cockroaches Archives - Pest Control Philippines

November 7, 2020November 6, 2020

What Attracts Cockroaches in Homes

What attracts cockroaches in homes?

Exposed Food
Water Source
Exposed Trash
Warm and Dark Environments

Pests are an annoyance when they proliferate in your home. They damage property and infect your food and water with germs and diseases. This is why pest control in the Philippines can often be essential.

There’s nothing more hair-raising than seeing cockroaches invading your kitchen. An appearance of one flying cockroach can make even the manliest of men to scream loud and run away. These bugs are persistent and hard to catch sometimes. They are fast and can climb walls and furniture to quickly hide. Even a clean home can suffer from a cockroach infestation. So how do we know what can attract cockroaches in homes? Want to prevent those pesky pests in your home? Read on to learn more.

Exposed Food

Just like rats, cockroaches like to eat. Your home is the perfect place for them to live. Dirty homes are especially these pest’s favorites. For them, it is a paradise that can be called home. You have stocks of food in your pantry or exposed food on your tables. Opened packages of food can attract a cockroach to your home. If you have leftovers in your kitchen, it would be best to cover it with a lid.

This also goes for food preparation. Often, we get lazy to clean up the mess after the food is cooked. The leftover crumbs in the table and the sink, if left unsupervised, can attract cockroaches.

Keep your home tidy and free from leftover food products. Put leftovers in airtight containers so cockroaches wouldn’t be able to detect it. Be sure to clean surfaces with food and do not forget about hard to reach areas. Cockroaches are small and would be able to reach these. Remember, even animal feed can attract them.

Water Source

Cockroaches are attracted to damp places. They can survive for 3 months without food, but only a week without water. Be especially observant of places in your home that has moisture. Always wipe any leftover moisture in your kitchen counters, cabinets, and floors. Fix leaky pipes and faucets, especially hidden ones inside cabinets and underneath the sinks. Don’t let water stand for too long in containers such as pet bowls. Objects that keep moisture also attract these pests. Keep bath towels, mats, and kitchen sponges dry. Investing in a dehumidifier can help you get rid of extra moisture in your home.

Exposed Trash

Exposed garbage containers can also be ravaged by these pests. They love the foul smell of the garbage and are attracted to it. Aim to take your trash out regularly and keep the garbage container closed at all times. Don’t let it become full or overflow. Imagine seeing an overflown garbage container in your kitchen become infested by cockroaches. Before throwing food containers into the trash, rinse them first to remove the food that can attract cockroaches.

Warm and Dark Environments

Cockroaches also seek shelter in your home. They like warm and dark environments such as inside cabinets and under your sink. This is what makes them so hard to find. They like to hide in cracks and crevices in your walls, floors, and even furniture. Seal these holes to keep cockroaches from settling.

They also like objects that can be marked with their pheromones. These pheromones are like a GPS application that can tell other cockroaches their location. These objects include cardboard and wood. Make sure to clean up clutter in your home as these can attract pests and make these objects their shelter!

Key Takeaway

Cockroaches are not a beautiful sight to see unless you love pests. And even so, these pests are not good for your home. They can proliferate, lay eggs, and infect your food and water with germs.

They are hard to find because they like dark environments such as cracks and crevices in walls, floors, and furniture. They also like to hide in clutter. When you see them, they are most likely to be out in the open and are attracted to exposed food on the counter or in the trash. Observe sources of moisture too, because even wet towels and sponges can make them stay in your home.

Now that you know what can attract cockroaches in homes, you need to make the effort to avoid making these mistakes. Overall, you need to keep your home tidy. Clean regularly and avoid having clutter and exposed trash for a prolonged time. If you want to eliminate these pests for good, then a professional team of pest control in the Philippines can help you solve your problem. Contact Topbest Pest Services today for a free inspection!

August 1, 2017July 17, 2023

How to Insect-Proof Your Video Game Console

How can you insect-proof your video game console?

Keep the area around your console clean so that insects would not be attracted in the area.
Place your console in an elevated and open area to make it less-likely of a destination for insects.
Make sure that you regularly clean your console to ensure that it is insect-free.
Dust-proofing your console can also prevent insects from going inside the console.

