Cockroaches and Cockroach Control Sydney

German Cockroaches | Australian Cockroaches | American Cockroaches | Smokey Brown Cockroaches | Oriental Cockroaches | German Cockroach Control Price List

Cockroaches and Cockroach Control Sydney Video

German Cockroaches

The German cockroach is one of the most common roaches found in apartment houses, restaurants and hotels. German cockroach (eggs included) are “brought in” usually on mans belongings, luggage, boxes or packages. They produce the most eggs, have the shortest development cycle, best survival rate of the young, and the most adaptive feeding habits of most of the roaches.

Identification

Adults are half an inch long, light to medium brown with 2 dark distinctive strips behind the head. The young are wingless, smaller and much darker in colour, with a light stripe on their backs.

Diets

German Cockroaches will eat any thing. They stay close to food and water source.

Habits and Biology

Females reproduce one egg capsule every 3-4 weeks. Each capsule contains 25-45 eggs. Infestations are usually found in kitchens, bathrooms, but can inhabit other areas if there is a heavy population or you have run them into each other with the repellent effect of insecticides.

Pest Control Price List

Micropest provides the following services with an approximate price. Please don't hesitate to ring because we do have specials from time to time and we are flexible.

Services	Apartment	Houses	Restaurant (conditions apply)
All cockroach control prices:	$180.00	$200.00	$200.00

Cockroaches (Blattidae)

Cockroaches are rather flattened insects, oval in outline, mostly brown to almost black in colour, usually but not always with wings covering the body and with very long antennae. When active they scurry about, seldom resorting to flight even when fully winged. Most species, and all the important ones, are nocturnally active, resting in dark hiding places during the day.

There are many different species found mostly under logs, stones, bark or among leaf litter. They are most common in forest country but can also be seen in numbers in woodheaps and some small colourful species may be seen on foliage in the garden. However these are of no importance; only those very few species which have adapted themselves to living on the food and wastes of humans are pests. Two or three species have become even more successfully dependent on humans than the housefly and are no longer found under natural conditions. With minor climatic limitations these species are almost as widely distributed around the world as are humans. As with rats, ships have provided mobile human environments suitable for their dispersion to all quarters of the globe. Nowadays aircraft can serve the same purpose.

Cockroaches are regarded as loathsome creatures but although they are potentially capable of transmitting diseases of a similar nature to those carried by flies their activities are such that this would rarely occur. There have probably been circumstances in the past where conditions of squalor have been such that people, their food, their excrement and Cockroaches have existed in intimate association. Given these conditions, disease transmission is certainly possible, the significant factor, as with flies, being the exposure of excrement in very close proximity to the other ordinary activities of human living. The liking of domestic cockroaches for human fecal material is very strong, their ability to be contaminated by disease organisms has been amply demonstrated and cockroaches taken from suspect environments have been found to be naturally infected. In other words there is a potential for disease transmission but because cockroaches do not normally move readily from infective material to foodstuffs this potential is not of major significance.

Because their role in disease transmission is of little consequence and because their activities after lights are out pass relatively unnoticed cockroaches tend to be ignored or simply tolerated. This should not be since to the sanitarian, in relatively advanced communities, cockroaches serve as an indicator of standards of domestic and institutional hygiene.

Cockroaches are difficult to control because of the inaccessibility of the hiding places which we provide for them by our haphazard methods of food storage or construction of kitchen fittings. On top of this our carelessness sometimes, uncleanliness at other times, provides them with necessary food. Forethought in these matters could do much to prevent the establishment of cockroach problems.

The magnitude of an infestation, given suitable shelter, depends on the quantity of food available. Ordinary domestic kitchens can only maintain small colonies, restaurants somewhat larger, institutions, with usually greater storage facilities, quite large colonies. Yet all of these are minor compared with the fantastically large populations ever present in major sewers. At this point differences in the behaviour of individual species become important.

In New South Wales the cosmopolitan American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, is the most widely distributed, and typically the most frequently occurring in important infestations. lt is the cockroach very often seen in homes, and the cockroach of sewers. However, in the last decade or so in Sydney, Periplaneta fuliginosa (similar to P. americana but black-brown in colour) and Periplaneta australasiae (similar to P. americana but with a yellow "epaulet" on the base of each forewing) have become quite common in some areas, and may be seen inside and outside homes and other buildings. Isolated infestations of the German roach, Blatella germanica, also cosmopolitan, occur but these are discrete infestations of individual buildings, usually heated, and sewers are in no way involved. A third cosmopolitan species, Blatta orientalis is only known to occur in the Broken Hill area and has not so far become a major pest species in this country. A similar native species, at times incorrectly identified as the preceding, is Shawella couloniana which occasionally establishes very minor infestations in houses adjacent to bushland. There are other native species which are seen in houses because they are attracted to light at night. These, however do not colonise in the home.

Effective control of cockroach infestations depends on an understanding of important aspects of their biology and behaviour.

