I love baiting for roaches- it is a valuable tool and when it comes to german roaches we need all the help we can get. What I don’t agree with is technicians, companies or groups who insist on baiting only for german roach control. It DOESN’T work and often times the customer is left out in the cold still infested with the problem and now perhaps disillusioned with pest control as a profession.
One worry-well one of many worries some have with sprays is that roaches suddenly become immune and you need to change your concoctions with each service or you’ll fall behind in your pest control efforts. That’s a subject for another day I guess but what I don’t hear enough of is professionals putting baiting in its rightful place. Baits now days are better than ever, they taste better (to a roach) hold up in more adverse situations and can even kill multiple times just from one roach ingesting a lethal dose. Yep, one roach who eats today’s products passes in along in its fecal matter which other roaches eeek, eat and those roaches do the same and before you know it most or all are dying from a single feeding. To me that’s progress and a tool I want to use but when I see a tech walk into a place with just a bait gun, well, let’s just say I think he or she needs a little refresher on what other tools are available.
To many times I see gobs of bait strewn all around with german roaches not far away. I’m not sure if they get immune to the bait (haven’t read any studies on that, hmmm) or if there is too many other choices for the roaches dining pleasure. Could it be the palatability just wears away and the dang bug won’t eat it? What ever the reason the roaches seem no worse for the wear. Rather than break out some other form of control product these techs keep reverting back to their precious gun and apply more globs of useless baits. After awhile it gets down right embarrassing to look in a cabinet or up under a sink. It’s even more disconcerting to think that a trained professional is so limited or trapped in their tunnel visioned approach that they won’t even consider using 99.94% water and .06% of a liquid pesticide because of some company policy or using a B&G sprayer will somehow knock them off of the green tree they so desperately want to be on.
OK, so I’ll get off the green bashing and for good measure I’ll leave the dreaded sprayer out of this one too. But there still is a bunch of other great products and things we can do to supplement our baiting and I’ve put together a quick little video to highlight two of my favorites. This is a restaurant we just picked up and the video had to be quasi smuggled so it’s not the greatest quality but I’m sure you’ll get the point. So sit back, pour yourself a cold one and check out two of my favorite tools I like to use in commercial pest control. Bottoms up!
