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We have a brand new house in Summerville, new construction. My wife is ready to move out of the state because we have to kill a little roach about 3 times a week. We have an exterminator come out every other week. I have walked around looking for openings but i doubt i would be able to see anything. what in the heck do we do? is this normal? we are from out of state so seeing roaches is a huge deal for us, very bad.
We have a brand new house in Summerville, new construction. My wife is ready to move out of the state because we have to kill a little roach about 3 times a week. We have an exterminator come out every other week. I have walked around looking for openings but i doubt i would be able to see anything. what in the heck do we do? is this normal? we are from out of state so seeing roaches is a huge deal for us, very bad.
thank you
My friend Mike used to live in Hawaii for many years. He said that he emptied the trash daily and wipe down the tub and sinks because the roaches love water and food and if you get rid of their supply then they leave.
You shouldn't be finding live roaches in the house if you have an exterminator. I'm assuming you aren't talking the normal 'inside' kitchen/bath roaches -- german roaches I think they are called and that you are referring to what we affectionately call the palmetto bug. These roaches are for the most part are outdoor critters that may come in one at a time to check things out.
If you are talking German roaches -- you will have to have indoor treatments done -- and serious. I doubt that's it in a new home. Unless you brought them in from somewhere.
If it is a palmetto bug roach style, then your exterminator should be treating them. You might see one live one every six months but you shouldn't be seeing them frequently. Most of the ones that manage to make inside at my house are belly up not far from the doorway.
When we moved to Georgia 18 years ago we moved into a brand new house. I found all kinds of critters. I had an exterminator come and do inside and out. And poof it was all cleared up. It could be you are just having the previous occupants clearing out now.
That doesn't seem normal. Does the exterminator spray inside? That helps with the ones that make it in the house. We ran into a problem a couple years ago. We killed 7 in one day. We sealed up the holes under the sink and in the closet where the ac unit is. We rarely get them in the house.
You shouldn't have roaches like that with an exterminator and a clean new home. We have an old house in a heavily wooded neighborhood, and "palmetto bugs" outside all over the place. We've let our exterminator contract lapse, but I'm a total pest-phobic clean freak, and we haven't seen any more of those bugs (or any others for that matter) inside than we did before- maybe one a month- often dead.
If you lived in the north before, you have to get used to a whole new way of storing food. Nothing in the pantry or kitchen cabinets that can be classed as fresh food, including flour (keep it in the freezer to keep bugs from sprouting in it). Potatoes go in the fridge. Cereal double wrapped in plastic. Scrub up sticky stuff right away - keep the floors mopped every day.
If you have no pets or small kids, you can make a roach killer found here:
I have used this successfully in the past and rarely found a roach in the house. I used to put the mixture in little bottle caps (beer bottle caps, other tiny bottle caps) and hide them all over the place near the walls, which usually have the most roach traffic. It really works!
Is there pine straw outside around your house/the foundation of your house?? We were told by an exterminator that roaches/palmetto bugs breed in pine straw. Once we got rid of the pine straw around the foundation of our house, we never saw another palmetto bug inside our house...and it's been almost 5 years. No kidding...not one.
I wouldn't say you need to make sure everything is double sealed or keep things in the refrigerator or freezer. Maybe if this was Florida. My cereal, flour, and sugar are kept in the pantry the way they are. I have never had a problem here with bugs in those items. I also don't keep potatoes in the refrigerator.
Yeah -- those extreme measures aren't necessary. I'm clean but not fanatical and my pantry is a normal pantry. The kids often will open something and not seal it properly but we don't have any issues -- no ants, roaches, bugs of any kind. The guy who is our exterminator was shocked I didn't have ant problems. This house was occupied by one other person for a couple of years and she had continuous ant problems -- me not so much and as i said -- clean but not fanatical.
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