How to Get Rid of Cockroaches in Kitchen Cabinets

When roaches appear in the kitchen, you may not immediately pay attention to it. Often you catch a glimpse of him crawling across the table or climbing up the wall. You approach, just crush it, and go about your daily business, safely forgetting about the insect.

You may just not understand that one dead cockroach is not alone, just the rest are well hidden from your eyes, hiding in the nooks and crannies of your kitchen. How to get rid of cockroaches in kitchen cabinets will be discussed in this article.

 Get Rid of Cockroaches in Kitchen Cabinets

The realization that you are dealing with a bigger problem than you initially thought comes to you late in the evening, when you are preparing to go to bed.

You get out of bed in the middle of the night, go to the kitchen because you want to drink water or have a little snack, take food from the refrigerator, turn on the light and observe the following picture: a lot of cockroaches are located throughout your kitchen. They are everywhere: on your stove, your table, or in your sink. They’re swarming.

In horror, you begin to realize that you have not just a couple of annoying insects in the house, but a real infection. When you turn on the light, the cockroaches again run to their secret places, and most often this place is your kitchen cabinets.

Determining You Have Roaches

Before taking action against roaches or considering calling a pest control company, it’s essential to confirm an actual infestation.

Identifying a roach problem is relatively straightforward. Begin by inspecting areas close to water sources, such as under kitchen cabinets or around the dishwasher, as these spots are prone to attracting roaches.

Spotting a single roach often implies there are more hidden. Roaches can infiltrate homes through various routes, especially in apartments and townhouses where common entry points include shared walls with neighbors and openings around pipes.

Furthermore, it’s rare to encounter the very first roach that enters your home, as they tend to reproduce quickly. Thus, seeing even one roach should be a prompt to search for more. To do this effectively, use a flashlight to examine any cracks and crevices throughout your home, paying special attention to kitchen areas.

Why Do Cockroaches Choose Kitchen Cabinets?

Kitchen cabinets are such a hot spot for cockroaches because they are tucked away and usually out of reach. You simply put your dishes and belongings there and leave it be so this makes it a great place to hide and breed and feed without having to worry about you frequenting.

Kitchen cabinets are a special place for cockroaches because they can hide well there and are often out of reach. You just put your kitchen supplies and dishes in there and don’t look in there anymore, so this is the perfect place to hide, breed and eat without being afraid that you will look in there often.

How to deal with dangerous cockroaches?

If you decided to hire an exterminator to get rid of cockroaches in your house, the first thing he would advise you to empty all the kitchen cabinets before his arrival and put things in some other place.

Empty cabinets allow you to see cockroaches, because they no longer have objects to hide behind, and they usually hide behind them.

When you try to DIY roach control, you need to do it without delay, because all the things in your kitchen cabinets are under threat. Cockroaches are vile insects, and anyone knows that they carry a lot of pathogenic microbes and are one of the most dangerous allergen producers in the house.

If it concerns your products and you haven’t covered them enough, cockroaches will get to them, which often leads to the fact that you get food poisoning. Therefore, be careful to eat foods that have not been covered enough.

Eggs and feces of cockroaches, which they leave behind in huge numbers, cause a strong allergic reaction and asthma in susceptible people.

Therefore, you immediately need to go to action to get rid of a cockroach infestation, before they become so many that it will be much more difficult to cope. In this article, you will learn all the necessary information about cockroaches.

The more knowledge you have about these pests, the more seriously you will be able to prepare for the fight against their infection and completely destroy all traces of these harmful insects in your home.

All About Roaches in Kitchen Cabinets

Cockroaches belong to the order of insects called Blattodea and appeared on this planet long before the appearance of our species. More than one ecosystem has changed in the history of our Earth, but cockroaches remain the same species.

They evolve and continue to survive in any, even the most whimsical environment because survival is embedded in their DNA.

There are about five thousand different types of cockroaches that scientists have found, and of all this diversity, only 25 come to our homes and start causing us problems. See photos of these roaches on the Internet.

In the United States, there are about five species that are becoming a serious problem for private homes and production, because they have become virtually domestic.

