What Attracts Roaches?

Imagine that you walk into your kitchen and there are roaches all around the floor, trying to run away from you. I bet all you could think about is where you could get some roach traps. This might seem a bit extreme, but even if you’ve pictured the ones on the floor in your mind, you probably have forgotten about those sitting on the counter.

Even though you think this could never happen, you don’t know what’s going on at night in your house. Roaches are most active when everything is dark and quiet, and they constantly look for things they can eat. However, it’s good to be aware that they also carry a lot of bacteria on their bodies as they walk around.

For this reason it’s best to find effective ways to control their presence, and of these is to ensure that there is nothing lying around that might tempt them to come in large numbers and feed.

In the following lines we will take a look at what some of the most appealing elements are that you need to be careful about, to prevent these pesky insects from making their way into the kitchen or bathroom areas of your home.

After all, you most probably want to protect your family, especially children, from being exposed to any type of bacteria that roaches might carry.  

Moisture

For these insects, a suitable environment is always a dark and moist one. That is why, you need to repair any kind of leaks that you might have around the house, since these can lure roaches towards creating nests, by offering the right habitat.

Humidity sources can vary from damp basements and pipes, to air conditioning units and even wet leaves that you might leave in your garden. Therefore, pretty much any source of humidity that can create or contribute to mold can also attract roaches.

Now that you know this, you probably understand why you should always do everything necessary to control the level of moisture in your home. If you notice any leaks, it’s a good idea to fix them right away in order to prevent infestations.

Odors

It’s a known fact that roaches are not picky with their food and that they will eat pretty much anything. However, they mostly they love sweets, so if you leave a bowl of sugar or a cereal box on the counter, they will take it as an open invitation to pay your kitchen a visit and see what else is new around there.

Make sure that every time you eat, you leave everything clean and that all the boxes and packs of food are tightly sealed and safely stored away. Furthermore, roaches are not attracted only by nice flavors and odors. They will consider it an invitation as well if garbage or compost piles are left unattended for long periods.

While it’s true that you cannot get rid of every single household smell, you need to make sure that the impact is minimised as much as possible in order to prevent these insects from making their way into various places around the house.

Neighbors

When it comes to neighbors, the situation might not be as manageable as some of us would like it to be. The truth is that there is not much that you can do if your neighbors are not as clean as one would hope. While this means that you might end up having bugs wandering around your home, you can always talk to the property manager.

In the end, this is the person who is responsible for handling any type of infestation in the building, so if you do know there’s a problem you should notify them as soon as possible. Once this is done, hopefully the necessary measures will be taken to get rid of the issue.

Paper and cardboard

While it’s true that piles of paper may not be very appealing to us, they are mouthwatering for roaches, since organic materials and fibres are a major food source for them. Another reason for which roaches find paper and cardboard useful is because they use pheromones to communicate and these surfaces do a good job in soaking the scent.

Therefore, if you have stacks of boxes sitting around for long periods or that are placed in dark spaces, such as the basement, there’s a high chance that roaches will find them very attractive. One solution to this issue would be to use plastic storage bags, ideally ones that are sealable as well, to keep the delicious paper odor contained as much as possible.

If you declutter areas in your home, you also prevent them from communicating with each other, which means that you are one step closer to making sure they don’t decide to join your family in large numbers.

Pet food and supplies

We all know the familiar pet shop odor as we walk past them in shopping malls or on the street.  Since pet food is stored in large quantities inside, the smell is quite strong. Having said this, you can only imagine how a roach feels if you have pet food lying around your house. While the smell might not be appealing to us, for them this is extremely attractive.

What you can do is to store any pet food you have in airtight plastic containers and keep it away from dark corners that might be humid and appealing. Otherwise you might unknowingly create ideal nesting areas.

If you have any further questions on how to protect your home against these insects or a potential contamination, you can always seek expert advice or an evaluation that might give you a good idea of whether you are exposed to this risk or not.

If there’s already a mild situation where you spot a roach here and there around the house or the office, then you should take all the preventive measures discussed above and see what substances and traps you can use to get rid of them for good.