Most Wanted: Cockroaches

By

March 1, 2013

Guilty of criminal assaults on our nutrition and breathing, these habitual violators spread feces, regurgitation and body fragments, defiling our food and air. Other offenses committed by these infesters include a belligerent odor; the tendency to crawl indiscriminately from filth to food; a mechanical transmission of micropathogens; and a link of food poisoning, wound infections and allergenic asthma.

Within the Family Blattellidae (basically meaning cockroach), these omnivorous and nocturnal thieves abscond with conventional foods and organic matter, including other cockroaches. Incomplete metamorphosis is exhibited, that is, nymphs resemble adults. Individual suspects molt numerous times within their life cycle, eventually to an adult. Select species are fully winged adults, while others have reduced wings or wing buds.

Cockroaches produce a conspirator aggregation pheromone — a chemical signal to same-species cockroaches
that respond to the source. This pheromone is present within cockroach feces; therefore, reoffending cockroaches will be attracted to areas assaulted previously.

Female instigators produce oothecae (egg containers). Eggs hatch inside the container and nymphal cockroaches emerge. Cockroaches hide diurnally in clustered harborages.

Do the detective work, and use the RED method to eliminate cockroach infestations:■ Restrict by creating unfavorable conditions for pests to harbor and proliferate.
■ Exclude by preventing pest physical entry into a structure, which often is neglected or ignored.
■ Destroy by mechanical and chemical methods.
Arrest cockroach development by manipulation of available food and water, relative humidity (RH), and temperature. Nabbing cockroach suspects before public heath crimes are committed involves partnered and persistent environmental hygiene.

Leave A Comment

Comments are closed.