3 ms·
The large apartment building issue is a big one. I lived in a building (10 stories, 70 units plus commercial space on floors 1-3) for ~10 years. The first sever
by jghn 3y ago
The large apartment building issue is a big one. I lived in a building (10 stories, 70 units plus commercial space on floors 1-3) for ~10 years. The first several years were great, not a single pest of any sort. And then the roaches (German cockroaches) started to show up.
The problem was that once they got into the building they were impossible to eradicate everywhere as no one, including the owners, were willing to bite the bullet and treat it as a whole-building problem. So instead you'd get little pockets of treatment and a never ending cycle was created.
Years later in our house we found and killed a single German cockroach. And of course, living in a city, if you find one that means there are many more. We were terrified. But after a single treatment by a pest control company we haven't seen any other activity for several years. Still have no idea if somehow we *did* only have that single one or what. But I'm not complaining.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> Years later in our house we found and killed a single German cockroach. And of course, living in a city, if you find one that means there are many more. Being in a city has nothing to do with it. Cockroaches are social, like sheep (or humans). If you live in a city and you find a spider, it was just the one spider. If you live in the remote wilderness and you find a cockroach, it was hundreds of cockroaches.
- jghn 3y agoThe point I was raising was regarding the different species of cockroaches. In rural areas there are species that primarily live outside but can find their way inside. German cockroaches tends to be more urban and indoors, so if you see one you can't hand wave it away as having just having hitched a ride into your house.
- jurassic 3y agoI had the same experience in a big building. I basically rendered my own kitchen unsafe for human food preparation with all the poisons I tried, but still it hardly made a dent because there was a near infinite population of german cockroaches waiting to recolonize my unit from the walls and surrounding units.
- ne8il 3y agoI had the same situation recently - a single German cockroach chilling on the front of our dishwasher. Being sufficiently terrified by reading r/whatisthisbug and the like, I had a pest control company out the next day to treat. They could find no signs of infestation and I haven't seen a single one since (and we did set out traps to monitor). The Orkin guy who came out said it's not uncommon for a lone individual to venture into a home.