The Cockroach Problem

Some years ago I bought a house that — unknown to me at the time — had a severe infestation of cockroaches. This is the story of how I got rid of them. Not a pleasant story, but one that might contain some useful information for anyone else with the same problem.

I don’t know why I didn’t see that the house suffered from a severe roach infestation when I bought it, except that I saw the house during the daytime and roaches tend to come out in the night. Also, I wasn’t looking for roaches, probably because I didn’t know they could be so bad.

And they were bad. Soon after I moved in I couldn’t help but notice. They would cross the floor of the living room as I was watching television. They would scatter when I turned on the kitchen light late at night. It took me a while to unpack after I moved in; I had moving boxes stacked on the living room floor. Eventually, every time I moved one, dozens of roaches would scatter to find a new hiding spot. The first time I looked behind the fridge I nearly fainted; there were dozens of them there too. I saw them in the basement. They showed up in the bathroom. I came to understand an old Jimmie J.J. Walker joke that had never made sense to me. (“Cockroaches must be the cleanest insect — every time you see them, they’re in the bathtub!”) Honestly, I had never seen so many cockroaches, in my bathtub or anywhere else, until I bought this particular house.

The problem wasn’t quite as bad as E.G. Marshall faced in Creepshow — but it reminded me of that scene, and that was bad enough!

The question was: what could I do to get rid of them?

Clean Your Sink and Prevent Roaches from Going into the Drain

More about denying roaches the water they need:  Of course you should never keep wet, dirty dishes in your kitchen sink overnight or for any length of time when you’re not in the kitchen.  Think about what happens if you just rinse dirty dishes and leave them in the sink: from the roaches’ perspective a sink full of dirty dishes with water on them is an enormous all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet.  You must clean your dishes, dry them, and put them away before roaches can get to them.  And then you must clean the sink to make sure there is no food residue remaining where roaches can get at it. So after you wash the dishes, wash the sink and rinse it well.  But is that enough?

It might be possible for roaches to get at the water in the trap (the U-shaped bend in the pipe) under the sink. They’re always looking for water and they like to be in damp, dark, confined spaces. There are a couple things you can do to prevent roaches from getting at the water that’s always in your sink’s trap.

First, you can get a sink strainer and make sure it’s in place whenever you’re not using the sink. A strainer should prevent all but the smallest of roaches from going down into the drainpipe. (However, make sure it’s not stopping the flow of water down the drain. If even a spoonful of water collects in the strainer, then you’ve made life easier for the roaches.)

Second, you can spray your sink and drain with a chemical cleaner.  Roaches are pretty good at avoiding chemicals that are lethal to them. I recommend putting ammonia into a spray bottle (make sure to label it!) and giving the kitchen sink a good spray every night before you go to bed.  Spray an amount equal to a spoonful or two directly onto the sink strainer and down the drain. Roaches will smell the ammonia and will avoid the sink entirely for several hours. You might find a dead roach that has fallen into the sink and come in contact with the ammonia. When I see this, I smile. Plain household ammonia is quite economical when you buy it in a large jug. [You can also use household bleach the same way. NOTE: Be careful you do not to mix ammonia and bleach. Doing so creates dangerous chemical gases that can be harmful to humans, like you! You should also always be careful not to mix any household cleaning product that even contains ammonia with another product that contains bleach.]

I am not certain if roaches actually go on water-seeking expeditions down the kitchen sink drain and into the pipe to the water in the trap, but it seems possible and if you want to get rid of roaches you must take away their access to water.

Water: Contributing to the Problem

Like all life on earth, cockroaches need water. In fact, roaches prefer locations with a lot of water: liquid water where they can reach it, as well as air heavy with humidity. Denying roaches access to water is essential to controlling their population. Just as you would do on the field of battle, where a skillful general would force the enemy to make camp in a position without access to water, you must cut off all access to the water that roaches can’t live without.

In my case, the worst water-problem area in my house was under the kitchen sink. The drainpipe under the sink had a slow leak. Bad enought, but beyond that there was another watery problem that was much more difficult to diagnose.

The previous owner had simply placed a plastic bucket under the sink, directly under the U-bend in the drainpipe. Every time the kitchen sink was used, a few tablespoons of water leaked into the bucket. Gradually the bucket filled, and periodically it had to be removed and dumped. I knew this when I bought the house, but I didn’t realize the roach ramifications. Fixing the leak was on my to-do list, but I kept putting it off. Often, when I emptied the bucket, I would find dead roaches in the water. At first I thought “Good: they’re climbing down to get water, falling in, and drowning.” Dumb. Stupidly, I thought the bucket full of water was functioning as a sort of roach trap.

