Cockroaches!!!! HELP!!!!!! Updated: They're gone! Thanks for the advice!

[xdxxtx]

Oh, my gosh. I am so disgusted. I've never been so disgusted in my entire life. I spend 4-6 hours a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, cleaning my house, and we have roaches. How do we have roaches?!!!!! Apparently, they can still find plenty of food and water in perfectly clean houses. I don't go to bed without sweeping and vacuuming all of my high traffic areas (and especially all areas that might have food crumbs). I even mop my kitchen, bathroom and dining room and don't go to bed until the floors are dry. I wash all dirty dishes and wipe down EVERYthing and don't leave any food or water laying around, but apparently, the kind we have (Oriental) can live in drains and sewers - YUCK!!!!!!!!!!! We are minimalists, so there's not even any clutter for them to live in. I don't know how this happened, but I'm so, so grossed out.

I bought some DE and Combat Max bait gel to put in places where my kids and dogs can't get to, and I've run all of our silverware and put it in airtight containers... I'm not sure what else to do with myself. I'm so nauseated. I have a sinus infection. I'm so, incredibly ill. I don't do bugs in my house - AT ALL. I am probably gonna get rid of all open food in my house and make sure all of our food is in airtight packages, too. What else should I do to make sure we're all safe and the nasties go away??? I will not use any spray poisons or anything that could possibly get into the air and hurt my kids, pets or myself, so the idea here is to kill the roaches without killing my family.

 

[Pulirula]

I think you should call an exterminator because they live in the walls. At least they could direct you on how to take care of them

 

[nicem815]

Oh, my gosh. I am so disgusted. I've never been so disgusted in my entire life. I spend 4-6 hours a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, cleaning my house, and we have roaches. How do we have roaches?!!!!! Apparently, they can still find plenty of food and water in perfectly clean houses. I don't go to bed without sweeping and vacuuming all of my high traffic areas (and especially all areas that might have food crumbs). I even mop my kitchen, bathroom and dining room and don't go to bed until the floors are dry. I wash all dirty dishes and wipe down EVERYthing and don't leave any food or water laying around, but apparently, the kind we have (Oriental) can live in drains and sewers - YUCK!!!!!!!!!!! We are minimalists, so there's not even any clutter for them to live in. I don't know how this happened, but I'm so, so grossed out.

I bought some DE and Combat Max bait gel to put in places where my kids and dogs can't get to, and I've run all of our silverware and put it in airtight containers... I'm not sure what else to do with myself. I'm so nauseated. I have a sinus infection. I'm so, incredibly ill. I don't do bugs in my house - AT ALL. I am probably gonna get rid of all open food in my house and make sure all of our food is in airtight packages, too. What else should I do to make sure we're all safe and the nasties go away??? I will not use any spray poisons or anything that could possibly get into the air and hurt my kids, pets or myself, so the idea here is to kill the roaches without killing my family.

Hi! I am SO SORRY you are dealing with that. Definitely call an exterminator if you can, though. When we lived in Texas, we dealt with cockroaches A LOT. However, the big one (though scary as heck) aren't the ones to worry about....the little ones are. If you see little ones, that could mean they are mating and creating new ones....and like the previous poster said, they could live in the walls.

We had an apartment once that we were moving into...I saw roaches so I cleaned SO MUCH. I used pure bleach on the hard floors. We used the bug bombs....and they still survived. Thankfully we never signed the lease so we just left the place. So yes, please call someone to help!!

 

[misspriss]

Call an exterminator. Those are ao hard to get rid of! We had them in an apartment, they must have thrived at the neighbors because they were only found along the common wall, nowhere near the food. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[xdxxtx]

Thanks, y'all. I ended up using the Combat Max Gel and sealed EVERYTHING air tight... Scrubbed everything I own every single night before bed, leaving NO dirt, dust, dander, food, anything I could see. I also plugged up all the drains and made sure everything was dry before going to bed. It's been two weeks, so today, I had a friend of mine who works for our local exterminator company check everything out, and he saw no signs of them in the house and thinks they were just coming to check the place out - and clearly, it's uninhabitable for them since I left them no food or water to access. He made a few suggestions on how to keep them out, but they're not in my home. THANK GOODNESS! I was not looking for housemates.

 

[wookie130]

I would definitely call an exterminator. Unfortunately, these suckers can come in via underneath a lid on a grocery item, and you would never know it, and the next thing you know, you have an entire population living there...and they can usually repopulate entirely within 60 days if you don't get every last one of them. Roaches generally need a professional to address them, and often more than once before they're good and gone. They are disgusting, and I understand your horror with the situation. Unfortunately, even if you have all human food cleaned up, and all crumbs and moisture taken care of, they can still live off of other food sources, such as the glue that binds your books, postage stamps, etc. They are survivors, which means you need to hire someone to deal with them.