The only way you are seeing baby roaches is if there are big ones to make babies.

Of course we know adults are on the property. But again my question is about them finding their way INSIDE? Or is that to be expected sometimes even with treatment sprayed around the whole outside which is supposed to bar them from getting inside.

Anyone here who has exterminator treatments for roaches - do you occasionally find one in your house?

Rita, thank you so much for understanding. When I was about 5 years old I was severely traumatized by an incident that involved a roach and it has stayed with me all my life. And just so you all know I'm not a woos about any other bugs - If I find a spider in my house I take it outside. A tick attached to me gets calmly removed.

My company is also willing to come back out if I find a roach in the house. And like you I don't freak out if I see one inside a short time after they spray. And I must admit that any I have ever seen INSIDE are always small (~1/2") and dead or dying. But that still means they were alive when they found their way inside! And yes, we have bait traps IN the house. But should I be seeing one half way through the spray cycle? Is it unavoidable? From what you're saying no. So can you please PM me your company's name. I think I should talk to them.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Baby roaches will not usually come inside, although the big ones will. They were probably born in there and you do have a problem and need to tell you exterminator.

Do you have pets? If so, the exterminator is probably using a natural spray that isn't as effective. It may pay you to board the pet(s) for a day or two and let him hit it with the heavy-duty stuff.

Boric acid works wonderfully well, and you can put it in places pets can't get to, which are all places roaches like to hide. They like to be near water, so put it under the bathroom and kitchen sinks. They also like high places, like the tops of your cabinets, so put boric acid up there. Be sure to get the boric acid that isn't affected by moisture, like Roach-Pruf or something.

As far as outside goes, there is a great spray called Demon that you could spray around the outside of your house with. LEARN MORE HERE. If you have mulch in your foundation beds, they need to be sprayed regularly for roaches, ants and about a dozen other nasties that can get into your house. Around here, they spray outside once a month and inside if you ask them to. I usually get sprayed inside every other month during the summer.

The worst, of course, are the German cockroaches which are very hard to
get rid of. You have to just keep treating continuously to control them.
Cleanliness doesn't help. They will eat each other, the backs off your
books, anything cardboard, and get into any box you have in your home. These are the ones that carry disease.

The huge roaches are Palmetto bugs. They live in trees and wood mulch, and then there are the medium sized ones called Wood Roaches who also live in and around trees and in mulch. Palmetto bugs are harmless but scary. They aren't known to carry disease, and are easy to kill, but I can tell you a horror story about them.

I ignored the Palmetto bugs, because I'd grown up with them everywhere, and nobody paid them much mind. They got into the walls in my old wood-frame house and before I knew it, they were everywhere. There is nothing you can do once they are inside the walls to get rid of them quickly except to tent the house. I didn't have that kind of money, so I put boric acid down where I could see the droppings where they were coming out at night. I had a small aviary on my back porch for my cockatiels. One night, I went out to take the garbage and when I looked at the aviary, the roaches were just covering the floor in there, eating the bird poop. The next day, I got the birds back into their cages and put them into the house while I covered the floor of their aviary with sevin dust and diatomaceous earth. I'd go out every morning, sweep up the dead roaches and the dust and then reapply it. After about a week, I saw no more roaches in the mornings, so I spent the entire day scrubbing down the aviary so I could put the birds back out. They were so happy to be out of their cages that they just flew back and forth across the aviary for 30 minutes.

The moral of this story is don't ignore the Palmetto bugs them thinking they are harmless. They are roaches and they can do extreme damage to your home.

Bea, I'm not social media savvy, what do you mean PM you? The company here is local here to the Nature Coast. I doubt that they are up your way.

The dogs thought roaches were a tasty treat when we first moved to Florida. Two years later they had had their fill of them and the roaches successfully moved in. Our first exterminator was unable to even reduce the problem after 2 months, so we got a different one. The new one was out every week until they had them out of the house. They now return monthly to treat the perimeter of the house. We occasionally find an asian roach in the lanai. But they don't make it more than a foot or two from the door before they croak. Four months is a long time with our deluge style of rain. You should look to another service that wants to do a better job for you. There is no excuse for using a less effective 'natural' insecticide. Natural doesn't mean safe. Try eating a destroying angle mushroom and see how long you last, or puffer fish. The product used by our service is not toxic to mammals. We have 4 dogs. They do a great job of removing most vermin. They just lost their taste for roaches.. they still like lubers, though.

What service do you use inalover? We use Bug Out and I can't convince them to come out monthly to treat the perimeter at least during the rainy season. Thx

My chickens LOVE to eat them. I try not to think about that when I eat the eggs. LOL!

