaches are totally eradicated, your best course of action is to call a professional exterminator. Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you’ve only seen a couple, which you’ve speedily sent on their way to Cockroach Hell, you’ve got them all – roaches really don’t like crowding, so if you’re seeing them in groups, it means they’re already well entrenched. There are a few things you can try:

1. Bait

If you’re not ready just yet to call in an exterminator, you could try cockroach bait. It’s similar to ant bait, in that you put it out where you’ve seen the roaches. They then eat the bait and then go back to the nest. Being the disgusting creatures that they are, they have no qualms about excreting where they live, so the other roaches come into contact with the feces, and, if you’re lucky, they’ll all die.

Put the bait under the sink, along baseboards, and anywhere else you think roaches might travel. You might also want to put some outside, in areas where there could be cracks or crevices that could allow them access to the house.

The down side to using bait is that it can take several weeks to kill off all the roaches. And of course, in the meantime, they’ve been laying eggs. You could get rid of the entire nest, and still end up with an infestation.

2. Insecticide Sprays

There are several sprays available that are specific to roaches. You can buy them at garden centers or hardware stores. The problem is that these sprays may kill a few roaches, or even a lot of roaches, but it will never get all of them. You may just end up driving the roaches further into cracks, crevices and walls. You could purchase industrial strength sprays online, but the downside to this is that again, you likely won’t get them all, and you’ll also end up killing any helpful insects that might be hanging around as well.

3. Roach Traps

Roach traps lure the insects in, and then they end up getting stuck on an adhesive pad. You probably shouldn’t waste your money. You’ll get very few roaches that way, and you’ll just end up looking for another method.

When You Need a Pro

Realistically, most cockroach infestations aren’t going to respond to anything other than professional intervention. If you have a cockroach problem in South Louisiana, a professional service like Sugarland Exterminating can assess the severity of the infestation, and treat it using foggers, gels or residuals. Then they can seal the areas that are most likely to cause problems in the future.

Sources:

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Roaches

www.planetcockroach.com/cockroach-disease.html