4 Places German Roaches Hide and How to Stop Them

You might expect roaches to hide under and around your furniture, and while some roaches may simply crawl underneath, the truth can be a little more difficult to deal with.

German roaches have small, teardrop sized bodies that make them perfect for squeezing into tight places. In fact, cockroaches compress their exoskeletons to achieve this feat. They can compress their bodies to 40 to 60 percent of their original size.

This ability to compress their bodies allows German roaches to hide in every nook and cranny of a piece of furniture. They may even crawl into seams where wood or fabric meets. These seams provide a dark space that allows these bugs to hide and escape efficiently.

To gauge the amount of damage done to your furniture, look for evidence of roaches. German roaches leave debris in any sort of infestation situation. This debris is usually dark in color and includes feces, body parts, and egg casings. If you find any of this debris, give your furniture a thorough vacuuming. Be careful to pay special attention to seams when you clean.

Cockroaches only survive up to one week without water, and your bathroom is a large source of water for them. Reducing moisture here is key to eliminating a cockroach infestation.

The first step to prevent German roaches from gaining access to water in your bathroom is to stop leaks. Carefully follow pipes to make sure there are no gaps around them to give roaches access to your bathroom. Seal any gaps with silicone or expanding foam if necessary.

You will want to thoroughly air out and dry your bathroom after you bathe. You will also want to place a cover over your drains when you aren't using them.

This one is pretty uncomfortable to think about, but roaches are attracted to heat and food which leads them to make nests in your appliances. To make matters worse, German roaches may host organisms that can lead to gastrointestinal issues.

Pest control around appliances can be tricky to navigate. Sprays are often a go-to pest solution. In this case, sprays have a hard time getting into the small spaces in an appliance and are often unsafe to use on food surfaces.

Instead of sprays, roaches can be prevented from infesting your appliances by utilizing pesticidal dusts and baits placed in strategic locations. Baits should be placed in small quantities away from the appliances to lure the roaches away. Dusts should be applied in thin layers behind and around appliances.

German roaches are clean insects and once they come into contact with the dust or the bait they'll attempt to clean themselves. Once the insects clean themselves the pesticides will kill the roaches.

Often one of the first places you discover you have roaches is when one scurries across your wall. However, roaches can dwell between your walls. German roaches are a smaller roach and are 1/2 to 5/8 of an inch long. These roaches are perfectly capable of flattening themselves and squeezing beneath trim due to their petite size.

This is where a barrier spray could be helpful. When you spray a barrier spray, the idea is to create a continuous barrier along your walls that will kill the roaches once they cross it.

Sometimes, even with all the tricks in the book, German roaches can be tricky to remove. If you're having trouble winning the fight against German roaches, contact Bobby Grisson's Pest Management.