Do you see brown spots on your kitchen floor and wonder what they are? You are not alone, because many persons see them as well and it is quite a scary sight.
Most persons don't recognize cockroach markings in their homes, and before they know it, the cockroach infestation is beyond their control. The best thing to do is identify the roaches when they enter your house before they take over.
The best way to know whether cockroaches are hiding in your home is by discovering cockroach poop on your floor or corners of your home.
What Does Cockroach Poop Look Like?
Many persons find it hard to identify a cockroach-infested house because the roaches move at night, and they don't move around when you are fast asleep. They make their hiding place in edges and corners that your eyes don't scan.
However, there is always a way around these situations, and I will tell you how. You can discover roaches in your home by looking out for their poop. I know it isn't something to look forward to, but it will help you find them early and avoid a worse situation.
The first way to identify cockroach poop is to know that all roach droppings have the same color. However, they come in different sizes, depending on their sizes and types.
What you see below is a picture of a cockroach poop.
What Does German Cockroach Poop Look Like?
When it comes to German cockroaches, their poop looks like small stains, ground coffee, or even pepper. When a roach is young, it is hard to find its droppings, and you can think of it to be something else.
The droppings will be more prominent for the larger cockroach species like the palmetto bug or American roach. Larger cockroach droppings resemble brown crystals, and they are in solid form. They could resemble a rice grain and look rounded at their ends.
Many persons are quick to see the resemblance between rat and roach poops, but you can find the difference if you are careful. One primary teller is that rat poop is pointed at the edges while the cockroach poop is round. Cockroach poop also has ridges that you won't find on mouse poop.
If you want to spot the differences, you should have magnifying glasses and hand gloves.
Is German Cockroach Poop Harmful?
Beyond the ugly nature of these poops, cockroach feces cause a lot of problems for you. They can affect your health and the health of your family and pets if you have them.
First of all, droppings from roaches cause allergic reactions because of the allergens they contain. Avoid touching them, even by accident. If a cockroach poop drops on your chair or bed and you sit or lie on them, you can suffer skin infections.
These allergens also go beyond skin allergies and cause asthma triggers.
Cockroaches serve as hosts to several pathogens, including salmonella. So, their poop can cause contaminations and result in illnesses.
Without a doubt, cockroaches are one of the least sanitary insects. They carry germs and bacteria.
The best decision is to get rid of roach poop and send roaches out of your home to rid your family of these dangers. Work hard because cockroaches are hard to send packing.
Let us begin with handling cockroach poop in your home.
Avoid touching them with bare hands. Ensure to wear protective hand gloves and a face mask before handling them.
Try to examine them if you can to ensure that you are dealing with cockroach poop.
Rid your house of them, use disinfectants on the region.
Where Should You Search for Cockroach Poop?
You hardly find roaches moving about your house, especially in the daytime, because they are shy and cautious. If you quickly find cockroaches, especially during the day, then your home is probably infested.
So, once you find cockroach droppings and confirm what they are, the next step is to begin a search in your house for signs of roaches.
You will often find cockroach droppings close to their house or food sources. They most likely poop when they eat, so the connection lies there.
By now, you might have realized that cockroaches eat human meals, which infers that our food might be at risk of infection. So, once you notice cockroach poop on your food or near it, dispose of the food to protect yourself from diseases.
If you find plenty of cockroach poops in a corner, you are close to their nest, and you can easily find their home when you check correctly. When they are not hunting for the next meal, cockroaches will be in their nests, so you have an idea where they might be hiding.
Check under your beds, behind your furniture, inside your cabinets, old drawers, and abandoned shelves. Any space that you don't visit open is a probable nest for your roaches.
Cockroaches gravitate towards empty and hidden spaces where humans don't visit. If you discover brown smears in these areas, then you might have a German cockroach in your home. On the other hand, found crystal-like poops belong to palmetto bugs.
Why is it Necessary to Find Cockroach Poop?
With the possibility of infections from roach poop, every homeowner should be bothered about having them in the home. Even the picture of cockroach poop looks disgusting enough to turn you off.
Cockroach poops make your home unhygienic and unclean. However, there are more reasons why you should locate roach poop in your home.
Roach poops have an unpleasant smell that makes your house uncomfortable for residents.
Cockroach smells also call onto other cockroaches. So, if you don't handle a poop quickly, you might have other roaches on their way to your house to join the growing army.