PM = private message. It refers to sending a personal message through Houzz (vs. communicating publicly on the forum or by personal email addresses)

I'm just like you. I get completely freaked out by roaches especially the huge flying ones..ditto w those big black beetles w the horns they have in AZ that eat the roots of plants lol. I like spiders, snakes, even scorpions dont freak me out all that much.

Someone told me about Key West/Gypsy chickens and how they absolutely loooove eating big roaches and any bugs in general but they really get excited about big roaches. They must eat them on KW.

When we moved to this 4acre property they were giant roaches everywhere. I was so freaked out, I adopted 4 rescue kw hens and 1 rooster. Those hens literally exterminated the place. Now if i scream, they come running (I let them freerange during the day). They rip roaches to shreds and fight over who gets to eat them..all fine w me !! LOL

Now that they are all gone from outside, I never see any inside either for a few yrs now. They do a good job on digging up the fire ant hills too. They love to eat their larvae.

Make sure all of your drains are sealed. The common one that most people don't have sealed is your washing machine drain pipe. Roaches can crawl up through there. Make sure your exterior doors have weather stripping to keep the roaches from coming in when the door is closed.

Sink that are not used should be turn on once a week so there is sufficient water in the trap to prevent roaches from coming through the sink drain.

Bea, there is no reason if you have a good service to have any kind of pests. In my house they go by schedule and because I have dogs they are not allowed to put anything that can hurt them. We are with the same service for about 10 years and don't have any problems inside or outside. It is a good idea to get referrals from the neighbors and see what works for them, that is what we do in my place.

Larry, I trained my dogs to eat only veggies or fruit, no bugs allowed.:)

Sultry, you remind me when we lived in Arizona and somebody moved from the house next to us and one came to ours and it was the biggest I ever see in my life and flying! I don't know if it had horns or not but my hubby who was on the ladder fell down screaming! lol

Silvia

All of you who are telling me your service comes monthly or you see no roaches inside please post the names of those companies. Calling companies cold doesn't work for me because they tell you what you want to hear. I trust my fellow posters here.

I'd appreciate it.

O.K., I have to pull out my permacultirist voice here. I just want to say that while the Palmetto bugs are freakishly scary, they are part of the larger ecosystem, and if you kill them all, you also disrupt that system. They help decompose organic matter and are also a major food source for lizards and birds. There was a story somewhere about a man who kept finding dead birds of prey on his property. Turns out he was poisoning the rats in his citrus trees with that horrible Warfarin stuff that eats out their insides, and the birds were eating the rats. He had called wildlife to find out what was wrong with the birds, and ended up getting a large fine for killing protected species. I know I told you to get rid of the palmetto bugs, but that was in and around your house. They are harmless anywhere else. If you have acreage, I'd suggest leaving them where they are as long as they aren't invading your house. Protect the "people and pets" zone and leave the rest to mother nature.

It doesn't appear to me that anyone here wants to rid the whole world, they just don't want them in the house. I have almost 5 acres and as long as they stay out there I'm fine with it but when they start coming in, I draw the line, my house only takes up a tiny part of this place, they can stay out. By the way, my service only comes out every 3 months. And I've only had to have bait put inside once in 10 years, I think that's pretty good. They only spray the outside perimeter of the house so I don't feel like I'm invading their world irresponsibly. But if this didn't work to keep them out, sorry, I would go to any lengths to do it.

DG I don't know why you made the last comment. If you look back at my comments you will see that I am only talking about the INSIDE of my house and its perimeter. None of the other responders advocate trying to rid their entire property of these bugs either.

i totally agree with you about leaving them and ALL other wildlife alone anywhere else.

Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to post.

ritaweeda and bea, I wasn't talking to anyone in particular. I actually just know of people who do wholesale killing of any kind of bug on their property. Some people think all bugs and insects are bad and want to kill them all. It's like with the butterfly larvae -- a lot of people will kill them simply because they hate caterpillars. They love the butterflies, but don't want the caterpillars destroying their plants, which you can't blame them for. Then there are those of us who gladly surrender their plants to destruction for the joy of more butterflies. There are people who would have their entire 5 acres sprayed if they saw one palmetto bug in their house. I'm not saying you would, just speaking to those who go a little overboard because they are from somewhere else and don't understand our ecosystem. Of course, some people don't give a damn about the ecosystem, and that's why we are in trouble today.

