When using a good spray like Alpine. Spray all baseboards. Spray all cracks and crevice's. Behind ovens and refrigerators, along the toe kick in the kitchen, around the water heater, under furniture you rarely move. I like to spray under the sink. Anywhere that bugs pass by that you reasonably will not touch. And bait everywhere bugs are seen. But bait can also attract bugs so do not bait where they are not. Do this treatment every few weeks alternating baits to combat resistance until your night checks reveal no more bugs. That's the main thing consistency and staying on top of it. An exterminator will never know your home like you do and it's almost more effort to explain and keep calling them back everytime you see a bug than to just do it yourself. Do not spray outside just because leave the good bugs alone. There are good bugs. Wolf Spiders for instance will hunt down and eat roaches. But they have little resistance to sprays and will quickly die near it. Lizards will also hunt down roaches. I think of them as guards for bugs entering the house. There's rumors of geckos that have eliminated roaches from entire apartment buildings. It's still best just to use the right chemicals to be sure that the job is done. For me for many years I was afraid to use them fearing it would hurt my children or animals but really in the end I had to decide that the roaches getting into every crevace and food was more toxic and dangerous than sprays that actually end the problem then you can live with much of it.

Part III - Attack and Execute

Part II - Bug Weapons

Part I - Know thy Enemy

I recently saw another blog that included the article "How to get rid of German Roaches" I've been through the ordeal of bugs before and so I was interested, but actually none of the advice on the page was really useful for dealing with the problem of german cockroaches. It was all essential oils and make sure your house is clean. These ideas are great for prevention but way to weak of a defense if you already have the problem and you need the real deal effective treatment which professional exterminators know how to do.

Which is great when you hire an exterminator and they are using things that are effective but all the quality effective methods will fall flat if they will always lack one of the most effective methods of treatment against the bugs in your house and it's your knowledge and experience in your home. I resisted this idea for many years allowing pest control companies to repeatedly spray my house for years until I realized that it needed to be a complete onslaught and a final battle to finish the bugs for good. You must be the PREDATOR. It is a battle. And there are strategies.

Google them. Know what you've got. Know their habits. Know where they hide. In the case of german cockroaches. They are extremely productive they lay eggs in little yellow pouches that release about 50 tiny roaches every 21 days. They are prolific at reproduction. They live anywhere warm and moist is a bonus. Warm and most is primo location. Behind water heaters, microwaves, refrigerators, bathrooms, under the sink, behind baseboards, near window sills, in cabinets, in electronics. If you have any small leaks this is the time to fix them. Great we know where they are. Now their timing. They are nocturnal. Usually 11 to midnight they come out. This is key because this is how you really locate them and really get a handle on where to spray. I call them night checks. Do night checks around 11pm with a flashlight along baseboards of all the walls in your house every night to identify how many and where and if you can become a hunter and murder a few along the way.

The weapons against bugs. Alpine Spray is the best I've used. Along with two different types of gel baits. Max Force and Advion Gel Baits. There's things to know about how to use them and what not to use. To start there's things NOT to do. You know the Raid Spray that kills bugs on contact. This is true but using this product and similar ones is like spraying a highlighter around your home telling bugs where not to go. So often times when using products like these a bug will just learn to go around it. Another similar product is bug bombs. This is also a spray that tells bugs stay away but also it will drive them deeper into walls and behind cabinets if you do not use it properly. My note with bug bombs is when you use them make sure a bugs escape route is not deeper into your home. I think using all precautions it's best to use them in a garage where bugs will just go outside if they are not killed by the spray. Or in a place where there's not too many places for them to hide deeper like log cabins or smaller block homes. Or if walls haven't been installed. Sticky traps are effective for a small amount of bugs but they produce some bycatch and will not get everything. It's best to use them only for gaging how many bugs you have not as a single treatment.

How to Actually Get Rid of German Cockroaches

New Year. No Bugs.