Then it dawned on me: Some of them were drowning … but others were obtaining the water they needed, then climbing out of the bucket, thirst quenched, and going on with their lives. As long as there was water in the bucket, I was making their lives easier, giving them a readily accessible source of water and thus allowing them more time to forage for food and produce more roaches.

As soon as I began thinking correctly, I fixed the leak. I put the bucket back under the sink so I could check it and make sure it stayed dry to confirm that the pipe was fixed properly.

Unfortunately, much to my surprise and chagrin, the bucket was still gradually filling up with water. Every evening, after I did the dishes, there was a little more water in the bucket.

I laid down on the floor and stuck my head under the sink — and I immediately noticed how humid it was under there, just the way roaches like — and watched carefully as the water ran full-force into the sink. I watched and watched but the drain pipe wasn’t leaking. I splashed water around in the sink, thinking that water coming into the drain at different angles might somehow be more likely to leak (unlikely, I know, but I was mystified and willing to try anything) … and finally some water dripped down the pipe and into the bucket. But that water wasn’t coming from a leak in the pipe under the sink.

By looking carefully I could tell that I had splashed water up around the kitchen faucet. The water was leaking under the sink by coming in around where the metal faucet met the enamel sink. The faucet seal was no good. I removed the faucet and replaced the seal. For good measure I put some Goop around the seal and that did the trick.

The bucket under the sink stayed dry! I had taken a huge water source away from my enemies. To continue the water metaphor: the tide of battle was begining to turn.

I learned there were lots of ways that I could make my house drier and less hospitable for cockroaches. See the next post.

Don’t Give Water to Roaches

As has been said, roaches evolved in the moist tropics. They can’t live without readily-available water to drink and they prefer a humid environment. If you’re serious about fighting roaches, then you must keep your house as dry as possible. Here’s some things to check for:

• Leaky pipes. Even a very slow leak — just a spoonful of water dripping each day into the cabinet area under the sink or into the space between pipes in the walls and floor — makes an ideal environment for roaches: liquid water to drink and lots of humidity. (There’s not much air flow under sinks or between walls, so any water that gets into places like that tends to stay there for a while.) Inspect your pipes to make sure there aren’t any leaks. Get a flashlight and look under your sinks, follow the pipes in your basement, peer in-between the walls wherever you can. If you spot a leak, get it fixed.

• Leaky caulk around sinks and tubs. Somewhat less obvious than a leaky pipe is the caulk around your sinks and tubs. The caulk is there to prevent water that gets splashed up onto the tile from seeping down in-between the sink (or tub) and the wall. If the caulk is cracked, dried up, inflexible, or shrunken then it should be replaced. Defunct caulk is just as bad (bad for you; good for roaches) as a leaky pipe. If your caulk is no good, then everytime you turn on the water you’re splashing a bit behind the sink and into the places where roaches like to hide; you’re providing the perfect habitat for them. Is you caulk good? If in doubt, tear it out and put in new caulk. Detailed instructions on how to do this are beyond the scope of this blog. But I will say that in my experience, caulk that is applied with a caulk gun tends to be better than caulk that comes in a ready-to-use tube.

• Bathroom, kitchen, and basement humidity. You must make all areas of your home as dry (low in humidity) as possible. This takes a special effort in the summer, when the outdoor area is humid. Make sure to run the exhaust fans in the kitchen when you are cooking and in the bathroom when you are showering. You might consider installing a timer on the exhaust fans so they can be left on for some time after your’re finished in the kitchen or bathroom, thus allowing the room to dry more completely. From time to time (once a week or so) open the doors of your sink cabinets to allow them to air out. Ventilation is a weapon in the roach war.
  
  If you see roaches in your basement, then your basement is probably too humid. If your clothes washer and dryer are in the basement, make sure the washer is draining properly (so there’s no standing water in the sink or drain) and make sure the dryer is properly vented (all dryer exhaust air should be vented outside). Consider installing a dehumidifier. Ideally, a dehumidifier should empty directly into the sink or floor drain (so it won’t stop working while it waits for you to empty its bucket). We got lucky and found a good dehumidifier at the local thrift store. I installed it over the basement sink, suspended from the ceiling, so the collected water goes down a hose and into the sink drain. No need to empty the bucket every day. The water flows through the hose (nothing more reliable than gravity!) and down the drain.

More to come!