Yesterday I hi-jacked Tom's cricket thread to ask about the roaches that are taking over my property. He told me they are, "...Blatta lateralis. The lighter colored, smaller winged ones are males and the bigger, fatter looking dark ones, with no wings, are the females. They are detrivores (meaning they eat detritus), so removing their food source outside will be pretty difficult."
Here's what they look like on my sticky trap:
So I did a GOOGLE search for getting rid of nuisance blatta lateralis and their cousin blatta orientalis, and here's a bait I found in case anyone else would also like to try it:
Boric acid bait
Note: do not breathe the powder, use rubber gloves to prepare the bait.
• One half cup (350 grams) boric acid - looks like white powder and is available in pharmacies
• one cup flour
• two heaped spoonfuls of sugar
• water
Mix boric acid, flour and sugar.
Moisten with just enough water to make a paste that can be formed into small cylinders or balls.
Make as many of them as you can. Distribute them in critical concealed places.
Nowadays, with exactly the same rationale is the use of ground diatomaceous earth; not the powder for domestic pool filters, but the type sold by many garden centers to control insect pests. Broken diatoms have very sharp silica fragments.
I'm going to put it under my pig blankets where I find the most of the roaches, and every place else where the tortoises can't get to it. I'm on a mission!!
Here's what they look like on my sticky trap:
So I did a GOOGLE search for getting rid of nuisance blatta lateralis and their cousin blatta orientalis, and here's a bait I found in case anyone else would also like to try it:
Boric acid bait
Note: do not breathe the powder, use rubber gloves to prepare the bait.
• One half cup (350 grams) boric acid - looks like white powder and is available in pharmacies
• one cup flour
• two heaped spoonfuls of sugar
• water
Mix boric acid, flour and sugar.
Moisten with just enough water to make a paste that can be formed into small cylinders or balls.
Make as many of them as you can. Distribute them in critical concealed places.
Nowadays, with exactly the same rationale is the use of ground diatomaceous earth; not the powder for domestic pool filters, but the type sold by many garden centers to control insect pests. Broken diatoms have very sharp silica fragments.
I'm going to put it under my pig blankets where I find the most of the roaches, and every place else where the tortoises can't get to it. I'm on a mission!!