Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

[NiteStar]

And I do mean that literally! It's these tiny, tiny roaches. It's been happening slowly over the past year and now it's at a critical level. I got up last night and went in the kitchen to get a glass of water and when I turned the light on, I literally screamed! I've never seen so many tiny roaches in one place! Whatever the apartment complex uses to exterminate.......it's NOT working! And I spray Raid everyday and unless I happen to spray right on the bug itself.....it isn't killig them either! I can't afford to hire an outside exterminator, but am willing to go to Home Depot or Lowe's and get my own stuff. Problem is........I don't know what to get. Do any of you know of something that will kill these things and keep killing them and yet not harm my two furbabies! Thanks so much for any help you can give me!

 

[popcorn]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

This is Alf popcorns other half. We were apartment managers for a number of years and our pest control guy told us that what he was using as bait was nothing more than baking soda in a suspense solution to make it stick. You might try just sprinkling it in your cupboards and see what happens. Just a thought to try Alf and Liz

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Just plain ole' baking soda!! Could it be that easy! Is the baking soda itself toxic to them or does it just smother their skin so that they are not able to breathe? Any suggestions on what to make a suspense solution with?

 

[popcorn]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

This is Liz. As a wife, we had to empty all the kitchen cupboards and throw out anything that was open. Like an open bag of flour. The bug control people then put 'stuff' in the corners of each cupboard. And around the heating vents. And the main problem suite was done and the suites beside, above and under. We finally got a handle on the problem - until someone new moved in a brought more of the pesky little critters! They are night bugs and you don't usually see them in the day time. Good luck in attacking the problem.

Liz

 

[conniecat]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Sorry, I only opened this tread to tell you I will not be coming to visit. I have few phobias in my life, but roaches are a big one. I cannot even kill them, I tend to just stand and scream until someone comes along and does it for me. I wish you success with that!

We moved into a house that was totally infested, at least my husband was moving in there, I told him I would be at my mother's until they were gone. He hired some friend to spray, and we lived there for 32 years and after the spray, we only saw one in all that time.

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Thanks conniecat.........I needed that laugh! And it is NOT true that roaches live only in dirty places. I keep my kitchen spotless........if for no other reason than I don't cook! :lol And these are not the big or even medium size bugs........these are tiny, tiny, tiny. I rarely if ever see a medium size one and have never seen the big ones.........that we call water bugs or tree roaches here in Texas. But I have zillions of the tiny ones!

 

[Donna - dsw]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

About the size of fleas on cats and dogs and you usually don't see them either!

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

That's about the size of the donna..........maybe a tiny bit larger than a flea. But there are zillions of them. I see them scurry under the fridge, the stove, under the sink, under the faucet area on the sink, etc., etc., etc., I spray and spray and spray constantly, and they just don't die!!

 

[red stripe]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

sadly when you live in a complex.. unless the management routinely sprays every-ones apartments, you are stuck.
I lived that nightmare once, when I first went to Texas, and we rented an apartment while looking for a house to buy.
Although I used every spray and bait known to man.. it usually only got rid of them for a couple of weeks.
My daughters used to take turns to sleep at night, so that one could watch out for a roach.
A deliveryman once came to the door and darn near passed out from the chemical smell.. he asked me how I could even breathe :lol I HATE them.
That was the longest 6 weeks in my life.

You can check out the pipes around the kitchen and the bathrooms, and if you find any gaps, use steel wool to stuff in the holes and then fill with a spackle or any filling compound... But I know that in the apartment I rented, they came through the shared air vents.

The baking soda works because it gets on them, they eat it or lick it off.. and it dries them up.
And you are correct..
A roach can eat the drywall etc. they do not need dirt to survive.
You can get them in the cleanest homes.
We do not have them here... touch wood :lol but Einstein already knows.. that if I so much as see ONE roach.. we do NOT SLEEP until it is found and killed.. and the next morning the exterminators Will be called :grin

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

D D D Redstripe! So far (knock on wood), I haven't seen them in my bedroom or bathroom. Pretty much they are confined to the kitchen area. I've lived in Houston pretty much all my life and I've always lived in apartments and have had to battle the problem of roaches. But I've NEVER had a problem like this. And it's so strange that for the 11 years I've lived in this apartment, I had NEVER seen even one roach until about a year ago.

 

[GloBug]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

I used to visit my grandma in Salt Lake City, and they had these huge 1.5" long roaches. I remember walking into the kitchen in the middle of the night and turning on the light, and a billion of these things scattered in every direction! As a little kid, I thought it was sooo cool, and I would sneak out of bed many nights to flash on and off the lights.

Luckily, we have never had that problem here. Now ants... that's another story!

 

[Ruchela]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Where I live, many new people have been moving in. It's a co-op apartment building. Since the people next door to me moved in, there has been an influx of water bugs, not roaches. I bought traps for them, didn't work -- bought more traps, then called in the exterminator. Now it seems okay.

