It’s a generalization to say all cockroaches are bad. There are more than 4,000 species worldwide and of those, only 30 or so species are home invaders. Still, those 30 species are some of the most loathed pests on the planet.
Cockroaches are scavengers, and the household varieties survive on garbage and waste. Speaking of waste, when cockroaches move from place to place, they leave trails of fecal matter behind that they use like Hansel and Gretel used breadcrumbs in the forest — as a means to find their way back to their starting point. Unfortunately, aside from being just plain gross, that trail of fecal matter can spread bacteria that make people sick, things like Salmonella and Shigella.
Perhaps one of the worst things about cockroaches is the fact that they’re hard to kill. After all, they’ve been around since the age of dinosaurs, so they know a thing or two about survival. Try to swat one with a newspaper and it’ll be gone faster than a fly. (They can run as fast as 3 mph.) Consider the fact that a cockroach can hold its breath for up to 40 minutes, can live without food for up to a month, and without water for two weeks, and you start to get a sense of just how hardy these leathery insects are!
Cockroaches are nocturnal insects, and they multiply rapidly meaning that by the time you spot one, there’s likely an infestation afoot. If you spot one, don’t waste a moment, call an exterminator immediately. If you’re in the Tampa Bay area, contact us. At Consolidated Pest Control, we guarantee our work and use the most environmentally safe methods available. We’re no “fly by night” operation — we’ve been servicing the area for nearly three decades!
