Easy and Inexpensive Ways to Get Rid of Roaches

Keeping Your Home Clutter Free and Clean

• Roaches infest spaces that are dark, damp, dirty and have crumbs of food around. To ensure roaches don't get the environment they are searching for, begin by cleaning everything in your home from top to bottom, wall to wall. Wash or clean behind areas like appliances, in closets, under furniture and anywhere else that keeps areas dark and possibly moist or even damp. Heating vents and ducts should be kept clean. Vacuum and sweep all floor areas. Seal gaps and cracks between gas and water pipes and any other areas in the kitchen and bathroom, giving roaches fewer places to hide. Take your garbage out on a regular basis, and store your food in seal-tight containers. Roaches are known for hiding in cereal boxes, rice boxes or bags and chip bags.
  
  

Soap and Water Solution

• To kill roaches, simply add some hand soap into a spray bottle filled with water; mix and spray the roach on site. Cover the roach with the soap/water solution and death will come quickly to the roach, and with this method there are no poisonous insecticides to worry about throughout the home. Water alone will not kill the roach; the soap acts to fill the pores of the roach and therefore suffocates it. This method is good for when you see roaches; however, spraying soapy water around the house is not an effective preventative method to get rid of a roach problem.
  
  

Boric Acid Powder

• Roach traps are all made with boric acid, the active ingredient to kill the roach. You can purchase Borax at most grocery stores and supermarkets. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that boric acid (Borax) is as gentle as table salt, so it is therefore nontoxic to use in a home with children or pets. One of the best ways to know where to spread the boric acid is to prepare yourself for a hunt at night. Turn off all the lights in your home and wait; then turn on the light in each room to see if you can follow where the roaches scatter to hide as they do not like well-lit areas. Once you have found where the roaches hide, sprinkle the Borax around those areas. The Borax gets on the legs of the roach. The roach will return to its nest and spread the Borax to its eggs and other roaches, where they will slowly all die from the Borax.
  
  

Glue Traps or Roach Motels

• Buying glue traps, also known as roach motels, are inexpensive and easy to use when getting rid of roaches. Place your traps behind appliances, in vents and heating ducts and in dark and moist areas of the home. The roaches will either get trapped and starve or will walk over the trap, get the poison on their bodies and bring that poison back to their nests. Roaches are known for eating their own waste, so roaches in the home will quickly die from this poison. You may need to place a few traps around the home to ensure all infested areas are protected. These traps are also low on the toxic level and relatively safe in homes with children and pets.