How to Keep Cockroaches Out of the House

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm often asked how do I keep cockroaches out of my house? Well I'm going to help you with that. I'm Michael Piacenza with Advantage Pest Control. So how do we keep cockroaches out of the house? Well integrative pest management is a multi pronged approach to take care of the food sources, clean up, make sure there isn't food sitting around, debris, make sure there isn't garbage in the garbage can, food particles underneath the stove and refrigerator, you get the idea, just basically some good housecleaning. The next thing is to keep them out, to seal up, using caulking, expandable foam, weather stripping, all those places where they can get in, also that is where drafts get in so it will help your electric bill. The other thing is German roaches. Now German roaches come into the house usually with a box or your groceries or fruits and vegetables so if you are shopping like at the farmer's market or something like that you have got to be very careful. Make sure you check all that before you bring it into the house. So the other thing is to treat outside the house, I like to use time release granules outside of the house. You can use something like a pyrethrin which is a synthetic made from chrysanthemums and it is biodegradable so it is synthetic but it is good for the Earth. So you try to kill them before they get into the house. Now there are some old wive's tales. I live in the Tampa Bay Area and a lot of people used to go over to the old cigar factories and get bags of the clippings and sprinkle that all around the house but that is not very convenient. Another thing is you can put bay leaves into the drawers and cabinets that you definitely don't want them in but that is just going to make them go into the cabinet next door so clean, make sure they are not getting in and then if you have to treat them use a safe biopesticide. Hope this has been helpful. I'm Michael Piacenza. Have a great day."