They have not just adapted to the inconspicuous life around us and learned to survive so that we do not notice them immediately, but have become completely dependent on life in our homes.

During a certain period of time, all cockroaches lived exclusively in the open air and survived with the help of water in its various manifestations, feeding on plants and natural substances.

But civilization has developed rapidly, we have occupied a large territory where we keep delicious food, have water supply and other attractive items.

Cockroaches, when they first entered our territory, realized that being near us, they will be much easier to get food, water, and a warm place to live.

This is what they need for comfortable survival in the modern world. It was the right choice to settle in our homes, rather than fight for life in the inhospitable conditions of the wild.

More often in our homes settle the following three types of cockroaches: American cockroach, brown striped cockroach, and German cockroach. The picture of roach will help you distinguish them from each other. The main problem is that they come to you from quite dirty places.

Before your home, they regularly ate from trash cans, drank water from sewers, and lived in other dirty places. They lived in conditions of complete unsanitary conditions, and on their small paws, they brought a lot of microbes that settle on our kitchen utensils and settle on food.

That is why you should not take lightly the fact that such neighbors have settled in your house because you are at risk of serious diseases that can lead to disastrous consequences for the human body.

Homes, catering establishments, grocery stores – all those places where food is located, can become a new home for cockroaches. In these buildings, they can eat for a long time from a buffet of the products that you store.

They can consume crumbs, fats, and other delicious things to survive and reproduce.

The more hidden places in the room, such as kitchen cabinets, the more opportunities they have to hide from your eyes for a long time and build their nests. When there are many nests, the cockroach population grows at a tremendous rate.

Armed with this information, do not forget to regularly clean your home and clean your kitchen cabinets, regularly remove all greasy spots and crumbs, do not clutter the kitchen cabinets with excessive amounts of dishes and other kitchen utensils, store food in carefully packed form.

How to Avoid Cockroaches in Kitchen Cabinets

We want to warn you right away: kitchen cabinets are not the only place where cockroaches can hide from you. When your home is infested with cockroaches, it is infected completely, not just in the kitchen.

Kitchen cabinets are often just the main place where insects live, but it is worth examining the other corners, which correspond to the approximate place of residence of harmful parasites. By the way, ants in the kitchen do much harm either.

1. Start by putting everything in order and completely disinfecting all kitchen cabinets

It is important to remove the cabinet after cabinet carefully, without missing a single corner. This may take a long time, but don’t skimp on it: complete disinfection is very important.

You may be surprised by how many greasy spots, food leftovers, crumbs, and other harmful debris can accumulate in your cabinets over time.

Clean each shelf, eliminating all crumbs and stains in your way. Sometimes it takes half your day off, but it’s necessary. You should also get rid of all food that you are not going to eat or that has gone bad to prevent a repeat of the mess.

A big mess is a problem that haunts many people. You bring it to your house by buying a huge amount of food, half of which you don’t eat or even use for cooking, so it settles in the cabinets and takes up a lot of space there.

Get rid of unnecessary garbage and try to buy only those foods that you are guaranteed to use as food or when cooking.

You will quickly notice how the clutter in your kitchen cabinets is decreasing, and the sources of food and secret places to live for cockroaches are becoming less every day.

2. Eliminate all secret places

Cockroaches love to live in your closets because they are dark and hidden from prying eyes. They often have a lot of invisible at first glance cracks and crevices, which they can easily penetrate and make their nest there.

You can eliminate these places in a bunch of ways: seal, score, or miss with a special compound.

Explore every inch of your cabinets and drawers to eliminate any damage you find. Do not limit yourself to cabinets. Carefully inspect all kitchen appliances, such as a stove or refrigerator. After all, cockroaches can hide in these places, if they have cozy cracks for their residence.

You may miss one or two cracks, but this way you will still be able to make life difficult for your unwanted cockroaches.

Cockroaches will lose the place where they could hide from you and in which they are already used to living. If they remain there when sealing, you will set a great trap for them, from which they are unlikely to be able to get out.

