Say Goodbye To Cockroaches: The Most Effective Treatment For Your Lexington Home

If you have family members living in other parts of the country, you know how exciting it can be when you visit them. As you spend time with your distant relatives, you recall memories while making new ones. Ultimately, the visit ends, and it is a bittersweet moment as you load the car to return home. Finally, the moment arrives, and as you pull out of the driveway, you wave a sad goodbye as you return to your Lexington home.

Some goodbyes are not pleasant, but others are easy. It is no problem to say good riddance to a terrible job, employer, or cockroaches in your house. When these six-legged, disease-ridden pests invade your home, you need the best pest control in Lexington, Action Pest Control.

We are proud to be ranked in the top 100 pest control companies out of 15,000 in the United States for over 20 years. Our award-winning company has received numerous awards from multiple publications, service providers, and the National Pest Management Association (Technician of the Year Award). We have over 70 highly-trained, state-certified pest management professionals and on-staff entomologists. When you partner with us, you are guaranteed to receive prompt, courteous service undergirded by superior communication.

You probably found this article because you stumbled into the bathroom late at night, flipped on the light switch, and saw cockroaches running across the floor for cover. Or perhaps you moved a cabinet in the kitchen, and out came several roaches. Whatever the cause of your encounter, you've seen cockroaches in your Lexington home and want to say goodbye to them as quickly as possible. Please keep reading to identify the cockroach breed, learn why they are inside your home, how to eliminate them, and get prevention to prevent future infestations.

Understanding The Cockroach Problem: Identifying The Culprits

a german cockroach crawling in a kitchen

Cockroaches are quick-moving insects active at night. Thus, when you startle them, they scurry across the floor and take cover underneath the refrigerator, stove, kitchen cabinet, or run down a drain. You may have only a few seconds to identify what is in your house, so here is what you need to know.

Cockroaches are insects with six legs, a three-part oval-shaped body (head, thorax, and abdomen), two long, thin antennae, wings, or wing pads. The size, color, and behaviors depend upon the species. Although there are 3,500 cockroach species worldwide, cockroach infestations in Lexington homes consist of these four species:

German cockroaches
American cockroaches
Oriental cockroaches
Brown-banded cockroaches

To assist you in identifying which species is in your Lexington house, we will examine each one.

Most likely, the cockroaches in your home are German cockroaches. These insects have a 1/2 to 5/8-inch light brown to tan body with two dark strips behind their heads on their backs. All cockroaches reproduce by laying egg capsules, known as ootheca, that contain many individual eggs in a purse-like structure. Whereas the oothecae of most species contain 20 or fewer eggs, the cases of German cockroaches have up to 48 eggs; these cockroaches also have the shortest maturation time from egg to reproducing adult. In favorable conditions (i.e., about 70?), what began with one fertilized female cockroach can result in 10,000 cockroaches in one year.

You will find German cockroaches in kitchens, bathrooms, and other warm, moist areas of the home. Unlike other cockroaches on our list, German cockroaches prefer to live inside structures; they often move from one location to another by hitchhiking inside bags, cardboard boxes, and used appliances. Another cockroach species that enjoys living in the same environment is the American Cockroach.

American cockroaches have 1 1/4 to 2 1/8-inch reddish-brown bodies with a distinguishing figure-eight pattern on the back of the head. Like German cockroaches, they can fly but prefer to run from one location to another. American cockroaches prefer to live outside underneath mulch piles and in flower beds but invade homes due to adverse weather conditions.

Oriental cockroaches complete our list of cockroach invaders in the Lexington area. While you can quickly distinguish between American and German cockroaches due to body size and their markings, you can spot an oriental cockroach due to its shiny, black to dark-reddish, 1-inch body. Sometimes known as "water bugs" and "black beetle cockroaches," these roaches prefer crawl spaces and humid areas with cool air.

While oriental cockroaches live in crawl spaces, German and American cockroaches invade bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms on the ground level; look up to find brown-banded cockroaches. These 1/2-inch long insects have two lighter brown bans on their brown body. Unlike the other moist-loving cockroaches, brown-banded cockroaches enjoy the hot, dry air on the top of cabinets and near the ceiling. While the females don't fly, male brown-banded cockroaches do fly, so you may have one fly in your direction if you disturb it.

