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How to combat roaches.. without harming your fids

Riptide Queen

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But as safe as possible because pets (I'm more worried about my birds)

So the roach problem was not as bad as this time, and I really wanted to get everyone's advice, opinions, etc for exterminating roaches, and to preventing them...

Here's what I have been doing so far and it's not seemed to help..

I clean the bird cages once a week, and after that I would vacuum the whole entire area around the bird cages etc. (Because we all know how roaches love to hide right?)

I change the food and water everyday (of course)

The newspaper on the bottom of the cage I try to change it everyday as much as I can..

And for the longest time I thought it was because they liked Melon's food, because it had more fresh food in it. Well last night was not the case..

Melon was over at my boyfriend's house for the last four days (it was too late to pick her up when I got off work) so her cage was still clean, her food and water bowl were empty.

(I stay at his house twice a week sometime three. but we have a cage set up for Melon at his house, and my mother tends to the budgies when I'm not there... But I still go home to check on the budgies just make sure they're doing okay.)

anyways, I got home from work last night around 10 pm....

I go in my room and turn the lights on and there's like, a hoard of roaches that scatter into every p[lace they could hide and that was honestly a living nightmare for me.

People told me to bug bomb the house but I have birds and other pets that I'm afraid they will get sick...

Today we are vacuuming up the roaches and tomorrow my boyfriend offered to come over and help me thoroughly clean my room to try and get rid of the roaches as much as we can.....

But i also thought it wouldn't hurt to come here and ask to see how everyone handles the roach wars themselves....

Here's a bonus Young Melon for the trouble:
tumblr_o97yaqEsAy1usgpc6o3_540.jpg
 

karen256

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Diatomacous earth (food grade if your birds might get into it is best). A little bit of it sprinkled around in the roach's path will help a bit and it's completely safe. It's not a poison; the little shells are just sharp enough to make microscopic cuts in the exoskeletons of insects so they may die from dehydration... for larger animals it's perfectly safe and can even be eaten. Of course it's not a complete solution since it will only injure or kill the roaches that walk right through it so it is unlikely to kill them all. But it is definitely the most bird-safe option.
 

Riptide Queen

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Diatomacous earth (food grade if your birds might get into it is best). A little bit of it sprinkled around in the roach's path will help a bit and it's completely safe. It's not a poison; the little shells are just sharp enough to make microscopic cuts in the exoskeletons of insects so they may die from dehydration... for larger animals it's perfectly safe and can even be eaten. Of course it's not a complete solution since it will only injure or kill the roaches that walk right through it so it is unlikely to kill them all. But it is definitely the most bird-safe option.
Thank you so much!! I kinda read up on that earlier today but they didn't mention birds so I was kinda worried.. but this helps me a lot! Now I'll go and get some food grade DE
 

WallyLoopey

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Maybe call an exterminator to spray just around the outside of your house to keep them from coming in?'
It sounds like you just live in a place where a lot live..we used to live in a heavily wooded area and had the same problem.
If you're saving any cardboard boxes I'd get rid of or move those. I remember my mom telling us to always get rid of cardboard.
 

SpecialistElbru

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My destine for roaches is centered about them getting into my food. My method for combating roaches is to use sticky traps. such as these ...
https://mobileimages.lowes.com/product/converted/048745/048745325170.jpg

They can be folded in to a box shape and placed next to food, Human or pet. They are non toxic. They have a glue inside, and should be kept away from pets so that the pets will not be stuck to the traps. If a trap gets stuck to something It should not be stuck too, you can coat the effected area with vegetable oil and the glue will dissolve and release the sticky.

 