Keeping your home free from pests is the main goal for getting the best pest control service available. Pests can invade different parts of your home, and damage important items. One of these important items is your video game console. Video game consoles are some of the most popular entertainment devices around, and are now able to provide more features other than playing video games; these include playing movies and music, being able to gamble at a top online casino, and many more.

As it is a valuable item in your house, keeping your video game console away from unwanted pests should be one of your priorities. Due to the warm temperatures that they generate after hours of usage, they are prone to being invaded by different kinds of insects.

There have been numerous reports of video game consoles being invaded by insects, most commonly cockroaches. This can cause damage that can break the console, and will require some serious repairs. To prevent this from happening to your video game console, here are some tips on how to keep your console away from insects.

Keep the area around your console clean

One of the most practical solutions that can help prevent the invasion of insects inside your video game console is by tidying up the place surrounding it. Keeping the room your console is in constantly clean ensures that insects will not be roaming around.

Since most video game consoles are placed in one of the busiest areas of the house – the living room – cleaning the area daily, along with removing trash, food, and dust would ensure that your console is in a safe place from the unwanted critters.

Place your console in a high and open area

One of the main reasons insects like cockroaches tend to dwell inside video game consoles is that most consoles are placed in narrow spots in the room, just like a desktop computer. The secluded area, combined with the warm temperature of the console makes it an attractive breeding destination for the cockroaches (and the eventual cockroach offspring that will follow).

To avoid turning your console into a nice cockroach family home, place your console on an elevated location with a good amount of space. By doing so, insects would least likely to go to your console, as they are not fond of open spaces.

Clean your console up!

Another practical solution to prevent a console insect invasion is by regularly cleaning your console. Here are some things that you need to do when cleaning your console:

Video game consoles can be considered as dust magnets after lying around for a while, which means regular dusting is a must. This is best to do daily in order to prevent dust from gathering up.
Spray compressed air in the vents of your console. The air would be strong enough to remove dust, and other elements (hope that it’s not dead insects) that might be inside your console.
Open your console up to clean it on the inside thoroughly. While this is not advisable to do regularly, opening it up for cleaning every once in a while is a good measure to make sure it is kept clean.
Clean up the electronics very carefully. Circuit boards and other parts that make your console work require extra care when cleaning it up. If you see some marks of insect droppings and melting in some parts, it is recommended that you bring your console to a proper place, where it can be repaired more extensively.

Dust-proof your console

Since consoles are prone to dusting, it is best to dust-proof your console. There are numerous dust protection items and kits available in the market that can help cover up your console’s most important parts. These dust-proofing items will not only prevent the insides of your console from collecting dust, but it will also make sure that the insects would not be able to get inside your precious console. Dust protection for consoles is an affordable and simple way to keep insects away from your console.

Key Takeaway

Video game consoles are costly entertainment devices, which makes protecting them from insects that can damage it very important. Using the methods listed above, your worries about insects invading your console would now be far from your mind. If you have a friend or family member, who is experiencing this kind of problem, it is best to show them these steps, and make sure their console remains clean and running.

February 17, 2014March 15, 2018

9 Familiar Habits That Attract Pests

Familiar habits that attract pests

Leaving food out
Negligent house maintenance
Keeping paper bags beneath the kitchen sink
Leaving a messy room
Having a lot of wooden furniture
Not taking out the trash
Not repairing what needs to be repaired
Not covering the trash
Negligence in plant care

Have you ever wondered why pests keep appearing in your home? No matter what you do, whether it’s calling pest control in the Philippines to treat your house regularly or applying your own techniques, like bug spray or traps, they just keep coming back after a while, and it’s costing you an arm and a leg to constantly have to get rid of them.

Living Room

Before you make another call to your exterminator or buy another bottle of bug aerosol, stop to consider how you and your family have been treating your home. Yes, the focus is on your daily routines. There are many bad habits we unintentionally do that cause these pests to return.

