The Best Roach Killer

The Best roach killer

Ask someone what the best roach killer is and they'll all give you different answers. There's no absolute explanation for this. Many probably base their answer on their experiences.  For me personally, my answer is roach baits. So that's what I'll be talking about here. Even if you don't agree with me, read on and find out why I feel it's the best.

What's so great about it
I'm not the only one who favors roach baits. Aside from other home users, many professional exterminators love this stuff too. It's probably so well liked because using it is a lot more passive compared to the other stuff like pesticide sprays. You just have to place the bait in various areas of your home and let the attractant do its job. They'll come eat it and die from the poison.

How it works
For many of the roach baits available for purchase, the active ingredient remains good old boric acid (another favorite among those looking to get rid of roaches). No one really has any solid proof to explain how boric acid kills roaches, but there are some widely accepted guesses. It's assumed that the boric acid, once ingested, interfere with the roaches stomach and metabolism which leads to its eventual death. The other guess is that it breaks the protective exoskeleton of the cockroach and causes it to dehydrate to death.

Boric acid is often mixed with an attractant that lures in the roaches to come eat it. Each brand has their own special mix of attractants that they have researched and developed specifically for the roaches. If you're lucky, those lured in will decide to take some back to the nest and share it with the rest of the roaches there. As a result, one ends up killing tens and maybe even hundreds of them.

How to make it work
Yes there are powerful attractants mixed in to get their attention, but it will work a lot better if you place them in the right spots. Roaches will often travel through the same areas they are used to. If you can determine where these high traffic areas are and place the baits close to them, they will more likely take notice of the poisoned bait.

So the number one key to making roach baits work is location. Placing them in the right location changes everything.  It turns what may appear to be another useless treatment to what may be the best roach killer on the market.

Potential problems to consider
No result is ever achieved without some kind of difficulty. One big problem you may run into is the roaches developing a resistance to a particular brand of baits. The poison or mixture is no longer effective because the roaches have developed a resistance to them.

Another problem is the roaches being disgusted by the attractant used in the bait. There was a case where roaches developed distaste for certain bait used in commercial roach bait. Instead of the bait attracting the roaches, it exactly repelled them and cause them to avoid it entirely.  The manufacturer quickly changed the bait ingredient to something else and they were attracted to it again. You can also find some similar experiments on Youtube.

Getting the most out of it
Even though roach baits are great and easily holds the title of best, it isn't perfect.  There is always room to improve its performance.  How do you improve the results of something that is already working so well? Well, for one thing, you can help reduce the number of roaches you have to try and kill off. How do you do that? By preventing as many of the juveniles from reaching adulthood as possible.  If they can't become adults, they can't reproduce.  

You can easily achieve this using insect growth regulators, or IGR. These are synthetic hormones made by us humans. for a roach to turn from a juvenile Into an adult,  it has to molt into one. They will molt to adult ducts once they adult is completely void of a particular hormone. When we expose them to these hormones, they are unable to molt because their bodies will think it isn't time yet due to the presence of the hormone.

There are many solutions for getting rid of cockroaches, but I truly feel that roach baits are the best roach killer out of them all. Give it a try and see for yourself why.