ROACH PREP
Before one of All Pest’s professional technicians arrives at your home for treatment of cockroaches, you must perform the following tasks:
1. Remove all clutter such as clothing, children’s toys, stored items, etc. from kitchen and bathroom areas. Your technician cannot apply chemicals with these items present.
2. Thoroughly clean all bathroom and kitchen areas. This includes vacuuming out cabinets, cleaning all counter and stove-top surfaces with a heavy-duty cleaner, cleaning the oven, moving out and cleaning around and under the refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, and stove. Crumbs, spilled grease, and bits of food in these areas are a banquet for cockroaches. Floors should also be mopped. A high level of sanitation is essential for ultimate control.
3. Eliminate all cockroach food and water sources. This includes placing open food (such as open cereal or cracker boxes) and pet food inside sealed plastic bags (do not leave pet food in dishes on the floor), sealing trash bags when not in use, cleaning cooking utensils and dirty dishes immediately after use, and relentlessly cleaning up all spills, leftover food, crumbs, etc. Your technician will be using cockroach baits and the elimination of competing food sources is extremely important. Additionally, changing cockroaches’ environment by eliminating food and water sources stresses the cockroach population forcing them to seek out other sources which allows our baits and chemicals to be more effective.
4. Immediately cease using any sprays or chemicals you have been using for your cockroach infestation (nor begin using anything after our treatment). Chemicals available to consumers can do more harm than good because they often have a repellent effect which scatters the cockroach population.
Your All Pest technician will review this list with you when he arrives. If he does not feel that these steps have been adequately performed, he may elect not to treat. We want to insure successful treatment the first time and the preparation before treatment is an extremely important element of the eradication program. Once your technician has verified your home is ready for treatment, he will ask that you and your pets vacate the treatment areas. This is done for your safety and well-being and to allow your technician to perform his work without fear of injuring anyone.
For successful treatment, we must first attain and maintain a high level of sanitation and eliminate cockroach food and water sources. This is your responsibility. Second, your technician will apply several baits which are highly attractive and lethal to cockroaches. Third, your technician will conduct a spot and crack-and-crevice application of a non-repellant, residual insecticide. (If a very heavy infestation of cockroaches is encountered, your technician may also elect to vacuum up all visible cockroaches before he begins treatment.)
The technician will then apply gel bait with a caulking gun-type device and apply the gel as a fine bead in areas that cockroaches will likely inhabit or pass by (cracks/crevices in walls, cabinets, near appliances, etc.) as well as other types of bait and/or bait stations. Cockroach baits, while extremely toxic to cockroaches, are designed to be slow-acting. This is an advantage because it causes a “domino effect” to other cockroaches. Nymphs feeding on the feces of poisoned adults will also die. Cockroaches will often cannibalize their dead companions, especially if other food sources are scarce, and thereby ingesting a lethal dose of the bait chemical.
After your technician has baited areas of cockroach activity, he will apply a residual chemical to areas of the kitchen and/or bathrooms and/or any room he deems necessary. This chemical is extremely effective because cockroaches cannot detect it or its lethality. By simply walking across a treated surface, cockroaches will pick up a lethal dose of chemical and die in as few as six hours. The chemical will be spot-applied on baseboards, under appliances, inside cabinets, and in crack and crevice areas. You will not notice any strong odor nor be in danger of breathing fumes. You should stay out of treated areas until the applied chemical has dried. This can take anywhere from two to four hours or more. If you, your family, or a pet should touch any treated areas when still wet, simply wash the affected area with warm water and soap. Once treated areas are completely dry you may resume normal activities.
Within two to three days you should see a dramatic decrease in the cockroach population. However, not all cockroaches will be killed immediately and eggs will continue to hatch for several weeks. Therefore, continued efforts on your part will be necessary to include maintaining a high level of sanitation, cleaning up spilled food, washing dirty dishes and cooking utensils immediately after use, running the dishwasher at night, tightly packaging all open food (such as cereal, cracker, cookies, flour, sugar, bread, and dry pet food) in plastic bags or airtight containers, feeding pets only at pet mealtimes, eliminating pet water at night, and sealing garbage containers (you can simply use a twist tie to seal garbage bags). All of these measures are especially important at night when cockroaches are most active, and must be continued for a period of at least four weeks after treatment, even if you are not seeing any live cockroaches. We must stress that by eliminating food and water sources, our baits and chemicals become much more effective. The importance of your efforts at post-treatment sanitation cannot be overemphasized.
If you are still seeing some live cockroaches after our treatment, please be patient. Chemicals and baits take time to do their work, especially if the infestation is large.
A very informative article about cockroaches may be found at: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef614.asp.