And while bug spray and other modern techniques kill these pests, the reason why they keep coming back to your house is because you only deal with the effects, and not the root of the problem: bad habits. Today, we’ll look at 7 bad habits we may not be familiar with that attract pests to your residence.

1. Leaving Food Out

Leaving food out in the open is like giving these pests an invitation to infest your home. Unsealed foodstuff or groceries and unswept crumbs could attract a group of ants in a matter of minutes or become a late night snack for a mouse or rat. Place food in airtight containers when done eating or not needed and keep away from the dining and kitchen tables. If possible, store all food in the refrigerator. Sweep away crumbs on the floor to prevent these pesky invaders from ever returning.

2. Negligent House Maintenance

Insects can pass through the tiniest cracks, while rodents like mice and rats can squeeze their bodies through an opening the size of a quarter. Other damaged portions of your home can become entrances for these tricky trespassers. Repair and seal all wall cracks, broken doors, windows, and other areas that may act as gateways for pests into your home.

3. Keeping Paper Bags Beneath the Kitchen Sink

You may do this as part of your routine to keep the bags for further use, but in reality, it only draws cockroaches to live in them. Worse, they may release their fecal matter in the bags. This causes even more cockroaches to stay in the paper bags. If you have paper bags under the sink with a few cockroaches inside, immediately take them out and burn them. From now on, fold unused paper bags and store them in drawers instead.

4. Leaving a Messy Room

A pile of clothes and other items on the floor do attract pests. Rodents, like staying beneath dirty clothes because it keeps them warm, while crumpled pieces of paper can become a home for spiders, since they can spin webs onto them. Also, when your room accumulates a large amount of dust, the more likely it is for cockroaches to flock around and scurry about.

With that said, the moral of the story: Clean up your room. You’d be amazed at how much this can benefit you.

5. Having a lot of Wooden Furniture

Wood is a termite haven, since they eat the material to live and make a home. Ridding your house of all wooden furniture will definitely lower the risk of a termite infestation.

6. Not Taking out the Trash

In every household, the accumulation of waste is unavoidable at best. Why else would a house keep trash cans?

Anyways, the best way to handle this is to take out the trash when your bin is too full. Otherwise, expect to see more roaches in your home.

7. Not Repairing What Needs to be Repaired

This is more for home maintenance than warding off pests, as well as a continuation of Habit #2. Bear with it though as this is still a factor in attracting pests into your home.

Nowadays, people are always too busy to do anything. With their work entailing them a huge amount of responsibility, people tend to see that as a top priority than maintaining their home. If one does not maintain their home, a number of things can happen, which in turn can attract more pests.

For instance, a leaking pipe is more than just a household inconvenience. Cockroaches tend to gather around in dark and moist areas, making it more likely for them to gather around for some coolness. Also, an issue like leaking is more than likely to happen during the rainy season, which is also the time where a lot of pests gather above ground and go about their business, at the cost of your peace of mind as a homeowner.

With that said, it’s best to take care of and repair these problems as soon as you spot them. That way, you’ll be able to make things indoors easier and ward off any pest from wandering inside your home.

8. Not Covering the Trash

Speaking of trash (see number 6 above), there are instances where the trash is left without its lid on, especially outdoors. This further attracts pests to your home due to its foul and pungent odor.

For this, all you have to do is keep your trash cans with their lids on at all times. That way, you’ll be able to prevent yourself from seeing another cockroach, rat, ant, or any other pest for as long as you wish.

9. Negligence in Plant Care

When one has a green thumb, it’s their nature to care for any plant-life that comes their way. When one doesn’t have a green thumb, or any penchant in caring for plants, then the more likely these green masterpieces will be left in the dust, which in turn can attract pests to take dispose of it.

For this, all you really need to do is give your best in caring for any plants you may have in your home. Otherwise, if your plant is as good as dead, then dispose of it as soon as possible.

Key Takeaway

These habits can be understandably hard to kick. It’s become part of daily life that it’s been instilled in your mentality. But, if ever you’re guilty of practicing these habits, now you know what kind of repercussions they can bring.