# I found a cockroach in my condo! Need a pet friendly solution.



## LamborghiniGirl

Last night I was in my bathroom and all of the sudden saw a huge cockroach run across my counter top. After having a mild panic attack, as I couldn't find it, I left all the lights on in my bathroom and sealed the bottom of the door with my clothes. I left the light on in my bedroom all night too because I heard that those bugs don't like light. Anyways, my condo is always super clean, and I don't understand why I would have cockroaches. I have since scrubbed my bathroom up and down, clorox wiped everything and swiffered 5 times over. 

I saw him again run across my bedroom (I am praying it is the same one) and I put a bowl over him. I finally got him outside and brushed him off my terrace. 

So now, everyone I talk to is saying I should use boric acid and the little traps, but some places I look online say they aren't safe for pets.

What should I do? I need to ensure this is not an ongoing issue here, as I am deathly afraid, but I also need a dog-safe solution.


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## princessre

QUOTE (LamborghiniGirl @ Sep 10 2009, 05:19 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828142


> Last night I was in my bathroom and all of the sudden saw a huge cockroach run across my counter top. After having a mild panic attack, as I couldn't find it, I left all the lights on in my bathroom and sealed the bottom of the door with my clothes. I left the light on in my bedroom all night too because I heard that those bugs don't like light. Anyways, my condo is always super clean, and I don't understand why I would have cockroaches. I have since scrubbed my bathroom up and down, clorox wiped everything and swiffered 5 times over.
> 
> I saw him again run across my bedroom (I am praying it is the same one) and I put a bowl over him. I finally got him outside and brushed him off my terrace.
> 
> So now, everyone I talk to is saying I should use boric acid and the little traps, but some places I look online say they aren't safe for pets.
> 
> What should I do? I need to ensure this is not an ongoing issue here, as I am deathly afraid, but I also need a dog-safe solution.[/B]


Fleabusters is safe for pets. It works great! I did it as a preemptive measure this summer.


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## mi_ku_5

Since you're in a condo, my first guess is it came from a neighor's place. It really could be a freak occurance though.


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## LamborghiniGirl

QUOTE (mi_ku_5 @ Sep 10 2009, 08:39 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828223


> Since you're in a condo, my first guess is it came from a neighor's place. It really could be a freak occurance though.[/B]


I am praying you are right. I spoke with a pest control guy and he thinks I am going to live through this. But when I am in bed, I am have nightmares about cockroaches crawling all over me!

princessre-- I didn't see anything on the FleaBusters website about the product working on cockroaches-- can you send me a link?


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## wooflife

Since your in a condo the possibitlity that it came from a neighbors house is super high. 

What you can do is the following:
Make sure all of your food is in sealed tupperware type containers - open boxes of crackers, cereal, bread, sugar, flour, dog food - absolutely everything should be re-sealed in an airtight container or in the fridge. If you have food in you're garbage take it out immediately or keep the food items in a separate small bag in the fridge till you can get them outside. Wash all the dishes immediately or run the dishwasher immediately after putting dishes in it. Feed the fluff and then take any left over food up and dispose of it.

Doing these things should help quickly - When we were kids my parents used to rent a beach house in Florida for two weeks every year. Inevitably when we arrived the house would be full of cockroaches. My mom sealed every food type substance she brought in the house and got rid of anything that wasn't ours and by the end of the two weeks the cockroaches woud be gone - no food source no roaches. She now lives in florida and still does the same thing. I've never seen a bug in her house so it must work. 

Now your neighbors are a whole other issue......


Good luck - have sweet dreams of maltese puppies and winning the lottery tonight!


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## totallytotontuffy

Oh I feel your pain. I live in a condo too, in a high-rise. Trying to do anything in your unit w/o addressing the other condos in your tier or entire building is only putting a band-aid on the problem. Contact your management company and insist that they have an exterminator address the problem in the entire building. I discovered them soon after I moved in and the manager of my building told me I must have brought them with me. Real nice, I was very upset. He finally relented and had the engineers enter the units above and below me where older folks happened to live. Sure enough they had roach traps all over and were trying to address the problem themselves. I assume they were too embarrassed to say anything. The exterminator came out and put a smidge of some brown goop on the doors of my kitchen cabinets. I don't know what he used but it wasn't anywhere near the babies and he said it wasn't toxic. It quickly resolved the problem but he did it in all the units in my tier. They can travel through the walls. 

Same thing happened with mice. You want to talk about not being able to sleep at night???? I heard one playing in my closet running across my hangers. I practically stood on my bed not wanting to go to sleep. Toto could have cared less, he stayed sound asleep on his back with all four paws in the air, even after I threatened him with a cat replacement. I ended up finding one who met his demise amid my freshly spun wet clothes in my washing machine. Unknowingly touch THAT while you are unloading your wash and you truly find out how loud you can scream.


