# cockroach bait and domino effect



## sooper (Jul 8, 2019)

Hi!

I'm suffering from a german cockroach infestation. I seem to be having success killing them with 1) raid baits 2) DIY baits with various combinations of sugar and flour (as the bait) and baking soda and boric acid (as the poison). There are corpses everywhere!

My question: do I leave all the corpses in the hopes that they poison the remaining cannibalistic cockroaches, or do I clean them up to avoid attracting more of them into my home?

Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere - I've been searching all day and can't find a definitive answer ANYWHERE.


----------



## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

I know carpenter ants will collect their dead and i assume they re-purpose them. I would leave a few out to see if they disappear.

Also not sure if the concentration they would get would be fetal or not. Since your bait is working that may be the best place to focus your efforts.

Not a bug pro.

Bud


----------



## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

Since they can carry disease, I'd clean them up. Dead cockroaches break down & break apart into pieces & dust.


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

The poison bates work via cannibalism, you may eliminate the infestation faster if you don't clean them up.


----------



## raylo32 (Nov 25, 2006)

I had a rental once that was infested. That boric acid was the bomb. I left the dead until I didn't see any more live ones then cleaned up and sprinkled a bit more clean boric acid. Job done.


----------



## Yodaman (Mar 9, 2015)

If I were living in the space, I would have to clean them up. For every one you see dead, there will be exponentially more unseen for the live critters to digest.


----------



## PestGuy (Jan 15, 2018)

Vacuum vacuum vacuum! If the bait is readily available they will eat that before they eat each other. Keep a fresh supply of different baits out.


----------



## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Nik333 said:


> Since they can carry disease, I'd clean them up. Dead cockroaches break down & break apart into pieces & dust.


What diseases do they carry?


----------



## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

@sooper, welcome!

Sounds like you're doing a good job on the adults.

The babies, which will hatch from egg cases, can be eradicated with growth inhibitor. It won't hurt you or your pets, but keeps baby roaches from reaching maturity by preventing them from moulting.

And, it also kills flea larvae! (I have cats, so I appreciate.)

Spray under the fridge, etc., any place that won't get wet and wash the stuff away.

https://www.amazon.com/Gentrol-IGR-Insect-Growth-Regulator/dp/B003Y663JE/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=2VQ21MYY9XXOA&keywords=growth+inhibitor+roaches&qid=1565703936&s=gateway&sprefix=growth+in%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSUM5OVczSk9KREZXJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMDYwMTMxMTFKSDNCM0NJTDNWTCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNzMzNDQzM0haWUZKSjVYNDZITSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=


----------



## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

DoomsDave said:


> What diseases do they carry?



"In one study, the bacterium _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ was found to have increased multiple-fold over the course of 114 days in the gut of a cockroach (3).
In this regard, roaches are not so much vectors as they are reservoirs; a mosquito will squelch its proboscis in your ankle, inoculating you with malaria in their quest for blood but a cockroach indiscriminately contaminates anything lying around. Entomologists describe this process as “mechanical transmission”, indirectly transmitting disease to humans.

All types of passengers are welcome on this cockroach bus. Over 30 species of bacteria have been found on the cuticle and gut of roaches, including those of serious medical import such as _E. coli_, various species of _Salmonella_ and _Staphylcoccous_, _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ and _Klebsiella pneumoniae_ (4). These bacteria cause diseases such as urinary tract infections, dysentery, diarrhea, pneumonia, cholera, polio, septicemia and wound infections (5). One study that trapped cockroaches in order to measure their bacterial load found that number was as high as 14 million microbes found on the exterior of the bodies, and 7 million in their fecal droppings (5).
Viable eggs and dormant cysts of parasites also hitch a ride; the culprits include the ova of _Ascaris lumbricoides_ (giant roundworm), _Anchylostoma deodunale_ (hookworm), _Trichuris trichura_ (whipworm), _Enterobius vermicularis_ (pinworm) and _Strongyloides stercoralis_ (threadworm), and the cysts of _Entomoeba hystolitica_, _Balantidium coli_, _C. parvum_, _C. cayetenensis_ and _Isospora belli_ (4). Even the virus that causes polio, poliomyelitis, has been found within the guts of cockroaches (6).
There are several documented cases of small outbreaks that pinpoint to cockroaches playing an indirect but prominent role in disease transmission. In one county in Northern Ireland in the late 1970s, fifteen food-handlers in various establishments fell ill to dysentery caused by the _Shigella_ bacterium over the course of eight weeks (2). These restaurants had serious infestations, particularly in the kitchen and dining areas, and the stomach contents of trapped roaches showed viable _Shigella dysenteriae_ serotype 7 bacteria, incriminating the arthropods in the spread of the disease.
Cockroaches were also suspected to be the cause of a hepatitis A outbreak in a Los Angeles housing project in the late 1950s. From 1956 to 1959, the Carmelitos Housing Project represented 39% of all cases of hepatitis A in Los Angeles County with numbers of the infected steadily increasing through the years (7). It was only until a full-scale cockroach control program employing a newly developed insecticide, the industrial silica aerogel Dri-Die 67, was the outbreak halted. Two years following the program, incidences of hepatitis A from the Housing Project dropped to 0.0% and cockroaches traversing between the sewage system and the Project were pinpointed as the source of the epidemic.

Typhoid patients in Italy were found to have cockroaches harboring _S. typhi_ in their homes in a study conducted in 1943 (2). Similarly, the same organism was found in cockroaches infesting a Belgian hospital’s children’s ward undergoing an epidemic of gastroenteritis in 1950 (2). Most recently, outbreaks of _Klebsiella pneumoniae_ in neonatal units have been tied to cockroach infestations in hospitals in Ethiopia and South Africa (8)(9). These studies indicate that cockroaches may play an unappreciated role in the epidemiology of infections in both the home and hospital."


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bodyhorrors/2012/05/09/cockroaches/


----------



## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Nik333 said:


> "In one study, the bacterium _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ was found to have increased multiple-fold over the course of 114 days in the gut of a cockroach (3).
> In this regard, roaches are not so much vectors as they are reservoirs; a mosquito will squelch its proboscis in your ankle, inoculating you with malaria in their quest for blood but a cockroach indiscriminately contaminates anything lying around. Entomologists describe this process as “mechanical transmission”, indirectly transmitting disease to humans.
> 
> All types of passengers are welcome on this cockroach bus. Over 30 species of bacteria have been found on the cuticle and gut of roaches, including those of serious medical import such as _E. coli_, various species of _Salmonella_ and _Staphylcoccous_, _Pseudomonas aeruginosa_ and _Klebsiella pneumoniae_ (4). These bacteria cause diseases such as urinary tract infections, dysentery, diarrhea, pneumonia, cholera, polio, septicemia and wound infections (5). One study that trapped cockroaches in order to measure their bacterial load found that number was as high as 14 million microbes found on the exterior of the bodies, and 7 million in their fecal droppings (5).
> ...


Interesting!


----------

