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Hello, this is Ben with Ben’s pest control. And it’s time for another one of our Ben’s pest control podcasts. And today, I want you to take a step back and think like a bug. Let’s say that you woke up and you decided that you were having a problem with roaches, and you wanted to address that problem yourself and you wanted to take it on? Well, the first thing I would tell you with anything like that is you really need to think like a bug, you need to say, what is going on? What are they? How are they acting? Where are they living? Where are they coming from. And so today I want to talk about German roaches and and say to you that, as I’ve said in many episodes before, all living creatures need three things to survive. And that’s food, water and shelter. So if you’re a German Roach, where are the environments that are going to provide you the things you need to be the happiest? Well, let’s start with water. Water is almost always going to be around sinks. You’re going to have water at your dishwasher, you’re gonna have water at your icemaker, you’re gonna have water to your coffee pot, your espresso machine, you’re gonna have water at your washing machine, you’re gonna have water for your toilets, your bathroom sinks, and you’re also going to have water on your air conditioning. Those are some of the main parts that you would think of when you’re thinking first of all water. So that’s the first thing when it comes to the German roaches is that you always want to be thinking about the water. The next thing is, let’s put food in there. Well, it is possible to have some trace amounts of food around your air conditioning, it is possible to have some trace amounts of food around your washing machine. But for the most part, the food is going to be where the kitchen is. Now you can have some food also in a bathroom. Roaches can eat human skin cells or hair. So there is a possibility that they could thrive in that environment. But the kitchen is going to be the number one area for the German roaches. That’s where they are going to be the absolute happiest. And so when you’re looking at the kitchen, now you’re looking at the water, you’re looking at the food. One of the things I can tell you a lot of people neglect is the garbage cans. garbage cans for cockroach are beautiful places, people aren’t going to throw out their scraps, people might dump out some some remnants of a drink or something in a cup. It sounds kind of dumb. I know a lot of older people may not do this, but I’m telling you when you have kids, kids do some darn thing crazy stuff. Sometimes they put paper towels or Kleenex or napkins into the cups and they’re all wet. And now you’re throwing that into the trash. So you’ve got scrapped food. And you’ve got moisture that has been dumped in there in the form of let’s say a wet paper towel. It just it’s there. And so the garbage cans make a wonderful place for roaches to survive in the kitchen. And in today’s world garbage cans aren’t what we had when I was growing up for the most part when I was growing up a garbage can was see a two or three foot tall Ben that Jetta begun in the kitchen, maybe there was lid on it, maybe there wasn’t. Nowadays, garbage cans are kind of fancy. And you’ve got to take a real thorough look at the garbage cans. Some garbage cans have foot pedal, so the lid lifts up. Some garbage cans are electronic. And what I tell people is that if you’ve got the foot pedal at the bottom of the garbage can you now have a device or mechanism under there that you push down. And that mechanism makes the lid go up. So where those mechanisms are there are hidden areas where roaches can hide. If you have an electronic garbage can, you have usually a small, like what I call computer motherboard inside where the buttons are. And then you have a motor in there that goes to the back that opens the lid. And that’s all an area where roaches can survive. And when you pick that up, you’ve got to be able to look underneath there to see if anything’s hiding. garbage cans almost always had lips to them too. So when there’s a lip, you’ve got a hidden void up underneath that lip where the roaches would love to nest, have babies take up harborage and live a very happy life. One thing that a lot of people think of about when it comes to garbage cans. And we’ve seen this, especially in restaurants, is the garbage cans are almost always sticker at the bottom to support the weight of what’s put in well, where it’s sticker at the bottom. A lot of times you have grids under there, thicker plastic that’s designed to stand up to the weight that’s in the garbage can. And those grids can be perfect places for roaches to hide, and they can have babies and thrive in that environment. With the German roaches, one of the things I like to see is usually they’re pretty easy to find, especially if you come out at night and turn on the lights, they will come out when it’s dark, they’ll look for food, they’ll look for water. And when that light comes on, they’ll go scattering. So when you go into your kitchen, one of the places I tell people is look at the garbage can. When that light comes on. If you see anything running out of the garbage can around the garbage can down the garbage can under the garbage can, by the lid, that is a good sign that there is a problem and that garbage can and that garbage can and needs your attention that needs to be addressed because you probably got some roaches living there. So though we didn’t discuss all of the kitchen, I can tell you this that the garbage cans are one of those places that a lot of times are overlooked and neglected and can be an active source for roaches that are affecting your house. So always make sure you check out your garbage can very well. This is Ben with Ben’s pest control and if you’re interested in one of our free 58 Point pest surveys and analysis, please give us a call at 772-878-1972 Or feel free to check out our website at WWW dot bends past up is thank you and have a great day