Revised 3/31/17
Before one of All Pest’s professional technicians arrives at your home for treatment of cockroaches, you must perform the following tasks:
1. Remove all clutter such as clothing, children’s toys, stored items, etc. from kitchen and bathroom areas. Your technician cannot apply chemicals with these items present.
2. Thoroughly clean all bathroom and kitchen areas. This includes vacuuming out cabinets, cleaning all counter and stove-top surfaces with a heavy-duty cleaner, cleaning the oven, moving out and cleaning around and under the refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, and stove. Crumbs, spilled grease, and bits of food in these areas are a banquet for cockroaches. Floors should also be mopped. A high level of sanitation is essential for ultimate control.
3. Eliminate all cockroach food and water sources. This includes placing open food (such as open cereal or cracker boxes) and pet food inside sealed plastic bags (do not leave pet food in dishes on the floor), sealing trash bags when not in use, cleaning cooking utensils and dirty dishes immediately after use, and relentlessly cleaning up all spills, leftover food, crumbs, etc. Your technician will be using cockroach baits and the elimination of competing food sources is extremely important. Additionally, changing cockroaches’ environment by eliminating food and water sources stresses the cockroach population forcing them to seek out other sources which allows our baits and chemicals to be more effective.
4. Immediately cease using any sprays or chemicals you have been using for your cockroach infestation (nor begin using anything after our treatment). Chemicals available to consumers can do more harm than good because they often have a repellent effect which scatters the cockroach population.
Your All Pest technician will review this list with you when he arrives. If he does not feel that these steps have been adequately performed, he may elect not to treat. We want to insure successful treatment the first time and the preparation before treatment is an extremely important element of the eradication program. Once your technician has verified your home is ready for treatment, he will ask that you and your pets vacate the treatment areas. This is done for your safety and well-being and to allow your technician to perform his work without fear of injuring anyone.
For successful treatment, we must first attain and maintain a high level of sanitation and eliminate cockroach food and water sources. This is your responsibility. Second, your technician will apply several baits which are highly attractive and lethal to cockroaches. Third, your technician will conduct a spot and crack-and-crevice application of a non-repellant, residual insecticide. (If a very heavy infestation of cockroaches is encountered, your technician may also elect to vacuum up all visible cockroaches before he begins treatment.)
The technician will then apply gel bait with a caulking gun-type device and apply the gel as a fine bead in areas that cockroaches will likely inhabit or pass by (cracks/crevices in walls, cabinets, near appliances, etc.) as well as other types of bait and/or bait stations. Cockroach baits, while extremely toxic to cockroaches, are designed to be slow-acting. This is an advantage because it causes a “domino effect” to other cockroaches. Nymphs feeding on the feces of poisoned adults will also die. Cockroaches will often cannibalize their dead companions, especially if other food sources are scarce, and thereby ingesting a lethal dose of the bait chemical.
After your technician has baited areas of cockroach activity, he will apply a residual chemical to areas of the kitchen and/or bathrooms and/or any room he deems necessary. This chemical is extremely effective because cockroaches cannot detect it or its lethality. By simply walking across a treated surface, cockroaches will pick up a lethal dose of chemical and die in as few as six hours. The chemical will be spot-applied on baseboards, under appliances, inside cabinets, and in crack and crevice areas. You will not notice any strong odor nor be in danger of breathing fumes. You should stay out of treated areas until the applied chemical has dried. This can take anywhere from two to four hours or more. If you, your family, or a pet should touch any treated areas when still wet, simply wash the affected area with warm water and soap. Once treated areas are completely dry you may resume normal activities.
Within two to three days you should see a dramatic decrease in the cockroach population. However, not all cockroaches will be killed immediately and eggs will continue to hatch for several weeks. Therefore, continued efforts on your part will be necessary to include maintaining a high level of sanitation, cleaning up spilled food, washing dirty dishes and cooking utensils immediately after use, running the dishwasher at night, tightly packaging all open food (such as cereal, cracker, cookies, flour, sugar, bread, and dry pet food) in plastic bags or airtight containers, feeding pets only at pet mealtimes, eliminating pet water at night, and sealing garbage containers (you can simply use a twist tie to seal garbage bags). All of these measures are especially important at night when cockroaches are most active, and must be continued for a period of at least four weeks after treatment, even if you are not seeing any live cockroaches. We must stress that by eliminating food and water sources, our baits and chemicals become much more effective. The importance of your efforts at post-treatment sanitation cannot be overemphasized.
If you are still seeing some live cockroaches after our treatment, please be patient. Chemicals and baits take time to do their work, especially if the infestation is large.
A very informative article about cockroaches may be found at: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef614.asp.
Revised 3/31/17
