Cockroaches, ants, spiders, mice, rats and flies are a common plague on Gran Canaria. The further south you are, the warmer it gets and the worse the insect infestation can become. Especially if in the apartment or bungalow complex you are living in a regular fumigation is not being done. That said, even if they do fumigate the complex, you will have to order a separate ant or cockroach pest control service in your bungalow or apartment if you notice an infestation of these.
Cockroach Pest Control – a Necessity on Gran Canaria!
Did you know that one female cockroach can have 300 offspring in a life-time? And they only live 2-3 years in favourable conditions. So if you are on the ground floor, near a lawn or a sewer, which is inevitable if you have plumbing, watch out for the roaches. You want to nip in the butt, before it becomes a serious problem. A cockroach pest control fumigation is recommended once a year. Read Can Cockroaches Fly to find out more about the big flying Gran Canaria cockraoches.
First signs of a Cockroach Infestation
If you see small black droppings near floor edges or inside your kitchen draws or cabinets, you probably have an infestation of small roaches, which are quite tricky to get rid of. The smaller they are, the more difficult it can be. If you hear a scratching sound coming from a false ceiling, sink, plugs or behind tiles, you probably have an infestation of the bigger cockroaches. As a rule of thumb: If you see a cockroaches on three different days within a week, call the fumigators!
Most people are terrified by those big 3-5 cm roaches. Especially when they are air-borne. But rest assured, they cannot sting, they don’t bite and therefore cannot really do you any harm. And, they are really easy to eradicate.
How the Cockroach Pest Control & Fumigation is Done
The service men open all the sewers on your property, fill them with gas and/or spray a liquid poison onto the sewer walls. Usually that alone kills hundreds of roaches of all sizes. Close all your windows and doors! You don’t want escaping roaches to enter your home or office.
Inside the house they spray the poison on all edges and corners of your floor or infested furniture. You have to leave the liquid to act for at least 24 hours before you can clean the sprayed areas.
The technicians also squeeze a special lethal gel into small crevices or electrical ducts. The cockroaches nibble on it but die about half an hour later back at their nest. Being cannibals, other cockroaches eat the dead body of the poisoned roach and soon after die of the same poison.
When the baby roaches hatch, they too eat of the dead bodies and end up being poisoned as well. Apparently up to seven generations of roaches can be controlled that way.
“We had a cockroach infestation in our false ceiling on the bottom floor of our house about 5 years ago. We could hear them shuffling in the false ceiling and sometimes we saw their long antennas lurking out from light fittings. Most alarming, sometimes they even squeezed through half millimetre gaps of the light fittings, falling on the floor or, worse, flying through the room. The exterminators squeezed piles of this gel in to different areas of the false roof, and we never had that problem again.”
If your property has a lawn, it is recommended to treat it for cockroaches as well, especially the thick Canarian grass. This kind of lawn is the cockroaches’ preferred home, apart from sewers. The exterminators spray the poison on your grass and all around your house. Be aware that this treatment will not only get rid of the roaches but of all other kind of insects, too. Find out more about Gran Canaria Cockroaches here.
The fumigators we use for our homes and offices are called REDUMA. They have competitive prices, good service and a one year guarantee.
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Hi, I am Judith, the founder, author, translator and coffee girl of the GRAN CANARIA REGIONAL Guide.
The Gran Canaria Regional BLOG offers a platform for bloggers to write about Gran Canaria. This article represents the personal opinion and impression of the author. We like to offer a wide range of opinions and impressions to our readers. Do you have any suggestions for this article, did you notice an error? Do you have Canarian recipe you need to share? Would you also like to write about Gran Canaria? Please contact us here.