If You See One Roach, There Are More

Unfortunately, if you’ve just seen a cockroach scurry by in your house and have arrived here after Googling what that means, the answer is yes – you likely have an infestation.

Roaches aren’t loners. By laying down pheromones as they scamper around eating garbage and rotten food, they attract many others and provide themselves with plentiful breeding opportunities. How many buddies they may have roaming around with them can be hard to tell without help from a professional, but there are a few indicators of how large the colony growing inside your home may be.

Live Bugs

Roaches are nocturnal, meaning they prefer to do most of their moving when the sun is down. If you’re seeing live roaches during daylight hours, it could be an indicator that you have so many calling your place home that there aren’t enough hiding places left to cover them all. If the population is so large that overcrowding forces them out of hiding and you’ve seen one in broad daylight, call a professional immediately.

Hatched Egg Casings

If you spot brown, oval-shaped pieces of shell casing, it means the roaches have been around long enough to breed and hatch new bugs. Finding the remnants of these egg casings means you have a major problem – each of these sacs, called an ootheca, can hold up to 40 little roach nymphs. Finding even one hatched ootheca means you have a major infestation at this point, and is another indicator to call in help right away.

Roach Droppings

Cockroaches leave feces that look like coffee grounds or ground black pepper. Besides the fact that roach droppings leave a foul scent and stain the surfaces they’re left on, finding them means you have more than one or two little bugs scampering around. You generally won’t find poop until quite a few of them have taken up residence, so the amount of droppings you find can give you an idea of how big your problem might be.

An Odd Smell

If you start to notice a particular smell lingering around your home, the above mentioned feces might be the issue. This smell will not only linger, but begin to permeate the food in your home.

Dead Cockroaches

Roaches are notoriously hard to kill, but if they’re been around long enough that you happen to find one that’s died naturally, they’ve been there for awhile. This is another sign not to hesitate calling in a professional to handle the problem.

Have You Seen a Roach?

If so, call the professionals at Premium Termite and Pest Control immediately. They can help you locate the source and size of your problem, and deal with it in the most effective way possible.