Figuratively speaking, you actually make makeshift graves for them, burying them alive in their own homes.

3. Block the insects ‘ access to water

So, you have done away with excess food, which can be great food for cockroaches, removed all the greasy spots and crumbs, boarded up all the cracks, but cockroaches can still survive in such conditions. This is because they still have the ability to make their way to the water.

Cockroaches live without water for seven days, you will agree that this is quite a long time. But now you know about it and this week you should do everything necessary to ensure that your home has as many dry places as possible.

Deal with any problems with water in your home: fix all leaks in the water supply and dry all wet areas in the house.

What to do with kitchen sinks? After all, they are always wet. Before going to bed, dry all the sinks in the house, thoroughly wipe all the dishes, and eliminate the presence of water wherever you can. So you will deprive the cockroaches of even a small sip of water.

4. Use roach control products and pesticides

Once you have removed all food sources for cockroaches, disinfected them, and reduced the chance for insects to drink water, you can strike another blow at pests with pesticides.

Do not choose the first available chemical that promises to destroy cockroaches, choose those that will give the most significant effect.

In order to eliminate the problem with cockroaches inside your cabinets, it is better to use special baits. The baits that have the best effect contain food attractants, which cockroaches will easily take for a source of food if they do not find something better.

These baits kill slowly enough that the cockroaches do not immediately understand the harm of this food and were able to call the others to this dangerous feast for them. Follow images of roaches to find out which remedy is best to choose.

You also need to use special pesticide dust, which should fill in the voids of walls, plumbing passages, and other similar areas throughout your home. Dust pesticides work effectively, because even a small amount of powder may well be enough to eliminate cockroaches.

Dust can get into places that other anti-cockroach tools simply can’t reach, so you need to apply it. Carefully remove the processing area from unnecessary dust, so that you do not get poisoned.

Make sure that your food is securely covered during processing.

Use cockroach traps. They are important not only for eliminating insects but also for monitoring their number in your home. In those places where there are more cockroaches, you should place more traps, with the help of them you will also be able to understand where their nest is located roughly.

This will help you determine whether you are able to fix the problem by the number of cockroaches caught. Traps are a simple and non-dangerous solution to your problem.

Use a residual insecticide spray in the space around the base of the kitchen cupboard, near the sink, and over home appliances. Make sure you avoid areas where you’ve used Harris Roach tablets.

No matter how scared you are of a cockroach infestation, you can get rid of them. If you follow all our instructions, you will quickly deal with the pests in your home, and your kitchen will again become your place, and not a home for cockroaches.

Natural Remedies to Get Cockroaches Out of Cabinets

Taking proactive steps with natural remedies can be effective in managing cockroach populations in your kitchen cabinets, potentially delaying or eliminating the need for professional extermination. Here are some of the most effective home remedies that I’ve found helpful over the years:

• Diatomaceous Earth: This natural powder, made from fossilized aquatic organisms, can be sprinkled in cracks and crevices. It works by damaging the exoskeleton of cockroaches, causing them to dehydrate and die.
• Boric Acid: Known for its effectiveness and low toxicity, boric acid powder can be lightly dusted along areas where cockroaches frequent. The roaches ingest the powder during grooming, which harms their digestive systems leading to death.
• Peppermint Oil: Create a deterrent spray by mixing peppermint oil (or other essential oils like tea tree oil) with water and spraying it around the cabinets. Adding a tablespoon of dish soap to the mixture can enhance the effectiveness. The strong scent interferes with the cockroaches’ scent trails, making it harder for them to find food.
• Cucumber Peels: Cockroaches are repelled by the scent of cucumber. Placing fresh cucumber peels in areas prone to infestation can help keep them at bay.
• Bay Leaves: The aroma of bay leaves is unpleasant to cockroaches. You can place whole leaves in your cabinets or grind them into a powder to mix with water for a repellent spray.
• Homemade Traps: Combine sugar and baking soda to create an effective cockroach trap. The sugar attracts the roaches, and the baking soda is lethal once ingested.

