Cockroach Prevention Guide

Roaches are much easier to prevent than to get rid of. Preventing roaches from being attracted to and infesting your home will almost always come down to proper sanitation. Clean homes and businesses can become infested if small sanitation steps are missed. You may notice that many of the prevention steps are the same as the treatment steps.

When it comes to roach control, sanitation means much more than simply washing the dishes or sweeping the floor. Missing some simple sanitation steps can mean that you are leaving roaches resources to thrive on.

Eliminating food sources is a constant battle in roach control. While this effort involves a great deal of work and vigilance, the results are well worth the effort.

• Clean Kitchen Appliances. Roaches in your kitchen are probably living off of the months or years worth of grease and food spills under, behind, and alongside your appliances. The greatest problem spots usually include the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, toaster, microwave, and underneath the kitchen sink.
• Empty Cabinets and Clean them out. Another common food source for Roaches are the crumbs and food spills inside kitchen cabinets.
• Limit food consumption to one room of the house. Allowing food to be consumed in all areas of the home leads to crumbs and food spills that often go unnoticed and make tasty temptations for Roaches. This practice contributes to the spread of an infestation to other areas of the home other than the kitchen.
• Vacuum the kitchen floor thoroughly each night before bed. Roaches come out to feed at night. If you will practice your most rigorous cleaning rituals in the kitchen just before bed each night, there will be nothing or very little left for foraging roaches to snack on.
• Vacuum all other non-food areas of the home every 2 to 3 days. This practice contributes to overall sanitation and also helps to eliminate roach feces, skins, body parts, and egg sacs, all of which contain pheromones that attract other roaches to the same areas.
• Wipe down kitchen countertops with a disinfectant spray each night
• Empty pet food containers at night, or place them on the back porch or in a plastic bag.
• Store Food in Sealed Containers. roaches are small enough to slip into the cardboard packaging that many foods are stored in.
• Use a trash can with a tight fitting lid, and take out the trash each night before bed.
• Keep outside trash cans clean and moved away from the structure

Pro Tip

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In cases where you need a really deep clean mopping solution, Mop Clean would be a great choice to add to your mop water. Mopping with cleaning solutions cleans the visible surfaces but also tends to push small crumbs, other material and water into cracks, crevices and voids where it builds up and can cause problems over time. InVade Mop Clean contains probiotic microbes specifically designed to consume organic matter like food. When you mop with Mop Clean you're pushing hungry microbes into those cracks and crevices to literally eat the scum which will help eliminate the hidden food sources roaches use to survive.

While it is nearly impossible to eliminate all water sources, even greatly limiting available sources will cause negative stress on a roach population. Fewer water sources to go around means that many roaches will die.

• Fix leaky faucets and pipes.
• Repair sweating pipes.
• Before bed, stop up sinks in the kitchen and bathrooms and dry them completely with a paper towel.
• Dry out the bathtub and shower completely and stop up the drain before bed.
• Place wet dish rags and sponges in an airtight plastic storage bag overnight, or place them directly in the washing machine.
• Pet water dishes should be placed outside overnight or be dried completely and refilled in the morning.
• Wet toothbrushes should be dried as best they can and sealed in plastic bags.

So where do roaches hide? Roaches prefer a tight crack or crevice, or a dark wall void in which to hide out of sight during daylight hours. Eliminate as many harborages as you can and roaches will hit the road.

• Seal off cracks and crevices with a caulking gun.
• Seal off holes surrounding pipes or other light and wall fixtures with a material such as copper mesh
• Windows and doors should fit tightly and squarely within their frames to prevent both harborage and entry from outside.
• Place tape over holes and crevices in appliances and other household items where appropriate. Such items may include computers, telephones, bread machines, alarm clocks, etc. This is only necessary in areas where many roaches are seen frequently.

Make the exterior of your home or business unattractive to roaches to help prevent roach infestations. Eliminate cracks, crevices and other entry points.

• Keep mulch turned and raked at least 6 inches away from structure to create a "dry zone" which will discourage insects from crossing over the area and also to create an ideal area to apply insecticides.
• Keep shrubs, bushes, plants and trees trimmed back so they do not touch your home.
• Eliminate as much yard debris as possible.
• Keep stacked firewood away from structure.
• Make sure window screens, door sweeps and weather stripping are fully intact to stop roaches from squeezing in.
• Caulk small crevices around door and window frames.
• Apply long lasting insecticide dusts to your wall voids to eliminate insects that may be harboring in these areas.
• Spray the exterior of your home with a residual insecticide every 60-90 days to keep roaches out.

You can learn more about keeping roaches and other pests out of your home or structure by following our General Pest Prevention Program. This program will give you the knowledge and tools needed to stop pests before they invade your home or business.