General Question

pleiades's avatar

What are your thoughts about fogging for pests?

Asked by pleiades (6617points) April 18th, 2014

I have one fogger and am tempted to use it. This is for roaches! When we first moved here last April I saw maybe once a week a baby roach. Now there are many roaches. And in the summer the whole complex was sprayed down by a pest control company… that didn’t help. Maybe for a while, but yes I don’t understand we keep the apartment tidy.

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6 Answers

LuckyGuy's avatar

That would be my last resort. but sometimes “you gotta’ do what you gotta’ do.”
Roaches are virtually indestructible. They can last a week with no food and water – and can last as long as a month if water is available. They will eat any kind of animal or vegetable matter. When deprived of food they can rub their heads against wood beams or studs and make a fine powder which nourishes them until they find another food source -wallpaper paste, insects, sink trap sludge, etc. .
That is why just keeping your place in impossibly pristine conditions is not enough to wipe them out. And make no mistake, you must kill them all or you will have them back in no time.
I’m sorry, but you can’t go about this process half-way. Either you’re in or you’re out.
Good luck.

SpatzieLover's avatar

The best way to kill an infestation of roaches is by removing access to food, water and fat (grease on fans, walls, vents, etc).

Then use a roach bait, ideally the kind in syringe applicators.

Inject into virtually every nook and cranny you can. The bait is the most efficient method of eliminating the infestation. It will take longer to eliminate all of the roaches, but once eliminated, as long as you are tidy (have no food or grease available to them) your likelihood of reinfestation is slim.

From there, you’ll want to keep vacuuming up the dead roaches, and wash all corners and crevices you can see their fecal matter in. If you can locate the nest, don’t disturb it. Instead, poison heavily in the crevices near it. After the nest is thoroughly eliminated wash the area well, and reapply the bait in case there are any stragglers.

As a property manager I’ll add this: It would be wise for you to let your manager/landlord know there is still an issue. The landlord should be using bait, not sprays to kill off the roaches. Sprays and forgers kill what you see….not what you don’t see.

If they have already called out a pest control company, then they already knew the issue existed. It’s their job to follow up on this for the health and safety of their tenants.

cheebdragon's avatar

I know it works pretty great for fleas.

Buttonstc's avatar

If you’re going to use a fogger, you’d better hope and pray you don’t chemically overload your system and develop allergies to stuff you never had before.

Those foggers deposit the chemicals over the surface of every single item in your placoe: furniture, bedding, kitchen supplies and equipment, etc. etc. etc.

Anything which has strong enough poison to kill roaches cannot possibly be inert for humans.

At least with the bait mentioned previously, the poison is contained rather than misted all over everything you own.

JLeslie's avatar

I’m all for it. Just remember, if you have gas utilities in your house, make sure no pilot lights or flames are on. Also, only do it if the weather outside will allow you to air out the place very well after you fog the place. You might want to bomb now and do it again a three weeks, to try and make sure you get them really good. I think some insects if they aren’t born yet, but growing, the pesticide doesn’t work. I don’t know how roaches reproduce.

I do think pesticides are poison for us, so it is a risk I take knowing it is bad for me. In FL I used to use the foggers once every two to three years or so. I never had to use them often. I think foggers should be a last resort. Try regular spraying the baseboards for a few months before resorting to the fogger maybe?

Growing up I was always told roaches like water.

When I was a little girl my parents bought a foreclosed townhouse. They paid a guy to kill all the bugs. It was pretty bad. They fogged the place twice within a couple of weeks of each other. The first time I saw the place there were more than few dead bugs lying around. It was after the fogging and before the clean up. I lived there 10 years and never remember seeing a roach or even any other bug except a spider now and then and a cricket that hopped in.

Maybe fog the place and then do maintenance baseboard spraying every 3–6 months.

If you live in an apartment, often what happens is when your neighbor sprays you start seeing more in your apartment. Those roaches aren’t stupid. They go where the air is clear. LOL.

Skaggfacemutt's avatar

Just be careful – a professional exterminator in my city accidentally killed two little girls by putting a certain chemical too close to the house.

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