However, just to make me sick, one day I was sitting at the kitchen table, and felt something itching my ankle. It was a bug, it scurried away. Finally got it. To this day I still feel my ankle itching, I know it's in my mind, by nevertheless -- yuk!!!

I feel your pain.

 

[red stripe]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

That apartment I was talking about was in Houston, or in the Pearland area.. I can see it now :lol
It sounds as if you just got unlucky and someone real nasty moved in and brought them.
Perhaps your apartment managers might want to know?
Houston was Roaches.. and those amazing "peter Peppers" Two things I remember about that place :grin

 

[islandJim]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

I heard radon drives them out!!
Good luck in your battle. Do those "roach motel" things work? I'm out of ideas.

Jim

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

OMG GloBug..........those 1.5" things are called "water bugs" or "tree roaches" and are the MOST disgusting thing ever! And........they fly!!!! If it was those huge flying things I was infested with.....I would have to move!! :lol

I can give you a more horrid story Ruchela. When I was growing up, we lived in a mobile home and when one lives in a mobile home, you always have a roach problem.........and I'm talking the 1.5" things that GloBug mentioned. Anyway, my mom said one night in the middle of the night, she kept nudging my dad and told him to quit tickling her feet. When she realized he was asleep, she turned on the nightstand light and lifted up the sheets, and there was this huge tree roach. She said she ripped up the sheets so fast that she almost flipped my dad out of bed!

 

[red stripe]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

I was thinking.. "Boric acid"

I remember that you can buy it for that use, or you can get it from most chemists or hardware stores.. just sold without saying to use for roaches.. the one that says it is for roaches costs more.. even though it is all the same stuff :lol

I did find this link for you.. I could not look at it because I really can not stand to even see a photo of one :lol
But it might have some interesting ideas.
http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-roaches.htm

and when reading this last site.. I remembered that I do use the bay leaves.. in fact.. even though I have not seen one here, You will find bay leaves in my kitchen cupboards :grin
http://www.essortment.com/all/howdoigetrid_rgus.htm

And the information part about water was great.

 

[r8derfan]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

I didn't want to open this thread because like Connie I am in mortal fear of Roaches. I'd rather have a huge spider crawl on my face then see a roach on my floor. Eeeewwww.

 

[NiteStar]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Thanks Red! Boy when you magnify those things for a picture, they look even more gross than in person if that's possible!!

 

[reggae]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Living in Michigan, I have to say it's hard for bugs to survive very long, especially through the winter. I never saw a roach ever until my first trip to Florida, and it was the big ones that fly! YIKES...we were terrified!

I hope you have some luck and figure something out Nita. I would definately call the apartment manager. Someone brought them in, and you shouldn't have to deal with this.

 

[nieciez]

Re: Help!! Roaches have taken over my kitchen!

Nitestar, You have German Cockroaches…and the tiny ones are one of the hardest to get rid of.

Being an ex-military wife like myself, Red gave you some sound advise. Military base housing has some real horror stories when it comes to roaches =eek and I know not only from being a tenant but as a "professional". 18 years ago when I worked at the Marine Corps Base at Quantico I was an COR (Contracting Officer’s Representative) for the Pest Control Contract for family housing. Basically I went out with the civilian company who had the contract to treat the family housing units for all sorts of “pestsâ€Â….roaches being the biggest pest, and make sure they "did their job" and act as a liasion between the contractor and the military family that lived in an occupied unit. Most of our work was done on vacant units though, as it was my experience that most occupied units that had a roach problem usually were occupied by people who didn't car and wer slobs....I could tell you some real horror stories.

When you live in a multi-family unit all you will be doing is running the critters out of your unit, into another. They eventually will come back but you can get them under control and if you keep on top of it, you can keep them out to the point that you don’t “see†them often. First off a professional exterminator is your best bet. Then you need to keep EVERYTHING in the pantry that isn’t in an airtight container in one. If you have a pet you must NOT leave pet food in the dish for the pet to eat at will. Get the pet on a schedule, what it doesn’t eat after 20 minute put up and in an airtight container until the next feeding time. Trash can MUST be empties and clean every night before you retire for the night. Do, clean out all your cabinets, even if they look clean. Boric acid can be dusted in the cracks and corners of all cabinets but I would then put shelf paper so that dishes do not touch it. OR spray with a roach spray you can get at Home Depot or Lowes, if you can’t afford that professional service. Be sure to treat all base boards, under all sinks, closets, under stove and refrigerator. You should also put out some of those Max Roach & Ant traps. Having roaches doesn’t mean you are “dirty†especially when you live in a multi family unit. Anyone can bring roaches “home†in bags for the grocery store.

When we arrived at Quantico from overseas and lived in family housing (before I became a civil service employee) the unit we were assigned was horribvly infested, and it was a single family unit. It took 2 months of doing the above to win the battle. Being a single family unit, thankfully they never came back. Good luck with the fight :thumb