Roach poops house pathogens responsible for health issues and several allergies.
Beyond producing odors, the smell from roaches can worsen asthma and prompt other respiratory allergies.
So you see, getting cockroach poop out of your house is necessary for your health. Its presence in your home is risky on many levels. It is expedient to get the cockroaches out with the best infestation proceedings.
What is the best way to Clean Roach Droppings?
Before jumping into the procedures for cleaning cockroach poop, this is a reminder to ease your worries. The occasional appearance of roach poop in your home doesn't imply an infestation of your home. It only becomes a cause for alarm when you find a lot of droppings all-around your house.
Now, let us identify how to clean cockroach poop in and around several pieces of furniture.
Mattresses
It is a common occurrence to find roach poop on your mattress when you stay out of your home for a while. At this point, some persons change the sheets and think that is the end. However, roaches sometimes hide in the corners and your mattress seams.
It is crucial to examine the folds and seams so that bugs won't hide there. If you don't check properly, you might be asleep one night, and cockroaches walk over your body. That is one of the worst experiences that a person can have in the middle of the night.
Regardless, here is how to clean off cockroach poop when you find it in and around your mattress.
Take off large pieces of poop with a wall scraper or knife.
Scrub your mattress with a hard sponge and disinfectant-based soap
Take your mattress out under the sun to dry it up. Sun is an excellent option because its heat also kills germs and bacteria, which guarantees that your bed is extra clean.
Blow-dry your mattress or use a fan if you can't get it out in the sun.
Wardrobes, Closets, and Clothing
Your closet is a perfect location for roaches because it is dark and calm. They are not likely to run into you, so they love such places. Check for roach droppings on your floors, in corners, and places where you keep clothes that you aren't using often.
Once you locate roach poop in your closet, it is a sign that it might be in your clothes. Having roach droppings in your clothes is risky because they can expose you to unpleasant smells and allergic responses.
Here is what you should do about roach droppings on your clothes or in your wardrobe.
Get the stains and droppings out, but don't use your hands.
When the stains don't come off quickly, soak your clothes with an enzyme product. These products can remove poop stains by breaking down the proteins in them.
Throw your clothes in the washer, and wash them with disinfectant soap.
Hang your clothes in the sun to dry. A cloth dryer also provides enough heat to disinfect your clothing.
Carpets
It is often hard to find cockroach droppings on your carpet, especially the dark-colored ones. Thick rugs are even worse because the poop will hide within the carpet and beyond your sight. So, rug owners must go the extra mile to inspect their rug properly once they suspect a cockroach infestation.
Here's how to clean your carpets
Vacuum clean your rug to remove all the droppings.
Clean your carpet with a sponge or brush. Purchase a carpet shampoo for the cleaning because it contains enzymes that can break down proteins in the poop.
Dry your carpet thoroughly, and vacuum again
You can also explore a DIY cleaning agent comprising water and vinegar. For better stain removal, use vinegar and soap.
Final Thoughts
It is a stressful process to remove cockroach droppings from the different parts of your house where you might find them. However, prevention is the best action because it saves you a world of stress.
Regular cleaning will go a long way to prevent cockroaches from building a tent in your home. But sometimes, cleaning doesn't cut it, and your house might still get infected for several reasons.
Nevertheless, if you don't know how to identify cockroach poop in the first place, it will be hard to make headway. The first step is to understand what roach poop looks like to avoid mistaking them for something else. Check out cockroach pictures and pay attention to the differences and similarities between the droppings of several common roaches in your country, city, and environment.
Once you identify a cockroach dropping, get rid of it carefully, and inspect your living quarters. This inspection will help you locate the possible cockroach hideouts around your home.
During your inspection, close up any holes you find around your home to prevent cockroaches from crawling in. Also, remove food particles that might draw them in.
No effort is too much when it comes to ridding your home of cockroaches and their dropping. You deserve a healthy and roach-free home!
Remember, the quickest and safest way to rid your home of a cockroach infestation is to hire the services of a professional pest control company. An exterminator will have the tools and understanding to identify the differences between German Cockroaches, Palmetto Bugs, and other cockroach species. Identification is crucial to ensure that the cockroach pest control service is successful. Please be sure to watch the video below which will inform you how to prepare properly for a professional cockroach pest control service. All of the content of this blog post was written with expertise by certified entomologist Jonathan Stoddard.