Seven Ways to Exterminate Cockroches

Cockroaches are tough to kill. They have developed resistance to commercial insecticides, developing skills such as crawling on the walls of your houses and apartments. Continue using commercial insecticides and you’re just helping cockroaches toughen up their stock. As a human being, you need to be craftier than cockroaches and use an assortment of ways to exterminate them. The following is a list of roach extermination techniques using simple tools.

1. The Petroleum Jelly Trap: This method is more practical if you only come across a cockroach once or twice a week, and if you’re dealing with a small colony somewhere around your house. Create your own trap by applying petroleum jelly on the inner walls of a container with steep sides.Next, make a paper ramp that leads into the container so the cockroach can climb into it. Place a bait inside the container, preferably something that has a strong sweet odor like sugar or apple cider. When the roach smells the sweet odor, it will quickly climb up the ramp and fall into the container. Since the petroleum jelly is sticky, the roach will get trapped. Finally, take the container and flush the roach down the toilet.

2. Boric Acid Poison: Cockroaches have ruined many otherwise peaceful and beautiful nights so it’s understandable that many people hate them real bad. Try punishing them with boric acid poison. Boric acid work by abrading the roach’s shell or cuticle with its harsh particles. With its shell damaged, the roach will soon die of dehydration. They may even die a slow, painful death if you live in a highly humid environment since it takes longer for the roach to lose its moisture. Mix the boric acid with sugar, flour, and water to make it into a paste so it will be more tempting to roaches.

3. Let Loose Some House Geckos: Think of cockroaches as enemy soldiers trying to invade your home. House geckos are the best foot soldiers to counter their attack. These lizards thrive in warm, humid areas where they crawl around in search of insects to eat. No roach is too big for a house gecko. If it can’t swallow the whole thing, it will settle for its head, and that roach is dead for sure (or at least, dying, because roaches are known to survive for a while without heads). Get five or six of these and let them loose inside your house, and your nights will soon be peaceful because these guards are nocturnal. The only catch is, you might get a house gecko infestation next.

4. Burn them with a Heat Gun: If you see cockroaches everyday in different parts of your house, you need to go after their colonies. Roaches usually live underneath cabinets, cracks in the walls, and anywhere dark and moist. Get a heat gun, the one used for stripping paint, angle its nozzle toward suspected colonies, and blast away. If you hit the right spot, roaches will scramble or die out instantly since the extreme heat will dehydrate and suffocate them.

5. Use a Vacuum Cleaner: Smashing or stepping on cockroaches can be messy and gross. It’s better to use a cordless vacuum cleaner when you see one crawling on your countertop. Simply direct the nozzle on the creepy crawler and it will instantly suck it in. It won’t even have time to spread its wings and fly. You can also try putting boric acid inside the vacuum cleaner so that the roaches won’t be able to get out once they get in.

6. Chuck them out with Chinese Chalk: Chinese chalk is made of Diatomaceous Earth, a naturally occurring chalk-like sedimentary rock. It’s usually available in hardware stores and Chinatown. Chinese chalk acts like boric acid as it abrades the roach’s shell. Just draw lines across shelves, cabinets and walls using the chalk. When cockroaches cross these lines, the particles of the chalk will cut them like broken glass, and they’ll soon die of dehydration.

7. Destroy Colonies with Gas: Finally, huge problems call for drastic measures. Think of this as your weapon of mass destruction against cockroaches. First, you need to find the roaches’ colonies. If you’re not sure where they are staying, prowl your premises very late at night, like 1:00 or 2:00 AM. Roaches are nocturnal so you’ll be able to trace where they live if you see one wandering at night. Once you know the location of their colony, go to the gas station and fill up a can of gas. Pour the gas on their colony and watch them run for their lives. They’ll never get far though, because the gas will eventually poison them. Seeing roaches swarm is absolutely disgusting, so be prepared. You may be able to destroy an entire colony of roaches through this method.

Cockroaches can be persistent, so you need to regularly apply these techniques to get rid of them completely. Most importantly, don’t surrender to them. They may be one of the toughest creatures on earth, but you’re the smartest.