Accidentally, your baby cockroach is out of the house. Of course you’ll freak-out! There are several types of baby roaches that can invade your home. The most common ones are brownbanded cockroaches and German cockroaches.
The female German Cockroach carries eggs in a case called an ootheca where she will remain attached for about 10 days before releasing them with 20 to 40 nymphs inside the egg case. Baby Roach are very small when they are newly hatched but immediately begin to feed on anything available including grease, soap residue, hair, carpet lint, crumbs or food spills below counters etc… They move quickly and can squeeze through cracks as thin as a dime. After hatching, they are able to reproduce after only six weeks.
Three days later, there are already 10 new baby roaches! So how can you get rid of them? Here are some natural ways on how to kill cockroaches without using pesticides .
(1) Keep your home spotless and clean of waste and crumbs. Cockroaches love hiding in dirty spaces because it makes them feel safe from predator or even human beings. Clear away everything that is unnecessary in the house such as clutter lying around the floor. Sweep the kitchen twice daily and do not leave dishes overnight in the sink when cleaning up after dinner time.
(2) Fix and repair any leakages in your property because this will attract cockroaches. Cockroaches are drawn to moisture, so wipe away any water droplets. Doing this will reduce the number of cockroach infestation in your home.
(3) Use an organic cockroach killer spray . There are also commercial products available that you can use to spray around your house or near entry points in order to kill these pests in a natural way. If you have pets, make sure that the products you use are safe for them too.
(4) Keep your property ventilated well and do not block up any holes, cracks or crevices because these little critters love dark spaces where they feel safe from predators.
Every Monday morning at 6am, Erwin Cruz distributes pesticides in his Manila slum. It is an expensive but necessary service, he says. To protect his family of 5 from disease and pests, he pays 65 pesos (about $1.30) to spray inside their house with Temefos , a brand name for temephos, an organophosphate insecticide known to be safe for children over the age of 2 who weigh at least 15kg (33lbs).
“We know it’s poison you know? But if we don’t use this no one will come,” he explains, pointing out that only those who pay protection money to local gangs are able to run businesses in the slum without being extorted by their workers. “People are afraid because they’re forced into it.”
Erwin is a volunteer with the DDT Kabalikat Network, a community organisation in Manila that aims to provide “safer and healthier alternatives” for pest control in slums.
For more than 40 years organophosphates have been used to kill household pests including cockroaches and mosquitoes that can carry diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever. But over the last 15 years scientists have begun raising concerns about their use because they are not naturally degraded by bacteria – instead they persist in the environment where they attach themselves to particles of soil or sediment from rivers or lakes. These pollutants accumulate in food chains when animals eat insects laced with pesticides and then toxins move on into our bodies when we eat the contaminated meat or fish.
Organophosphates are classified as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Pesticides such as temephos, one of the most widely used organophosphate pesticides across the globe and the active ingredient in many commercial anti-pest sprays including those sprayed in Erwin’s home.
In Manila, DDT Kabalikat Network has found that their alternative methods of pest control have reduced other diseases too: primary school children who live in areas treated with safer chemicals – such as boric acid which is poisonous to insects but not known to harm human beings – had 40% less incidence of diarrhoea than those living in untreated areas, according a 2011 survey .