It’s important to remember that roaches aren’t just disgusting pests: They can also aggravate allergies and asthma attacks, spread bacteria that causes E. coli and Salmonella, and contaminate food. Some people may even develop allergies to roaches after coming into contact with their droppings or shed body parts.
In general, there are species that prefer to live outdoors and others that prefer to be indoors. Here are ways to recognize Florida’s most common cockroaches and what you need to know about them.
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Although it’s sometimes known by the slightly more pleasant-sounding name of “palmetto bug,” the American Cockroach (pictured above) inhabits many more places than palmettos. When you see a very large cockroach, it’s likely an American cockroach: According to PestWorld.org, this roach is the largest of the house-infesting cockroaches. Both males and females have wings, and they can fly (or glide, more accurately) over short distances.
Their preferred habitat is outdoors—in places such as mulch piles and leaf litter—but they’ll easily come into your home through garages or under loose weatherstripping on your doors in search of food or water. That search leads them to food in pet bowls, crumbs in your kitchen, and even small amounts of water left standing in bathrooms, laundry rooms, and kitchens.
Unlike the American cockroach, German roaches are right at home inside your house. They will quickly move from one room to another, laying eggs all along the way. One female—that only needs to mate one time to reproduce all their lives—is able to produce a generation that can have tens of thousands more offspring in one year.
German cockroaches are opportunistic travelers, with several ways to come into your home, including in paper bags and cardboard boxes, used furniture, and used appliances.
These strong fliers look for protection from the elements in warm, moist spots. Prone to dehydration, they’re always on the lookout for water. You may see them around your eaves, under the mulch around your garden, and in holes in trees, where they seek the decaying matter they prefer to eat.
If you have a roach problem—particularly a sizeable infestation of German roaches inside your home—solving it using do-it-yourself methods isn’t advised, because household chemical control won’t be effective. Instead, it’s best to leave roach control to the professionals, who use integrated pest management (IPM) techniques and a multi-pronged approach to getting rid of existing infestations and keep them from coming back.
Don’t live with these dirty and dangerous pests! Turner Pest Control has affordable pest control plans that include treating the entry points cockroaches use to get indoors, protecting your home outdoors, and maintaining a barrier that keeps these pests away. Contact us for a free estimate for your home today.
Ready for expert pest control? Find a Turner Pest Control location near you.