Action Pest Control provides cockroach pest control for all types of cockroaches. Our pest management professionals can identify the cockroach species infesting your house and prescribe the best treatment to target the culprit.

Health Risks Of Roaches: The Dangers Of Cockroaches In The House

All insects contaminate foods and items when they enter your house; however, they vary to the extent. Except for pharaoh ants, ants do not spread disease, and while horse flies can transmit disease to horses, flies do not transmit diseases to people. So, why are cockroaches a threat to our health? The reason is due to their foraging habits and their legs.

Cockroaches forage in sewers, drains, garbage, and compost piles and on animal feces. While many insects hunt and kill their prey, cockroaches prefer to eat rotting animal and plant matter. Unfortunately, these things are in moist, humid areas that are Petri dishes for bacteria, viruses, and parasitic worms.

As the cockroaches move through these unsanitary locations, disease-causing organisms stick to their leg spines. Later, when they enter a Lexington home, the pathogens transfer to cooking and eating surfaces, foodstuffs, and other items as the cockroaches travel through kitchen and bathroom cabinets. All cockroach species can spread the bacteria, viruses, and worms that cause salmonellosis, typhoid fever, cholera, gastroenteritis, dysentery, listeriosis, giardia, and E. coli throughout a Lexington home. However, cockroach legs are not the only source of disease from these disgusting pests.

When cockroaches consume decaying, disease-ridden materials, the pathogens enter their bodies. Later, they expel the disease-causing organisms through their feces. German cockroaches produce pepper-like droppings, while the blunt fecal matter of American cockroaches is occasionally confused with mouse droppings.

Cockroach feces contaminate surfaces upon contact but also cause another long-range effect. Eventually, the droppings dry, and particles break off and become airborne. When household members, particularly older adults and small children, inhale the floating fecal material, it can trigger allergic reactions and asthma. Another cause of these reactions is a protein present in their exoskeleton. Cockroaches shed their exoskeletons at each of their growth stages. As the discarded shells decay, the particles begin floating through the home, triggering the same responses as the feces.

Action Pest Control provides cockroach pest control in Lexington to protect your family from diseases spread by a cockroach infestation. You can breathe better knowing that we are on the job.

Expert Cockroach Elimination: Call In The Pros Right Away

Quickly secure help from Action Pest Control when you notice cockroaches in your home. Our customer service team will dispatch a trained and certified pest management professional to identify entry points, attractants, hot spots, and the species infesting your location.

We will initially treat the interior to eliminate cockroaches living in wall voids, around the water heater, leaking plumbing fixtures, and wherever they may be hiding. Our home pest management professional will treat the exterior to create a barrier to deter cockroaches from entering the house.

We offer bi-monthly and quarterly pest protection options to ensure your home remains pest-free. When you call us, we promise to get rid of the cockroaches in your Lexington home.

Maintenance Tips: Ensuring Long-Term Cockroach Control

We view pest control as a partnership. We provide the expertise, materials, and experience necessary to eliminate the current cockroach infestation in your Lexington home, and you can help by doing the following to discourage a future cockroach invasion:

Provide proper drainage to ditches, low-lying areas, and gutters.
Eliminate debris, junk, and excess landscaping materials from the yard.
Repair leaking plumbing fixtures in the house.
Keep outdoor and indoor garbage containers closed.
Install door sweeps on exterior doors.
Fix holes in window and door screens.
Vacuum the house regularly.
Suction out corners and cracks between the baseboards, walls, and flooring.
Store food in airtight containers.
Remove pet food from bowls before bedtime.
Wipe down cooking and eating surfaces after meals.
Clean and store dishes after each meal.

Maintaining a clean, dry exterior and interior will discourage cockroaches from staying around your house. When an Action Pest Control pest management professional arrives to inspect and treat your home, we can provide additional tips for your location. Contact us today to get started with a free, no-obligation quote.

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