• The areas of infestation must be defined. Within the home the most important factor is food, and a close second is shelter. Hence the area occupied by cockroaches is basically the kitchen and suitable shelter within or immediately adjacent to it. Any attempts to observe or trace the activities of these pests should be back to their resting places, not out to their foraging areas. Insecticides should be placed in these resting places, or if this is not possible then immediately outside so that the insecticide residue must be crossed as the roaches come out of their shelters. Diffuse applications of insecticides, without regard to cockroach harbourage, even undertaken nightly, will make no obvious impression on a well-established infestation. During the process of detection of sheltering places imperfections in the management of foodstuffs and utensils should also become apparent and be rectified.
• The resting places have special characters. They must be as dark as possible and take the form of crevices into which the cockroaches can just fit with both the upper and lower surfaces of their bodies making contact with those of the crevice. They will also be as close as possible to the food source except in the case of Blatella germanica where warmth above room temperature is an additional prerequisite.
• cockroaches are clean insects and spend time cleaning any contaminants from their legs or antenna by the use of their mouthparts. This greatly facilitates the ingestion of internal poisons if this type of insecticide is used.
• ln temperate and tropical areas there is no actual cessation of breeding at any time during the year. There may well be acceleration during the warmer months but the life cycle is not short - about two or three generations per year for Blatella germanica (50 to over 2OO days to maturity) but only one for Periplaneta americana (134 to over 800 days to maturity in Australian observations). On the other hand the adults of the former species can survive over I2 months and of the latter even in excess of four years. All this means that there is no discreteness of generations but a continuous overlapping of a series of generations with an established colony comprising cockroaches in all stages of development from eggs to mature adults. Since the period of incubation of eggs can extend from 40 to 100 days in the case of Periplaneta americana it should be realised that a colony is not annihilated when all the active cockroaches are killed. Hatching can continue for months and this is probably the most important way in which an infestation remains a perpetual problem in the face of less than adequate intermittent control measures.
• ln some circumstances, and this sometimes applies to major institutions and certain central city areas, reinfestation from external sources such as sewers is the important means of perpetuation of infestations. Indeed, commercial pest control operators do at times extend their control to adjacent sewer lines for the protection of vulnerable public eating places. Other sources of reservoir populations can be garbage dump areas but particularly so when no attempt is made to cover the refuse. All this, of course, applies to Periplaneta americana. It should also be recognised that reinfestation may be effected by the entry of infested goods. This is only likely with foodstuffs bought in bulk from an infested store or perhaps in crates which may have provided harbourage.
• As mentioned previously cockroaches do not fly readily but there is a temperature control to this. ln Sydney there are possibly only a few nights each summer when domestic cockroaches will be seen on the wing but as we go northward in Australia flight is observed more and more frequently.
• Blatella germanica is a special case. lt breeds more rapidly than the other domestic species. lt requires greater warmth and is especially prone to infest situations close to steam pipes or other reticulated heating systems likely to be found in hotels and institutions.

ln the control of cockroaches non-residual insecticides are of less than limited value. Before residual insecticides became available strategically placed dusts, especially sodium fluoride, which could be made even more effective by the addition of pyrethrum powder, were probably more useful than most other means of keeping cockroach populations at a low level. Residual insecticides made a dramatic improvement when used without regard for possible contamination of foodstuffs or utensils. Currently there are proprietary products sold for cockroach control in domestic situations, either as aerosol “surface sprays" or as powders in "puffer" packs. These typically contain pyrethroid with residual activity (e.g. permethrin), sometimes with another compound to provide a flushing action (e.g. dichlorvos or pyrethrins) so that the cockroaches may come in greater contact with the residual insecticide.

However, we must take into consideration the toxic hazards of the insecticides we use. ln organisations which can dictate the control techniques to be employed some insecticides fall under an outright ban such as “must not be used wherever there is any possibility of food or utensil contamination", in other words in kitchens, pantries and foodstores. Such edicts stem from the inevitable degree of carelessness or ignorance in the unknown human elements involved. Any recommendations must thus incorporate the provision that foodstuffs, utensils and preparation surfaces must not be contaminated by any residual insecticides. lf this is adhered to, and the following points taken into consideration, moderately toxic insecticides may still be employed:

The use of a conventional fly spray for insecticide application is the least efficient method and the one most likely to achieve accidental contamination of food or utensils.

Treatment of bench tops is of no real use in control and is also a contaminative technique.

To get liquid insecticide into resting places formed in the structure of the building a jet nozzle on a spray is suitable but a simple alternative is a thumb pressure oil can, the placement of the insecticide being under the operator's complete control. Probable situations are behind skirting's and cupboards. the space below false bottoms of cupboards, ledges underneath sinks and benches, any imperfections of finish or damage giving access to the cavity of the wall, around and beneath inset ovens and sometimes under the floor.

When these cavities cannot be treated properly the adjacent surfaces are best treated with a paint brush, this again giving full control.

Insecticides in dust form are useful, but it is difficult to avoid contamination.

Nevertheless it cannot be over-emphasised that none of these insecticides will give complete control unless application techniques are appropriate and thorough and the areas to which they are applied are carefully selected after a thorough assessment of the distribution of the infestation.

lf the possibilities of reinfestation are not great eradication of the infestation is quite possible and could be long lasting. ln large buildings all centres of infestation should be attacked at the same time. Emphasis has been placed on the kitchen area but in a hospital, for example, the kitchen, dining rooms, day rooms and dispensary are all probable areas of infestation.

Cardinal points in cockroach control

• Mixed infestations of two or more species are unusual, hence identify species involved.
• lnvestigate area of infestation and localise hiding places taking into consideration the essential differences between Periplaneta americana and Blatella germanica.
• Select the control technique most suited to the circumstances and aim for eradication of the infestation.
• Correct methods of management of foodstuffs so that food is not available for the roaches. Although very partial to sweet foods, they must be regarded as omnivorous since anything even remotely edible such as paper, leather, starch or fatty residues may be included in their diet.
• Wherever possible correct structural imperfections providing harbourage.