Most roach infestations in homes or businesses are of the German variety. German roaches are small, about half an inch long, and yellowish-brown. There are other types of roaches, such as the much-larger American and Oriental roaches (which can be up to 2 inches in length), but they are natural outdoor bugs that usually stay there. Not the German roach, though.

So, why do these German cockroaches infest anywhere and everywhere indoors? What are they seeking? And is there anything you can do to avoid an infestation? Lloyd Pest Control is here to equip you with the information you need to remain roach-free.

What Do Roaches Want?

Like any good scavenger, roaches seek out food – and they aren’t picky about it. In addition to foods people would eat like bread and meat, roaches can eat things like glue, book bindings, and even toothpaste. They aren’t outdoor roaches so will naturally seek buildings containing their meals.

In addition to food, one of the defining traits of roach behavior is their preference for both moisture and heat. As a result, you won’t often find them in dry, cool areas.

Roaches in the Home

You might think roaches only infest dirty, poorly-kept homes. While it is true that a lack of readily available food will prevent extreme breeding from happening, roaches can infest even clean homes. The safe, predictable indoors is much more hospitable to roaches than the harsh outdoors, and if there is a way in, a roach population will be more than happy to make themselves welcome.

Two rooms are particularly susceptible to roaches: kitchens and bathrooms. Kitchens are great sources of food and home to plenty of warm, dark corners (like behind the fridge and under the stove). Bathrooms are usually the wettest rooms in the house, so roaches are perfectly fine hanging out there.

Roaches in a Business

Restaurants and hotels are the two businesses most often infested by roaches, as they provide scrumptious meals and ample warm nooks. Places of business that do not practice satisfactory sanitation are most prone, but roaches are resilient creatures and can make their way to clean businesses as well.

Non-service businesses are also vulnerable. Roaches can hitch a ride with employees or in shipments of cardboard boxes, which are favorite hiding places for the critters. And since roaches can multiply quickly, offices and high-rises certainly aren’t immune to an infestation either.

Why Are Roaches So Prevalent, and What Makes Them a Problem?

Roaches wouldn’t be as much of a nuisance if not for their prevalence and their hazards to health. Unfortunately, roaches are hardy, and they can also pose multiple health problems.

Roaches Are Hardy – and Great Parents

Cockroaches are surprisingly crafty creatures. They’re relentless in their pursuit of inside spaces and get creative in finding routes indoors. This can include pipes, cracks in the wall or foundation, and the tiny spaces underneath your garage doors. Roaches are great hitchhikers, too.

Another reason German roaches are so prevalent is because of their parenting skills. Unlike many other bugs, roach mothers will carry around their egg sacs until they are about to hatch, which helps optimize their birth location and keep them away from danger. When combined with their low bar for what they need and want to eat, roach populations can rapidly get out of hand.

Roaches and Negative Health Impacts

Roaches Are Disease Carriers

It’s commonly known that rodents and mosquitoes carry disease, but cockroaches are equally dangerous in this regard. Roaches can carry bacteria and viruses on their bodies in addition to spreading disease via their droppings. Some of these diseases include:

• Cholera
• Dysentery
• Salmonellosis
• E. Coli

Although cockroaches won’t directly contaminate you with a disease like a mosquito, a population of roaches can quickly contaminate large swaths of your house or business. This is problematic because they don’t even need to be in sight for their diseases to reach you.

Decaying Roaches Are Respiratory Nightmares

Even in death, roaches pose a health risk. Like many other insects, they shed their skin. This old skin is made up of a protein called chitin, which eventually breaks down and becomes airborne. This protein is an allergen for many, causing itchy eyes, a runny nose, rashes, and other symptoms. Furthermore, exposure to cockroaches has been linked to the development of asthma in children.

How You Can Combat Roaches

Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation

The single best thing you can do to combat roaches is sanitation. Yes, roaches can eat lots of things, but if there isn’t ready access to food in your home or business, it will be very difficult or impossible to maintain a strong population.

Close Off Outside Entrances to Your Building

Even if your home or business is perfectly clean, roaches could enter and give someone a scare if there is a way in from the outside. Do some investigating (and caulking work) and see if there are any potential entry points.

Roaches Ruling Your Home? Lloyd Has Solutions

If roaches crawling up and down your wall is driving you up the wall, let the professionals step in and help. Lloyd proudly uses sustainable cockroach control tactics with the lowest toxicity materials possible. In many cases, low-impact baiting works excellently, where our technicians will use sticky traps to identify hot spot areas in which to deploy the baits. Our expert technicians are experienced in both business and residential settings and are prepared to help kick out those unwanted guests. Don’t delay; contact Lloyd Pest Control today!

