Common Pests

What You Need To Know

 

Roaches

Your Morris Pest Control professional uses an Intensified Treatment Strategy to attack the cockroach. Here’s why……..

Cockroaches are known carriers of serious diseases, such as, salmonella, dysentery, gastroenteritis and other stomach complaint organisms. They adulterate food and spread pathogenic organisms with their feces and defensive secretions.

Cockroaches must molt regularly throughout their life-cycle. The discarded skin becomes airborne and can cause severe asthmatic reactions, particularly to children, the elderly and people with bronchial ailments.

The female produces an egg sac which she carries or deposits in a safe place. The young cockroach or "nymph" will undergo a series of molts, shedding its external skeleton, as it grows to adulthood. The entire life cycle may extend to a few months depending on the species and environmental factors, such as, access to food and moisture, adequate shelter and warm temperatures.

Cockroach pests and their eggs are spread throughout the community in food and other packaging. Although sanitation and hygiene are important deterrents, even the cleanest homes become infested with cockroaches due to minute deposits of grease, sugar and other food deposits in difficult to get at places, such as, in drains, behind refrigerators and dishwashers, inside cracks and crevices in kitchen cupboards.

Cockroaches will eat almost any organic matter no matter how rancid. Once inside the home, they will seek out food scraps, unsealed food containers, sugar and grease deposits, pet food, rancid meat, glue and even book bindings. They eat each other’s feces, to feed the young "nymphs" and extract all nourishment from an organic food source. If you see a clump of pepper-like specs in your kitchen cupboards, it is likely cockroach feces marking their courtship and nearby nesting territory.

Cockroaches rest during daylight hours in dark warm secure harborages in your home, such as, in wall cavities, the sub-floor, roof void, cracks and crevices in the kitchen and bathroom, electrical appliances and foodstuffs. They will emerge from these harborages in the still of the night. Cockroaches have an array of acute sensory and survival instincts. If you see cockroaches in your home during the day, you have a serious problem.

If left unchecked a cockroach infestation can rapidly expand its numbers in a few weeks or months to become major risk to health and safety.