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## maggieh

QUOTE (TotallyTotoNTuffy @ Sep 10 2009, 09:55 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828293


> Same thing happened with mice. You want to talk about not being able to sleep at night???? I heard one playing in my closet running across my hangers. I practically stood on my bed not wanting to go to sleep. Toto could have cared less, he stayed sound asleep on his back with all four paws in the air, even after I threatened him with a cat replacement. I ended up finding one who met his demise amid my freshly spun wet clothes in my washing machine. Unknowingly touch THAT while you are unloading your wash and you truly find out how loud you can scream.[/B]


Oh Deb - I thought I was the only one who has washed a mouse!


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## Snowbody

I live in an apt and never have had roaches until last year when a neighbor was renovating. The guys obviously decided to move out and into my apt. :bysmilie: EWWW.Thought I'd go crazy. Called in an exterminator and nowadays they put the tiniest dots of a gel in a few key places. No where a dog could reach. One or two folo-ups and totally gone. Not like all the chemicals they used to put all over years ago.


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## totallytotontuffy

QUOTE (maggieh @ Sep 10 2009, 10:01 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828295


> QUOTE (TotallyTotoNTuffy @ Sep 10 2009, 09:55 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828293





> Same thing happened with mice. You want to talk about not being able to sleep at night???? I heard one playing in my closet running across my hangers. I practically stood on my bed not wanting to go to sleep. Toto could have cared less, he stayed sound asleep on his back with all four paws in the air, even after I threatened him with a cat replacement. I ended up finding one who met his demise amid my freshly spun wet clothes in my washing machine. Unknowingly touch THAT while you are unloading your wash and you truly find out how loud you can scream.[/B]


Oh Deb - I thought I was the only one who has washed a mouse!
[/B][/QUOTE]

Maggie, it had to be one of the top ten gross things in my life, and I've probably seen more gross things in life than the average bear responding to "911" calls over the last 27 years. (geez I'm old.) But touching something gross with your bare hand is another matter. I still get chills thinking about it and I still warily look inside my washing machine before I reach my hand inside lol.


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## LamborghiniGirl

Thank you everyone for your advice!

I have since transferred all of my food products into Tupperware or Ziploc bags.

I am just renting this condo for another 2 months, so I am not sure how much leverage I will have with the management. Since it is a condo building, I am renting from the owners, who don't really care much other than that my check clears! I think it would be worthwhile to at least ask them if any other condos have had a problem though.

I am going to get some bait tomorrow and figure out where I can put it! 

TotallyNTuffy, do you have any idea what the 'goop' was that you put out? I haven't found anything listed that is non-toxic to animals.

I am really just hoping this was a one-time deal. I know it goes against the theory that if there is one, there's lots, but I can only hope.


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## sophie

Eeww!! Y'all are giving me the hee-bee-jee-bees!!!! With the mice that is! Yuck. I don't think we'll ever get rid of those huge flying cockroaches down here - just trying to keep the stray one out of the house - thanks for the info on the gel - will have to look into that.

Oh, one quick story, when we moved into our first home I was cleaning the cabinets and picked up a strange looking little object. Upon closer examination it was the skeletal remains of a rodent leg! Grossed me out then and grosses me thinking about it now!!! 

And, don't even get me started about the morning many years ago that my husband sent a rat that was in the bathroom to its demise with his M-16 rifle. Talk about give me a heart attack! Did I mention he was a little crazy??? lol Oh, and the rat was about as big as a nice sized cat!!! Yuck, yuck and double yuck!

Linda


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## MalteseJane

QUOTE (WoofLife @ Sep 10 2009, 07:42 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828288


> Since your in a condo the possibitlity that it came from a neighbors house is super high.
> 
> What you can do is the following:
> Make sure all of your food is in sealed tupperware type containers - open boxes of crackers, cereal, bread, sugar, flour, dog food - absolutely everything should be re-sealed in an airtight container or in the fridge. If you have food in you're garbage take it out immediately or keep the food items in a separate small bag in the fridge till you can get them outside. Wash all the dishes immediately or run the dishwasher immediately after putting dishes in it. Feed the fluff and then take any left over food up and dispose of it.
> 
> Doing these things should help quickly - When we were kids my parents used to rent a beach house in Florida for two weeks every year. Inevitably when we arrived the house would be full of cockroaches. My mom sealed every food type substance she brought in the house and got rid of anything that wasn't ours and by the end of the two weeks the cockroaches woud be gone - no food source no roaches. She now lives in florida and still does the same thing. I've never seen a bug in her house so it must work.
> 
> Now your neighbors are a whole other issue......
> 
> 
> Good luck - have sweet dreams of maltese puppies and winning the lottery tonight![/B]


This is very good advice. Now if it was a huge roach, it's probably going to be a one time event. Those that are a real problem are the small ones, I think called german roaches ? I would not go and put poison in my appartment because of 1 roach. Step on it and throw it in the toilet. If it ever happens again, you can save you the work of putting clothes under the door to seal it. It won't work. I have watched a roach coming in under a door that had foam insulation to keep the sand from coming in during a sand storm.