The post Far from Picky: Why Roaches Infest Anywhere and Everywhere first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

For prehistoric pests, cockroaches—German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), in particular—have been notoriously great at propagating their species all over the world, utilizing the shelter of man-made structures to survive all types of inclement weather. These cockroaches have been found in human dwellings on every continent aside from Antarctica.

Although German cockroaches are inherently hearty insects that have survived ice ages, rogue meteors, and mass extinctions, they’re also beginning to survive present-day pest control treatment methods—making them even more difficult to contain than most other pests.

So, how do we go about finding German cockroach kryptonite if they’re becoming immune to even the most advanced treatments? To better understand how to get rid of German cockroaches, let’s take a closer look at their life cycle, reproductive process, and eating habits in the modern world.

The German Cockroach Life Cycle

With three distinct life stages—egg, nymph, and adult—German cockroaches go through incomplete metamorphosis (where early stages of development look like tiny versions of an adult) and complete their entire life cycle in about 100 days. However, the exact timeline of the German cockroach life cycle depends on environmental factors such as climate, access to food, and various strain differences.

German cockroaches are excellent breeders, continuously producing offspring into their multi-generational, isolated groups if no intervention takes place. When populations are actively growing, the group consists of nearly 80 percent nymphs (newborn roaches) and 20 percent adults.

Reproduction Cycle

After a male and female German cockroach mate, the female will carry her eggs in an egg case on her lower abdomen (scientifically known as the ootheca, these egg sacs can hold 30 to 48 eggs) right up until hatch occurs—helping to optimize offspring birth location while keeping larvae and nymphs away from danger.

During the transition of a nymph becoming an adult, roaches will molt—meaning they will shed their exoskeleton (exuviae) roughly six times. After each molt, the roach will appear bright white and be particularly susceptible to injury until a hormone called bursicon causes the exoskeleton to darken and harden. The period between each molt is called an instar.

Physical Characteristics of the German Cockroach

Adult German cockroaches measure 10 to 15 mm long, are brown to dark brown, and feature two distinct parallel bands running the length of the pronotum (the plate-like structure that covers their thorax).

Male German cockroaches feature:

• Thin, slender body shapes
• Tapered posterior abdomen
• Visible terminal segments in the abdomen
• Not covered by tegmina (leathery outer wings)

Female German cockroaches feature:

• Stout body shapes
• Rounded posterior abdomen
• Entire abdomen covered by tegmina

German cockroaches draw in air through holes in their sides called spiracles, have colorless blood due to not using hemoglobin to carry oxygen and store their fat in one centralized location called the fat body.

What Do German Cockroaches Eat?

Roaches have a very unique digestive system that allows them to eat practically anything. From bread and meat to furniture glue and book bindings, roaches are omnivores with specialized internal modifications that allow them to eat cellulose and other tough materials along with human food.

In their digestive tract, they have a section called a crop that holds swallowed food until the proventriculus—a toothy section of the tract—can break down the food. After the initial breakdown, gastric caeca sacs digest food even further with the use of enzymes and microbes—making it easier for German cockroaches to consume dense material like cellulose.

Where Do German Cockroaches Live?

Residential Homes & Multi-Family Communities

You might think roaches only infest dirty homes, but that myth has been debunked! While it’s true that a lack of readily available food will prevent extreme breeding from happening, German roaches can infest even the cleanest homes that feature moist, warm areas.

The safe, predictable indoors is much more hospitable to German roaches than the harsh outdoors. If there’s a way in, a roach population will be more than happy to make themselves welcome.

Two rooms are particularly susceptible to roaches in residential areas: kitchens and bathrooms. Kitchens are great sources of food and home to plenty of warm, dark corners (like behind the fridge condenser and underneath the stove). Bathrooms are usually the wettest rooms in the house, so roaches are perfectly fine hanging out there, too.

Businesses

Restaurants, hotels, and rental properties are the three businesses most often infested by roaches, as they are easy targets for nutritious meals and ample warm nooks. Service businesses that don’t practice satisfactory sanitation are most prone, but roaches are tough creatures that can make their way to clean businesses, as well.

Other areas of businesses that roaches like to infest include:

• Salons
• Break rooms
• Food processing plants

Non-service businesses are also vulnerable. Roaches can hitch a ride with employees or in shipments with cardboard boxes or paper sacks, which are favorite hiding places for these insects. And because roaches can multiply quickly, offices and high-rises certainly aren’t immune to an infestation, either.

