Outdoor Cockroaches

The most common outdoor cockroaches in our area are the Smoky Brown Cockroach, American Cockroach and the Brown Banded Cockroach. Of these the most common are the Smoky Brown and the American cockroaches. They are exterior roaches that find their way into our homes and businesses. Their ideal environment is a dark, moist and dampen area like mulch beds, tree holes, attics or crawl spaces. If you don't clean your gutters often they will also nest in and around your gutters giving them a quick entry point into your attic. Keeping your immediate environment around your home free from leaf debris, wood piles, and overall rubbish will help keep their populations away. These mechanical solutions alone will not keep them from foraging at night around your home or business. Like most insects, these roaches are also attracted to lights at night. So if you don't mind the dark you can turn off exterior lighting or change the bulbs to the yellow bug lights. If you are anything like me, I love my exterior lights at night and in order to maintain the cockroach populations low around my home, I treat the exterior every other month and the cockroach population is very very low.

Removing leaf debris and wood piles will help keep these roaches from nesting close to your home. However, if you want to gain control of the population you will need to apply some form of an insecticide around your home. You can go to your local big box or hardware store and purchase some granules and/or liquid insecticide labeled for the exterior and for cockroaches. Then you may treat the perimeter of your home according to the directions. Please make sure you wear gloves and any personal protection equipment (PPE) required by the label. If this sounds too complicated or too time consuming, please feel free to call or text us and we will be happy to protect your home or business from these nasty roaches and other pests. Enjoy your summer and stay tuned for our next posting.

Michael, Dolphin Pest Control