While these natural remedies can be effective, especially for minor infestations, they may require time and consistent application to achieve the best results. For more severe infestations, professional pest control may still be necessary. Always use caution and follow safety guidelines when handling natural pest control substances.

4 Health Concerns of Cockroaches in Kitchen Cabinets

No one welcomes insects in their kitchen, and a roach infestation is particularly distressing. Cockroaches are known to pose greater health risks than many other insects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are some of the primary health concerns associated with cockroaches:

• Allergies: Cockroaches frequently shed their exoskeletons as they grow, releasing particles into the air that can trigger allergic reactions. This can lead to symptoms like sneezing, breathing difficulties, and rashes. Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to these allergens.
• Asthma: Airborne contaminants from cockroaches can exacerbate asthma symptoms significantly. Asthma sufferers may experience increased bronchospasm, eosinophilic airway inflammation, and prolonged bronchial hyperreactivity due to these allergens.
• Contaminated Food: Roaches can contaminate food by leaving feces and saliva on surfaces or food that they come into contact with. Eating contaminated food can lead to gastrointestinal distress, fever, and other health issues.
• Disease: Although it is rare, cockroaches can carry and transmit serious diseases to humans. Contact with cockroaches or their droppings can potentially lead to conditions such as dysentery, gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, and salmonella. While these transmission cases are infrequent, the potential health risks make it crucial to address roach infestations promptly.

Other Tips for Cockroach Elimination and Prevention

Getting rid of cockroaches in kitchen cabinets and throughout your home involves a combination of elimination and preventive measures. Here are some effective strategies I’ve learned over the years to both eliminate and prevent cockroach infestations:

• Seal Cracks and Crevices: Take the time to thoroughly inspect your home and seal any cracks and crevices. This is one of the simplest yet most effective preventive measures you can take. By reducing the spaces where roaches can enter and hide, you’ll greatly diminish their presence in your kitchen cabinets and elsewhere.
• Repair Leaky Plumbing: Moisture is a big draw for cockroaches, as they need water to survive. Address any plumbing issues, such as leaky pipes or dripping faucets, to make your home less appealing to these pests.
• Remove Food Sources: Ensure that all food is stored in tightly sealed containers and clean up any spills immediately. Regularly clean out your cabinets to check for any overlooked crumbs or spills. Maintaining a clean kitchen is crucial in preventing roach infestations.
• Store Pet Food Properly: Cockroaches are not picky and will eat pet food too. Store pet food in airtight plastic containers. If you use larger quantities, consider keeping the food in a sturdy tote or garbage can with a secure lid to prevent access.

By implementing these strategies, you can effectively reduce and prevent cockroach infestations in your kitchen and home. Regular upkeep and vigilance are key to keeping these pests at bay.

How to Tell It’s Time For Professional Help

DIY methods for dealing with cockroach infestations can be helpful, but there are situations when it’s crucial to turn to professional pest control services. Here are several indicators that it’s time to call in the experts:

• Persistent Infestation Despite Efforts: If you’ve been trying to eliminate cockroaches for several weeks with no visible reduction in their population, this suggests that the infestation might be more extensive than initially thought. Professional pest controllers have the expertise and equipment to handle stubborn infestations more effectively.
• Increasing Infestation Size: When you notice that the cockroach population is not just persisting but growing, it’s a clear sign that DIY methods are insufficient. Pest control professionals can tackle large and severe infestations efficiently, using advanced techniques and products.
• Health Concerns: Cockroaches are known to exacerbate allergies and asthma due to the allergens they spread. If you or your family members are experiencing related health issues, it’s important to achieve a thorough eradication quickly. Pest control professionals can ensure that your home is thoroughly treated, reducing health risks associated with cockroach allergens.
• Limited Time or Expertise: If your schedule doesn’t allow you to consistently apply DIY methods, or if you’re unsure of how to effectively manage the infestation, professional pest control can offer a more convenient and reliable solution. They can handle the problem swiftly and with minimal disruption to your daily life.

These signs indicate that professional intervention might not just be beneficial but necessary to ensure your home becomes and remains cockroach-free.

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