Taking the Bait

A combination of gel baits and sprayable pesticides is the most common approach PMPs take to cockroach control, with 81 percent saying that’s how they go about treating the pests. Just shy of half (45 percent) say that gel baits are their primary control measure, while 26 percent name residual pesticide applications and 11 percent insect growth regulators (IGRs) as their primary tools.

“Treating cockroaches can be tricky, because they become resistant to chemicals quickly, plus it can be difficult to get the chemicals to the bugs,” said John Etheridge of Seashore Pest Control. “We’ve had a lot of success lately treating wall voids with foams and dusts, in addition to placing gel baits and applying insecticides into cracks and crevices with a diffuser. In restaurant kitchens, we’re also focusing on kick plates, because they are an easy place for cockroaches to hide. And we rotate frequently to avoid resistance issues.”

Nationwide, 60 percent of PMPs say cockroach resistance is a concern in their market area, yet a hefty 87 percent rotate products. Once bitten, twice shy? Or an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Either way, no one seems to want to take the chance of nurturing a new breed of super-cockroaches!

“Nothing is resistant to a vacuum,” said Maria Richmond of Ransford Pest Control. HEPA vacuums are, to her team, as integral as the pesticides they use and regularly rotate. “HEPA vacuums get rid of an important food source — the dead cockroaches — as well as live insects and eggs. They remove old dead roaches so you know if there has been new activity on your next visit. They also keep the debris contained rather than spreading allergens around as other vacuums can do.”

Richmond says that multi-family residences can be challenging: “When you go into several apartment units and the property manager says, ‘You don’t have to go to apartment four; that tenant never complains,’ we know that that’s the exact apartment we need to check, because it’s probably the source of the problem!” The restaurants in her New England market can be even more difficult.

“We have a lot of old buildings, so we might be walking into overdue construction/renovation issues or worse. Most commonly what we find are sanitation issues. Over the years, we’ve learned to be more reasonable with our expectations. If a kitchen is loaded with grease that’s been there for years, you can’t just say, ‘Hey, you need to clean all of this up by our next visit.’ We ask them to do the cleaning in small pieces — behind the refrigerator one time, around the range another. No manager wants to stay after hours to clean what should have been cleaned by others years ago,” Richmond said.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

Glenn Fordham of Olympic Pest & Termite Control believes in getting back to basics to control cockroach populations. “It’s all about the inspection,” he said. “You’ve got to find them to treat them.”

For American and smoky brown cockroaches, it’s about discovering where they’re getting in, Fordham says — asking customers where they most often see the bugs and then looking for evidence in that area. They may be entering through a particular vent or the attic, for example. With German cockroaches, you need to search “high, low, behind — everywhere!”

Fordham shares an experience with one customer who kept calling back complaining of more cockroaches. “On our third trip, I was picking up and looking at absolutely everything to see if I could find where they were hiding,” he said. “Finally, I picked up an old phone the customer had bought at a garage sale, and there they were, in the stand and headset.”

At another account, an Olympic technician opened a coffee maker and cockroaches came pouring out, Fordham says. That’s why he instructs his team to not just check the usual places — under the sink, behind the fridge and range, and in cracks around and underneath counters — but to also inspect can openers, microwaves, computers, phones and any other potential harborage spaces.