Roaches in LA/SoCal?

[Lovehound]

When I first bought my home in west SFV I was disgusted to find cockroaches from time to time inside my house. I'd exterminate them and try to figure out how they got in so I could plug the holes. The frequency and quantity varied by season, more during summer. I recall one particularly disgusting occasion on a summer night when I turned on my back patio light and I saw dozens, maybe even a hundred cockroaches just doing their roach thing on my patio! Yuck!

The house has an attached garage situated about three feet from the property line and fence. This is where I stored my trash cans. The ground was just bare earth and usually covered by a layer of leaves. I had never considered this was related to the roaches, but I decided to fix the mess from leaf clutter permanently by cementing it in instead of periodically sweeping up the leaves. (Okay my "periodic" sweeping was pretty infrequent.)

Well the funny thing I discovered is that after cementing in the leafy area my roach problem went practically to zero. I would occasionally see one or two of them on the back patio on summer nights and I almost never found one in the house after that. The obvious conclusion is that they had been breeding and feeding in the thick layer of leaves in my yard, and then getting in the house by whatever means whenever they could.

So here is my suggestion for those with roach problems. If you have unclean conditions in your house or apartment then correct that condition, be sanitary, don't let anything roaches could eat stand around. If you live in an apartment then it might be a problem if yours is clean but your neighbors apartments aren't. If you live in a house then look to your yard and address any problem areas that may provide breeding and feeding grounds for cockroaches. Particularly focus on the area where you store your trash cans.

[Lorielicious]

Originally Posted by SandyCo

I went to see one apartment in Panorama City, and the girl who was showing me around actually showed me an apartment that had just been fumigated, with dead roaches all over the kitchen counters - hundreds of them!

You'd think they'd clean that up before showing the place to somebody...

[UniqueSoCal]

I have lived in an apartment in Hawthorne for 4 months and have just now discovered some small roaches in the kitchen area around the sink What exactly is the difference between a cockroach and a waterbug? If they look similar, perhaps there is a waterbug infestation, but I think they are roaches. Most of the ones I've seen have been tiny, probably babies.

[katnip kid]

Waterbugs are like huge roaches, and are black. They are very fast and creepy looking, with long antennae (spelling?).

[UniqueSoCal]

The 2 adults I saw were smaller, so probably roaches. I'm mostly seeing lots of baby roaches, about the size of ants but shaped like roaches. Long antennae, stripe on the back

[Praline]

I've never seen one roach in my Glendale townhouse but when I lived in Hyde Park in Chicago, I moved into a condo that had a severe roach problem. I used powdered boric acid in crevasses and baseboards any anywhere else I could shake it and I put those combat in the kitchen drawers and cabinets. I got rid of them in my apartment and another owner ended up calling in professional exterminators. Eventually, we did rid the building of them.

[Troof]

Had roaches one time in (ironically) the nicest place I've lived in Santa Monica.

Had quite a bit of success destroying their colony from the inside out by making a homemade bait of a sugar and borax mix (directions from the internet) where they take small amounts of borax laced treats back to the nest and their intestines blow up or something crazy like that... I dunno, whatever it is - it worked.

Used the same trick on some ants as well at another residence.