Moved into house that has roaches. Need advice.

CarolLynn95

Junior Member
Oct 15, 2018
1
0
1
My fiancé and I recently moved into a new house a month ago. When we first came to look at the house, before agreeing to anything, I noticed a roach on the kitchen counter. I told my boyfriend about it and he said he talked to the landlord. They assured us that the house was treated and taken care of and there were no bugs of any kind. Especially roaches. Being the idiots we were, we didn’t come and inspect. We just trusted the landlords word, because she seemed pretty trustworthy and down to earth. We began the moving process and I didn’t notice any until we had everything unpacked and were settling in. Suddenly, I was seeing about ten, sometimes more, a night. A few during the day. Mostly in the kitchen, in cabinets, the sink and dishwasher. Would occasionally see a few in the living room. Rarely in the bathroom, or bedrooms, but it did happen a few times. Even saw a few outside. We had exterminators come. They sprayed. I figured it wouldn’t make a difference and I was right. Was seeing the same amount as before. Then, we used foggers. It killed a lot of them, but I knew it wasn’t over. We put hotshot baits out. Those seemed to work for a while. I’m now seeing almost none during the day and maybe 2-3 at night. Compared to the amount I was seeing before, it’s at least somewhat of an improvement. Still though, I know it’s not going to eliminate the problem. I would say we should just move, but it took forever to even find a place that allowed us to have our Australian Cattle Dog. So, moving isn’t simple, I’d also be nervous about taking the roaches with us. I just don’t know what to do. I’m worried that nothing we try is going to work. I’m scared that we have an infestation and it’s never going to go away. I keep everything dry. I don’t leave any food out. I empty the trash, regularly. Never any dirty dishes. I’m a very tidy person, always have been. We’re going to call Orkin, because a friend of mine highly recommends them, but I’ve read a lot of negative reviews, so I feel like that’s going to be a bust. I just want to know any tips that are 100% guaranteed to work. To get rid of them. That have personally worked for people. I just want to feel comfortable in this home, for once. It’s to the point that I can’t even sleep most of the time, because I know there’s more than what I see. We didn’t deserve this. We were so excited to move. To be closer to our friends and now we’re dealing with an issue that we didn’t even create. I won’t even have my friends over, or let my family come see the place, because I’m so scared they’ll see one crawling during their visit. It’s just stressful.
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
1,570
96
Along with roach proofing and boric acid, I would also place roach motels everywhere. I had a naive landlord once who hired a half-ass exterminator who own him back rent do a very poor job of spraying. So I ended up with far more roaches before that guy came along. I had to make the landlord buy some roach motels and boric acid to fix the problem.
 

Binky

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,046
4
81
Roach tablets seem to work well. They are just boric acid in a tablet form. Throw them in places around the house like little roach cookies.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,404
8,038
136
In this house, that I've lived in since 1983, at one point, around maybe 1988 I spotted cockroaches. I had a very small Radio Shack boom box in the kitchen that was plugged into AC for external power. I think that might have provided a bit of warmth that the creatures liked and I came to realize that they were based in there. I dusted the inside with boric acid. I saw their corpses in there and thereafter have not seen a single roach in the house. Boric acid is very cheap, I got a container in recent years at the hardware store. I use it for ants, when I have an ant problem (haven't for 2-3 years now, amazingly). If you dust where you think roaches may be getting in, say from the walls, you may be able to reduce the problem considerably. Eliminating a big roach problem, well, I've never had to, so I can't speak to the chances you can accomplish that with just boric acid. Maybe tent the house and fumigation, but again, I can't say. Roaches are nasty. I've seen roaches that I think might scare a mouse they're so big at my volunteer job! Good luck!