The sight of cockroaches in your home can turn your stomach. But just because you aren’t seeing these nasty bugs in the flesh doesn’t mean your house is roach-free. Cockroaches are experts when it comes to hiding out, and infestations often develop in dark, hard-to-reach areas. Luckily, you can spot the signs of a cockroach infestation even if you can’t see the roaches themselves. Here’s how to tell if your Baltimore home has a cockroach problem.
About Cockroaches In Your Home
Cockroaches can be found living in the wild all over the world, but like rats and mice, cockroaches have also become especially successful living in manmade environments. Cockroaches are voracious eaters and are not picky about their diet. They are regularly found in dumpsters, bathrooms, and sewers where they feed on anything edible, no matter how disgusting. The bacteria, viruses, and parasites they pick up in these gross places can be transmitted to humans.
What makes cockroaches such difficult pests to eliminate is their hiding ability. Cockroaches have flat, oval-shaped bodies that allow them to slip through cracks and crevices and tuck themselves under heavy appliances where you can’t see. They are nocturnal and are usually most active while you sleep. So, it can be hard to spot a roach, but there are telltale signs of a cockroach infestation that you can’t miss.
Four Signs Of Cockroaches To Look Out For
You can determine if you have a cockroach infestation in your home by identifying the following factors:
- Roach droppings: Cockroaches have a metabolism to match their appetite and excrete droppings frequently. Excrement will often pile up in corners and along baseboards. Depending on the species, cockroach droppings can resemble coffee grounds or ground black pepper.
- Stains and smears: Roaches will leave behind dark, streaky stains on walls in areas of high humidity where they congregate.
- Strong odor: A developed cockroach infestation will produce a musty odor; the more roaches you have, the worse it gets. This smell is produced by living cockroaches and amplified by dead, decomposing roaches.
- Eggs: Cockroaches leave behind egg cases called oothecae as they reproduce. These egg cases are light to dark brown in color and look something like a shiny leather purse. Cockroach eggs can be found tucked away in out-of-sight areas like the back of cabinets, under furniture, and behind books.
Why Cockroaches Are Dangerous
Cockroaches are a hazard to your health. They can contaminate food and surfaces in your home with harmful pathogens that cause salmonellosis, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Not to mention, cockroaches are known to cause asthma. In severe infestations, particles from saliva shed skin, and other detritus accumulate in the air of your home. These particles can irritate the skin and cause eczema, or worse, provoke an asthmatic reaction that causes breathing difficulty.
What makes cockroaches especially troublesome is that they are difficult to get rid of. Roaches do their best to stay undetected, preferring dark out-of-reach areas to spend their time. They are also prolific breeders, and an infestation can quickly grow in size. In fact, a single female cockroach can lay up to fifty eggs at a time. Worst of all, certain cockroaches are resistant to store-bought pesticides, and over-the-counter treatments are often ineffective.
The good news is with help from Pest Czar, you can stop cockroaches in your Baltimore home once and for all. With a variety of affordable residential pest control plans available, you can choose the services that are right for you. Using our Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, we will eliminate cockroaches and other pests at the source and keep your home pest-free all year long. Get in touch with us today.