How Are Cockroaches Harmful to Humans?

It’s commonly known that rodents and mosquitoes carry disease, but cockroaches are equally dangerous in this regard—not to mention they don’t smell great due to using cuticular hydrocarbons to communicate. Roaches can carry bacteria and viruses on their bodies and spread disease via their droppings.

Some of these diseases include:

• Cholera
• Dysentery
• Salmonellosis
• E. Coli
• Leprosy
• Plague

Although cockroaches won’t directly contaminate you with a disease, a population of roaches—particularly roaches that come in contact with bacteria from sewers, latrines, or drains—can quickly contaminate large swaths of your house or business. This is problematic because they don’t even need to be in sight for their diseases to reach you.

Molting or Decaying Roaches Are Respiratory Nightmares

During molting or death, roaches pose a significant health risk to humans of all ages due to the makeup of their exuviae. Roaches’ exoskeleton is made up of a protein called chitin (a fibrous substance consisting of polysaccharides that form the exoskeleton of arthropods), which eventually breaks down and becomes airborne.

This protein is an allergen for many, causing dermatitis, itching, swelling of the eyelids, a runny nose, rashes, and other severe allergic reactions. Furthermore, exposure to chitin from cockroaches has been linked to the development of asthma in children.

Additionally, roaches emit yet another foul stench when they die: oleic acid. These fatty acids cause a “stench of death” that notifies the entire group to stay far away from the death site—but these smells are also off-putting to humans.

How German Cockroaches Are Inching Toward Invincibility

German cockroaches can survive without their heads for weeks, hold their breath for 5-7 minutes, and withstand 10 times more nuclear radiation than a human—so it comes as no surprise that they’re growing immunity to modern pesticides used to control their tight-knit populations. Scientific reports have recently stated that controlling German cockroaches with traditional treatments alone will be nearly impossible soon.

Since the 1950s, German cockroaches have been developing resistance to every insecticide class introduced. This immunity is developed within cockroaches due to their closed populations facilitating rapid evolution for high-level resistance. While German cockroach baits were once the answer to fight against roach pesticide immunities, these indomitable insects are also developing a physiological resistance to common traps.

Sugar Baits Aren’t So Sweet Anymore

When baits were first introduced to cockroach populations, they were laden with sugar, as roaches are attracted to glucose and need it to promote growth, energy, and reproduction. German cockroaches caught on to these traps and developed an adaptive behavioral aversion to glucose, signaling their taste neurons to react negatively when ingesting sugar baits.

How To Prevent Roaches from Infesting Your Property

While you’re probably looking up flights to the South Pole’s roach-free tundra now, there are plenty of ways to learn how to get rid of German cockroaches—both on your own and with professional help:

Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation

The single best thing you can do to combat roaches is sanitation. Yes, roaches can eat lots of things, but if there isn’t ready access to food in your home or business, it will be very difficult or impossible to maintain a strong population.

Cleaning Your Restaurant

If you’re cleaning a restaurant, make sure not to hose down the floors at the end of a shift, as this excessive moisture sitting overnight can attract German cockroaches from all angles. Additionally, ensure your staff is properly discarding leftover food material in sealed containers or bins.

Close Off Outside Entrances to Your Home or Building

Even if your home or business is perfectly clean, roaches could enter if there’s a way in from the outside. Do some investigating—and caulking work—to close any potential entry points around your property while ensuring there are no leaky pipes or areas with excessive moisture.

How To Get Rid of German Cockroaches with Lloyd

If roaches crawling around your Southern California property is driving you up the wall, let the professionals at Lloyd Pest Control step in and help. Lloyd proudly uses sustainable roach control tactics that feature the lowest toxicity levels possible.

In many cases, our low-impact gel baiting—specifically designed to target roaches with behavioral aversions to outdated formulas—works excellently to eradicate German cockroaches. As adult roaches venture out to forage food for their nymphs, they will pick up the bait and bring it back to their aggregation area, which ensures all roaches present consume the material.

To deploy our baits in the correct areas, our team will set up sticky traps (monitors) in notable roach hotspots that contain high heat levels, moisture, and food sources—continuously monitoring traffic to ensure roach populations are dwindling.

Don’t delay on roach control; contact Lloyd Pest Control today to learn how to get rid of German cockroaches!

