How To: Get Rid of Roaches

I just moved into a new place – I got my own room and my own toiled (and my own floor! yeah!!). The place was perfect. Except for ONE thing: there were roaches EVERYWHERE. It was perplexing since the unit was spotless clean and it even smells clean! So I asked around and found out that there were still unoccupied units in the building, which probably explains why no matter how squeaky clean my place is, I’m still getting unwanted visitors.

So enough talk and start planning how to rid my place of roaches. I searched on the net and found out about the best weapon against roaches: water and soap solution.

Apparently cockroaches breath through their skin so if you spray water with soap on them, they get suffocated and die instantly – actually it takes around 5 seconds.

AND APPARENTLY we’re not supposed to squash them into obliteration because if it happens to be a mother roach that you hit with a rubber slipper, then you just squeezed out not only her gutts but also her eggs. Then you just sentenced yourself to her sons and daughters haunting your place. (Did you know that the jelly fish menace in Japan was caused by fishermen killing mother jelly fish and mother jelly fish expelling out her eggs?)

Preparation details:

– spray bottle for good aiming

– water (like durh!)

– soap: your choice. They said that ordinary soap will do but I tried it and found that it was too weak. I suggest you use dishwashing liquid (1 part dishwashing liquid, 2 part water); or laundry detergent (which is what I’m using right now).

HINT: if it feels like they’re not affected by your solution, then increase the soap dose. And try to hit their bellies, it’s their most vulnerable part.

Note that this approach is for killing roaches on the spot – like when you suddenly come across one in your corridor. For actually getting rid of them, long term, there are several options. The first one I have tried and tested – and as a testimonial, I’m very satisfied with the results.

1. Roach Bait.

I bought Baygon Roach Bait for Php150 in Ace Hardware. Cheap for something that will last for 3 months (it says so at the back of the box). There are 6 baits within the pack and you put them where you know the roaches will pass. There is a pill within each bait which attracts the roaches. The roaches don’t die instantly when they eat from the pill, they die after a few hours. So they have time to go back to their lair and interact with other roaches – that’s the cool part. The roaches that ate from the pill will contaminate the other roaches that it kisses (I have no idea what happens here. But they ALL die).

I’ve had my roach baits in the unit for 2 weeks and the number of pests I’ve come across are down to 10%.

WARNING: this thing will not only rid you of roaches, but also of things that eat roaches! So if a rat eats a dead poisoned roach, then you’ll get yourself a dead rat also.

COOL FEATURE: the roaches die lying down. I don’t know why.

2. Roach chalk. I also bought a pair and I followed the instructions of my mother: draw a thick line on the edges/corners of your place. The roach dies when it passes the line. Unfortunately the pair I bought was old and was expired (why the hell wasn’t there an expiration date??). So that didn’t work for me and I was growing impatient so I took the step above (roach baits make me happy).

3. Water jar. You can be lazy and just put water in it and hope the roaches drown when they get it, or you can be witty and put water and soap in the jar (if you learned anything from what you’ve read in this post). Other options: put sugar, or onion, or peanutbutter to attract the roaches into the jar. IMPORTANT: Wipe vaseline around the mouth of the jar to make sure that it’s a one way trip.

Place that wherever you think the roaches frequent. Then leave it for 7-10 days then check again. You can put on the lid and just throw the whole thing, or if you have a strong stomach then you can clean it up and reuse it. I personally prefer the first.

4. Boric acid. This is cheap “poison”, it’s actually a drug that you can buy over the counter. Php5.00 for a small pack in local drug stores. You can mix this with their favorite dessert: peanut butter 😀 They’ll simply die from poisoning.

5. Baking soda. Mix this with sugar or anything sweet that will attract the roaches. They won’t die of suffocation. They experience a worse death: they’d blow up inside out because the baking soda expands in their stomach since they can’t digest it. I haven’t tried this, but am willing to if someone can assure me that I won’t have to clean roach gutts off my walls.