Posted: 10/4/2010 2:26:41 AM EDT
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Let me preface this by saying that I am a neat freak. I keep a very, very clean apartment. I take three quarters of my meals outside of my apartment (becauseof work), and never have any dirty dishes. When I do make food at home, I eat it out of the container it was packaged in and then microwaved in. I then ussually rinse that before throwing it in the garbage. I don't have garbage piling up. I AM CLEAN, NEAT, AND ORGANIZED!!!
Yet, my apartment has a cockroach problem, that really started at the beginning of this summer. I have killed six tonight alone. I even had one (a very little baby one) scurry across my laptop screen two weeks ago while I was typing on it. I killed five in one day in my kitchen last week. I killed three on my coffee table tonight! They are in every room of my apartment. How in the hell do I get rid of these things. If I end up having one crawl on my in my sleep, and it wakes me up, I am probably gonna freak out and grab up the .410 revolver and go to town on some cockroaches. The apartment complex has sent the pest control company around, and they put dabs of poison bait out for the f-ckers. Does anybody have any other solution that ACTUALLY WORKS? Thanks. I am at my wits end with this problem. |
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it is your neighbors that are slobs. one of the joys of living in apartments. i had the same problem in college.
i kept my apartment immaculate, but was also a broke college kid, so my apartment was in the hood....in fact, i think part of the complex was section 8. the people next door, yeah, i don't miss them. my place was covered up with roaches too. i was so glad when it was time to move out. |
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Boric acid (AKA "Roach Pruf") works very well. I have also used "Bengal Roach Spray" which also does an excellent job. Foggers are great, but make sure you open all the cabinets and drawers so it can get into all the knooks and crannies where they live. Personally, what I would do, is start with the foggers, then put down a perimeter of boric acid (including the back of all your cabinets and behind the fridge), then spot treat the cabinets with the Bengal.
Bottom line: having said all that, beings how you live in an apartment, you will always be at the mercy of your neighbors! That is what I hated about apartment living the most!!!!! If THEY have roaches, YOU will have roaches. 
Start saving all your $$$ for a downpayment on a house. You'll likely never get a better deal, nor will interest rates likely ever get lower! It's the only way you will EVER get rid of your roaches for good..... 
Unfortunately, as a pawnbroker, I know ALL about roaches..... I am constantly importing new infestations by taking in stuff from my ickier clients. I no longer accept microwave ovens for that very reason!!! YUKKKKKKK.  
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| Martin's Viper insecticide concentrate is the best I have ever used. Foggers and boric acid are sub-par compared to this. It may be a little pricy but you get what you pay for. Have fun cleaning all the dead critters. You know its good when it is not allowed for use in California! |
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Quoted:
it is your neighbors that are slobs. one of the joys of living in apartments. i had the same problem in college. i kept my apartment immaculate, but was also a broke college kid, so my apartment was in the hood....in fact, i think part of the complex was section 8. the people next door, yeah, i don't miss them. my place was covered up with roaches too. i was so glad when it was time to move out. This pretty much sums it up. You can set off all the bug bombs you want, but the roaches will just go to your neighbor's apartment until it's safe to come back. My first apartment was dumpy little one bedroom in a crappy part of town. One of my neighbors worked for Goodwill and was constantly bringing stuff home...along with a bunch of nasty little stowaways. Our only option was to move, and inspect every single item before we brought it into our new apartment.
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| The management "should" get an exterminator out there, but most complexes just sweep it under the rug. I would raise hell about it. In theory, if they don't do anything about it, get a code enforcement officer out there and hope he says its uninhabitable. Then you can move out with no penalties. |
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Chances are you have some nasty neighbors. All of your neatness doesn't matter one bit if the apartment above/below/beside you are nasty.
The landlord should be able to help, but don't hold your breath. Treating for roaches isn't going to hurt, but at the same time if you have nasty neighbors you can nuke your apartment from orbit and it won't make a difference. |
| Also consider what you call nasty and what you think of as 'food'. Cockroaches love to hide in any clutter even if it isn't 'dirty', they also eat things you would never consider to be food! Cockroaches love hiding around carboard and papers and things, they can subside on the glue used to seal envelopes and commercial packaging. |
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Our new house had them when we moved in. Boric acid under the appliances and at every entrance point did the trick for us. I got it at Dollar General in a "poof" bottle that looks like a big ketchup bottle, and I poofed that stuff everywhere I could into every crack, under every cabinet, on thresholds, in window sills, etc..
As mentioned above, if you have nasty neighbors, you'll just keep getting the runoff from their population. We were lucky in that we had a fixed number of them that we either eliminated or ran off, and they stayed gone. I still see big ones in the woods around the house, but we don't get any inside the house anymore. Good luck! |
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If you go with a fogged, get the raid smoke type, gets in everywhere and even kills spiders. I had a bad blackwidow problem in my old apartments garage. One smoker and they were all dead, everything was dead. Everything.
ETA, The boric acid works great. Use a baby nose bulb and dust up in crevices and under the fridge and sink. It sticks to thier legs and they take it back to where they came from and give it to all thier buddies. Like a little terrorist.. |
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Quoted:
Let me preface this by saying that I am a neat freak. I keep a very, very clean apartment. I take three quarters of my meals outside of my apartment (becauseof work), and never have any dirty dishes. When I do make food at home, I eat it out of the container it was packaged in and then microwaved in. I then ussually rinse that before throwing it in the garbage. I don't have garbage piling up. I AM CLEAN, NEAT, AND ORGANIZED!!! Yet, my apartment has a cockroach problem, that really started at the beginning of this summer. I have killed six tonight alone. I even had one (a very little baby one) scurry across my laptop screen two weeks ago while I was typing on it. I killed five in one day in my kitchen last week. I killed three on my coffee table tonight! They are in every room of my apartment. How in the hell do I get rid of these things. If I end up having one crawl on my in my sleep, and it wakes me up, I am probably gonna freak out and grab up the .410 revolver and go to town on some cockroaches. The apartment complex has sent the pest control company around, and they put dabs of poison bait out for the f-ckers. Does anybody have any other solution that ACTUALLY WORKS? Thanks. I am at my wits end with this problem. Hell, I've had a problem with ants all summer |
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So they are cockroaches though? And not woodroaches? Because those things will infest apartments, wooded areas, and damaged roofs and walls no matter how neat you are. They are extremely prevalent in houses and apartments in our areas. If they are wood roaches, they're not really following food, but certain kind of structures. Best you can do is caulk up windows and create and absolute sealed environment. |