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## mi_ku_5

Talk about freaky! This was posted yesterday and last night, there was a cockroach on the edge of my tub! So far just the one, maybe it has something to do w/ the weather? Anyway I killed it. The fact that the cats didn't get to it first was a bigger jolt than anything else. (Cats make awesome exterminators!)


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## princessre

QUOTE (LamborghiniGirl @ Sep 10 2009, 09:37 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828253


> QUOTE (mi_ku_5 @ Sep 10 2009, 08:39 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828223





> Since you're in a condo, my first guess is it came from a neighor's place. It really could be a freak occurance though.[/B]


I am praying you are right. I spoke with a pest control guy and he thinks I am going to live through this. But when I am in bed, I am have nightmares about cockroaches crawling all over me!

princessre-- I didn't see anything on the FleaBusters website about the product working on cockroaches-- can you send me a link?
[/B][/QUOTE]


Sorry I didn't see this until now. I was thinking you could use FleaBusters because you mentioned using boric acid, and boric acid is the main ingredient in the FleaBusters. I'm not at all sure that it is right for roaches, but worth considering if you know from someone else that boric acid is effective against roaches. Good luck and I'm sorry!


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## totallytotontuffy

QUOTE (LamborghiniGirl @ Sep 10 2009, 11:35 PM) index.php?act=findpost&pid=828327


> Thank you everyone for your advice!
> 
> I have since transferred all of my food products into Tupperware or Ziploc bags.
> 
> I am just renting this condo for another 2 months, so I am not sure how much leverage I will have with the management. Since it is a condo building, I am renting from the owners, who don't really care much other than that my check clears! I think it would be worthwhile to at least ask them if any other condos have had a problem though.
> 
> I am going to get some bait tomorrow and figure out where I can put it!
> 
> TotallyNTuffy, do you have any idea what the 'goop' was that you put out? I haven't found anything listed that is non-toxic to animals.
> 
> I am really just hoping this was a one-time deal. I know it goes against the theory that if there is one, there's lots, but I can only hope.[/B]


Even though you are renting, I would imagine that the management company or condominium association for the condo building has an exterminator on retainer and it should be their responsibility to address this sort of problem. (I served on my condo board for a couple of years and to the best of my knowledge this is a common practice.)

I'm sorry I don't know the name of the brown gel like goop that the exterminator applied. I assume it was a professional product so I don't know the cost or if it's available to the general public. But seeing that it was used on the doors of my kitchen cabinets, it wasn't accessible to pets. The exterminator just put a dab right near where the hinges of the cabinet doors are. This was years ago, and though I don't know it's longevity, I've never removed it hoping that it um, keeps the bed bugs away, so to speak. (now if they could only do that for mice....)

Debbie


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## LamborghiniGirl

Thank you everyone for all of the good advice! I have not seen any others, and I think it was a bigger, reddish one which I think means it is American. I have looked everywhere and haven't found any droppings which I read is a good sign, as that is how they multiply. I realize that this could be a total fluke and no others will show up (I pray!), but I want to take all of the precautions, as I am about to bring a furbaby into my life.

I spoke with an exterminator. I am putting down bait (in the form of a thin gel) on little pieces of paper, in all the corners and in cupboards. That way it isn't permanent, since it will be on the floor where a maltese could walk. I also got sticky pads, that will catch the roach in them. That way, if any more walk in my bathroom or anywhere else, I will be able to take a photo so the exterminator can see it.

I probably seem neurotic to you guys! But bugs, and anything un-sanitary really freaks me out and upsets me! That's why, even with just one cockroach so far, I want to make sure I don't see anymore! I have even been sleeping with the lights on in my room, as I heard that cockroaches do not like light. 

I spoke with my management. They said that as a renter, I don't really have any say about it. And they also said that they would want to take a look to see if they really considered it a 'problem'-- and my apartment is spotless and appears bug free! If some get stuck on the sticky pads, I will tell them to come see.

Again thank you for all of your advice! It has put me at ease and helped me move forward to getting rid of these things!


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