Pantry pests are insects that go after our food supplies. They find themselves in our kitchens and pantries eating our food and contaminating our food. Restaurants have problems with them as well as in our homes. The most common pantry pest that you will find is a cockroach. This insect can be found anywhere humans can be found. It’s a bug that’s always with us and always in competition with us. Let’s talk about cockroaches, their life cycle, their needs, types of cockroaches and how to get rid of them.
COCKROACHES THE TROPICAL PEST
Cockroaches are tropical insects. They are originally found indigenous to areas around the equator. Warmer temperatures are necessary to sustain them. Because of this, when they find themselves in colder weather areas, they have to use our homes and our heat to stay warm enough to survive. These insects even are found on every continent that we are on. They are found anywhere that we are in order to parasite off of us. Call Your Broken Arrow exterminator for more help.
COCKROACH NEEDS
Cockroaches have three distinct needs. They need harborage, food and water. Harborage is essentially a place to stay. They need somewhere where they could nest, hide and travel without fear of predators or being seen. This can be inside a wall, behind cupboards or underneath clutter found in your home. Because of this, it’s very important to maintain a certain amount of order in your house. Clutter, boxes and other gaps in places that they can hide will give them the opportunity to build nests and make their home inside your home. Food is the biggest thing that they need. Most of them will find this food in our pantry’s and kitchens. They will cut through plastic bags and find cereals, meats and other food substances to eat and feed their young.
Cockroaches are the bottom feeders of the ecosystem. That means that they are found eating many different kinds of refuse including dung, urine and dead plant and animal matter. This means that they are constantly in contact with bacteria and virus’s that can make you sick. Because of this, when cockroaches are in your pantry and your food, they can contaminate the food that you were going to eat. They can spread many different kinds of diseases infecting your home and your love ones. Cockroaches are also common around people with asthma. The dust and bits of exoskeleton that they emit can cause people to have asthma or agitate someone who already has asthma. Scientist have definitely found statistical connections between cockroach infestation‘s and asthma.
MORE NEEDS
Because of these reasons, it’s so important to get rid of roaches and other pantry pests from your home. One great way of removing food sources from cockroaches is to put all of your cereals and other food stuffs into plastic containers. These plastic containers are too tough for these insects to cut through and can keep them out of your foods and cereal stuff. For more information, contact your Broken Arrow pest control company.
Lastly water is necessary for cockroaches to survive. Often these cockroaches will go outside and find puddles or some kind of condensation to consume water from. They can also get some water from their food. Many of the large outdoor cockroaches, like American cockroaches and oriental cockroaches, thrive on water. Often when plumbing is broken at the house, this can allow these kinds of insects access into our homes. It’s important to make sure there are no leaking faucets or broken pipes in your home. This can lead to cockroach issues.
TYPES OF COCKROACHES
There are four major types of cockroaches that you’ll see in most homes kitchens and pantries. The first is a German cockroach. The German cockroach is found most often when cockroaches are infesting a home. These small brownish orange roaches have two stripes behind their head on their protum. They are unique in the fact that the mother carries the ootheca, or egg sac on her back. She will take the young with her everywhere she goes until they hatch. Cockroach young are called nymphs. That means they look exactly like an adult, only smaller. The second kind of cockroach is the brown banded cockroach. This cockroach is easily identified by the two or three bands that go around its abdomen that are usually yellow or light brown. These insects prefer to be higher up off the ground, and find themselves behind pictures or on top of cupboards.
The American cockroach is the largest cockroach found in most peoples homes. It’s about 2 1/2 inches long, and prefers sewers and drainage. These cockroaches don’t try to get in the house for food, but for harborage. Are usually stumble into a broken pipe or through some other avenue by which they can make a new harborage in your home. Oriental cockroaches are much the same. These are smaller, but are still large black cockroaches, most often seen in sewers and drainage ditches. They have no desire to come inside but again broken plumbing and other piping issues can bring them indoors. The warmth of your home can be very inviting to any cockroach regardless of what kind it is. A Tulsa pest control company can help.
ELIMINATING COCKROACHES FOR GOOD
If you’re having an issue with cockroaches, it’s time to call it a professional Tulsa exterminator. Here at TermMax Pest Control, we are the best in the business when it comes to taking care of your cockroach issues and taking care of them quickly. We serve the greater Tulsa area including Owasso, Turley, Prattville, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Jenks, Bixby, Broken Arrow, Coweta, Catoosa, Claremore much more. Call today for a free estimate. We’re here to help!