The post Invincible Insects: How To Get Rid of German Cockroaches first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

Cockroaches and Health Department Inspections

As if the spread of news about roaches at your restaurant weren’t enough, a report of an infestation could result in a temporary shutdown. If local health inspectors find proof, you’ll lose revenue and suffer an even greater blow to your reputation when diners see your most recent health department report. You may also have to pay hefty fines and pass a follow-up inspection. Although it’s possible to restore your reputation after receiving a clean bill of health, the process can be slow and expensive.

Health Risks From Cockroaches

Although the price you pay for a few roaches can seem harsh, it’s easy to see why these penalties are in place. Cockroaches carry bacteria that can cause disease and even food poisoning as they walk across counters and exposed food. Roach exoskeletons and fecal-matter trails often cause problems for those with allergies or asthma.

Preventing Roach Infestations in Restaurants

Even if you strive to maintain a clean establishment, a few slip-ups and undetected entry points can make way for a full-fledged roach infestation. From skin cells to beer – a particular roach favorite – the lowly cockroach will consume most anything in its path. A roach can enter through cracks and gaps in any unprotected structure, and will stay as long as food and water are available. These hardy creatures can live without food for a month but can only go without water for a week. You could be unwittingly keeping a roach population alive with a leaky sink or water spills left behind.

Prevent cockroach infestations in your Southern California restaurant with help from Lloyd Pest Control. With us, you’ll not only get a comprehensive service that covers interior and exterior solutions, but a money back guarantee. And for our restaurant-specific services, we have a “We’ll Pick Up the Check” guarantee, too. So, if a guest ever spots a crawling pest in the dining area, we’ll pick up that table’s check and send a gift card to your restaurant accompanied by an apology from us that accepts full responsibility. That way, they’ll come back and see you at your best. Protect your Yelp reviews! Contact us today.

The post Don’t Let Roaches Ruin Your Rep first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

Insects are always going to be in San Diego, California, but that doesn’t mean they need to establish a presence in YOUR commercial space. Whether you run a school, office, or restaurant, keeping pests to a minimum is crucial for the continued success of your business.

In the old days, a customer who saw a rat in your hallway or a cockroach in your kitchen might tell a few friends about it. Today, hundreds of people can read full reports and reviews on Yelp or Google. Don’t take that chance! Get rid of pests today with commercial pest control in San Diego to keep your reputation standing.

DIY Pest Control Mistakes Business Owners Make

Pest control issues affect some companies more than others, but every business has unique problems that deserve a targeted solution. Unfortunately, in the rush to get rid of unwanted pests, many owners make strategic mistakes in exterminating them, including:

• Difficulty locating pest harborage areas
• Wasting money on the wrong products and potentially endangering the health of clients.
• Failing to see the bigger problem, which may include a pest control prevention plan to keep the building pest-free and ready to pass health inspections.

Maintaining a pest-free commercial space year-round is imperative to your company’s bottom line, including your employees’ health, customer satisfaction, and maintaining uncontaminated products or supplies.

Commercial Pests in San Diego

There are a plethora of commercial pests in San Diego that can ruin your rep, including:

Roof Rats

The roof rat prefers gutters, power lines, and beams, but if necessary, they will also burrow. Cold weather will drive these rodents indoors, where they may live for several years. Dark gray or black in color, these rats can grow up to eight inches in length and are recognizable by their worm-like tails that trail behind them. Known to bite, roof rats can easily infest your commercial space and contaminate your supplies with bacteria and disease.

Cockroaches

Another pest that can carry disease is the cockroach. Roaches can live in any home or business for years without protection from professional pest control. They carry streptococcus, salmonella, dysentery, E. coli, hepatitis B, cholera, and plague. The most common roach species in Southern California are the American and Oriental roaches, and the smaller Brown-banded and German roaches.

Termites, Ants, and Beetles

Powderpost beetles and carpenter ants can cause damage to structures, but termites are the biggest threat to property owners in warm climates like San Diego. Termites—both drywood termites and subterranean termites—cause billions of dollars worth of damage to properties in Southern California each year, making them a bigger threat than wildfires, earthquakes, and floods combined. What’s worse is that these wood-eating insects can easily go undetected until considerable damage has been done.

Get Rid of Commercial Pests in San Diego Today with Lloyd

Get rid of these pests before they have a chance to establish themselves and eat their way through your building and furnishings as the weather warms up. If you are in San Diego, California and are needing a professional exterminator, call Lloyd Pest Control today.

The post Commercial Pest Control Solutions in San Diego, CA first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.