The paloverde beetle talk reminded me of this older post from the AZ forum. Too bad the photos arent showing up now. I remember they were pretty horrific lol. Quite humorous and worth reading anyways..http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1738955/i-stared-death-in-the-eye-and-lived-to-photograph-it?n=30

Bea, I don't know if they are in your area but I use Heron and they also do other services for the lawn,etc.

Sultry, thanks for making me laugh this morning, I lived in Arizona for 10 years and I only saw that one flying once. After reading that thread, I did not know about the palo verde and I like them so much that in my front yard that was xeriscaped I had one, don't remember the beetles maybe the new owners now have them.

I also had a number of different palms in the backyard and remember after the monsoons some bugs were coming and I saw it on the news so I was extra careful, now I don't have any palms just in case.:) Don't plant anything with spines or cactus like either.

Silvia

Silvia, I'm with you on the spines and cactus. I used to walk around nurseries and glance over at Spanish Bayonets and think, "I don't know who in the world would want that ugly plant." And then I fell in love with crown-of-thorns. I had to back off my rule a little bit.

Laughed at the story of your husband on the ladder!

Carol in Jacksonville

We have been in the same Tampa house for 30 years. We have never had a roach treatment and very rarely see a roach. We use those little black plastic roach birth control baits sold at Home Depot. When we see a roach, we know we waited too long to replace the baits.

I'm surprised that so many use expensive commercial pest control services for roaches. I use boric acid and diatomaceous earth with complete success. I don't want any nasty chemicals sprayed in the house if I can help it.

Silvia and Sultry...besides the giant scorpions, the scariest thing I ever saw in AZ was a 2 headed centipede in the house!

Bea, I used to have an exterminator but all he seemed to do was eat my candy and spray dirty water on my baseboards. I moved to this house about a year ago and did see a few (Yikes!!!) of the big Florida roaches in the bathrooms at night. I bought a few bottles of boric acid from the dollar store and squirted an entire bottle in each bathroom and the kitchen around the cutouts for the pipes inside the cabinets and in the back of the closets, around the window sills etc. Anywhere the dogs couldn't get to it. It's been months and have yet to see another so definitely try the boric acid. I heard if the infestation is bad, you can also unscrew your electrical plate covers and squirt it down there but I didn't have to do that. I can deal with ants but NOT roaches!!!!

I think boric acid and diatomaceous earth works on ants too. In any case, I don't have them in the house either.

Add me to the list of "freaked out by roaches"! I don't use any spray pesticides or have an exterminator but we have used boric acid. We bought the house we are currently living in a few years ago at a pretty cheap price, knowing it needed a ton of work. Bad windows, cracked stucco, leaky roof, etc. It took a few years but we have hurricane impact glass sliders and windows, new doors, roof repaired and all those exterior attic vents replaced that are in the soffits outside. They were hanging off so I imagine anything could, and did, crawl in. Not only is our electric big half of what it used to be, we haven't seen a single roach since. It's just a matter of time though before the house settles and they find their way in again. I'll enjoy it for now. Hopefully we'll get a few years out of it, But it goes to show you, if you seal up every entry point they will not get in.

And another point...if you are just seeing the german roaches...they might be coming in from the grocery store! A few years back, I remember finding a roach in my pantry. Threw out mostly every thing and sprayed the whole thing down. Then about a week later, I was carrying my bags (a mix of plastic and paper) into the house from the car. I would put them on the floor and then go out to get more bags. On about my third trip, I noticed 2 german roaches walking right out of the bags on the floor! Needless to say, I stopped shopping at that store and now use my own bags.

I can vouch for Publix too (it was NOT the store I had shopped at on the roach bag day!), but one day while shopping I noticed one roach near the rice section. I told some teenage stock boy thinking he is probably going to ignore what I just told him! Instead about 10 minutes, he came running up behind me and said "can you come back and show me exactly where you saw the roach?". I went back with him and lo and behold the manager, the assistant manager and the stock boy had completely cleared off the rice shelves, bagged everything up into sealed bad garbage bags and they were cleaning the shelves! That is my kind of store!!!

I use Good News Pest Control in Sarasota. They use only natural products and I have not had a roach in the house in 4 years. Our daughter has a house in Siesta Key and has used them for over 15 yrs. She recommended them when we moved down.

I'm not sure what they use but it is safe for pets, kids and my butterfly garden. I believe it is diatomaceous earth and something else. They do not come inside the house unless I request. I never have because we've never seen a roach.

They come quarterly and spray a powder around the perimeter of the property.

My daughters house is vacant for months at a time as they live up north. Same thing, no roaches and Siesta is famous for their roaches.

BTW, I leave my sliding doors open at night as I like the breeze and never say a roach or any bug on our patio.

Jane