msplantladi

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Oh where do I start...In the past I have managed apartments for 20 years so I have had my fair share of roach issues but never like what we have now. About 6 months after buying our current home we started with the roach issue. We already had a exterminator company spraying the exterior because I live in Nevada and we have yukky/biting spiders. I am very OCD about cleaning, not leaving food out-not keeping any card board in the house. Nothing that worked for me in the past was working for me now. I called and asked to speak w/ the supervisor of my pest control company-he came out and educated me on German roaches-they are very resistant to alot of chemicals-so my vinegar & water mixture was only killing the ones I could see. I was battling them after everyone went to bed & the house was dark. I would have my flash light & spray bottle w/ vinegar & water. We have brick walls so I wasn't understanding where they were coming from, I was told they don't come from outside but I did the Diatomacous earth anyway all around my house, in the trays of the bird cages with a layer of paper on top -we have been getting sprayed indoors for almost a year and finally saw what I thought was a end to them. Didn't see any for almost 3 mths-just this past couple weeks I started seeing them again. Uggggg....here we go again...I feel so defeated. I will be calling the pest control people and get back on the schedule of getting sprayed inside again. I am not so sure they don't come from outside , I have never seen any & yes I went out there in the dark w/ my flashlight looking. But my neighbors on one side weren't home much for the last couple months-now they are home and not sure if there is a connection between the two. They don't speak English and I have never been in their house but these annoying roaches are coming from somewhere and its driving me crazy...so out came the paste to put in the wheels of the bird cages and the sticky pads under neath . Its a issue that has to be dealt with on a regular/daily basis. Birds don't eat after we put them to bed so we take the food out. I clean the cages on a regular bases, there are alot of hiding places on bird cages, wheels, the frame where the tray slides in & out. Our cage frames had holes in them, we plugged those holes after taking the cages outside and making sure there weren't anymore roaches inside the frame-yes there were tons the first time we did it-I was shocked. Its alot of work and as bad as I felt for having the thought I did for a brief minute think about re-homing my birds...:( I am so wishing I had a better answer for you but unless you can figure out the source of where they are coming from its a battle.
 

Donna turner

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I put some of those enclosed roach bate things in places where I saw a roach and the only one I've seen since was dead. Don't know if it would kill the German ones or not. My bird isn't flighted so I can leave them out for now,but I can just pick them up and put them away if I need to with no residue left behind.
 

Riptide Queen

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Oh where do I start...In the past I have managed apartments for 20 years so I have had my fair share of roach issues but never like what we have now. About 6 months after buying our current home we started with the roach issue. We already had a exterminator company spraying the exterior because I live in Nevada and we have yukky/biting spiders. I am very OCD about cleaning, not leaving food out-not keeping any card board in the house. Nothing that worked for me in the past was working for me now. I called and asked to speak w/ the supervisor of my pest control company-he came out and educated me on German roaches-they are very resistant to alot of chemicals-so my vinegar & water mixture was only killing the ones I could see. I was battling them after everyone went to bed & the house was dark. I would have my flash light & spray bottle w/ vinegar & water. We have brick walls so I wasn't understanding where they were coming from, I was told they don't come from outside but I did the Diatomacous earth anyway all around my house, in the trays of the bird cages with a layer of paper on top -we have been getting sprayed indoors for almost a year and finally saw what I thought was a end to them. Didn't see any for almost 3 mths-just this past couple weeks I started seeing them again. Uggggg....here we go again...I feel so defeated. I will be calling the pest control people and get back on the schedule of getting sprayed inside again. I am not so sure they don't come from outside , I have never seen any & yes I went out there in the dark w/ my flashlight looking. But my neighbors on one side weren't home much for the last couple months-now they are home and not sure if there is a connection between the two. They don't speak English and I have never been in their house but these annoying roaches are coming from somewhere and its driving me crazy...so out came the paste to put in the wheels of the bird cages and the sticky pads under neath . Its a issue that has to be dealt with on a regular/daily basis. Birds don't eat after we put them to bed so we take the food out. I clean the cages on a regular bases, there are alot of hiding places on bird cages, wheels, the frame where the tray slides in & out. Our cage frames had holes in them, we plugged those holes after taking the cages outside and making sure there weren't anymore roaches inside the frame-yes there were tons the first time we did it-I was shocked. Its alot of work and as bad as I felt for having the thought I did for a brief minute think about re-homing my birds...:( I am so wishing I had a better answer for you but unless you can figure out the source of where they are coming from its a battle.
Oh man I am so sorry... these roaches are super relentless.... Yesterday my partner actually came to my house early (because I had to go to work and he was off) and he started to tear through my room to find them. The whole day he cleaned up any roaches he could find and my birds had to wait in the bathroom because they couldn't go in cages so the Budgies were in the carrier with food and water ofc and Melon my IRN was walking about since the carrier is too small for her. We didn't finish cleaning until 9 pm and I laid the sticky roach traps around the bird cages. Luckily when my partner was cleaning he found some of the roach hotspots so we laid the sticky traps there. I was able to get sleep but as you said, it's a never ending battle as I saw the traps were filled with roaches again.

At first I thought it was Melon because she eats the most fresh foods (my Budgies I'm currently trying to get them to eat fresh foods but they hold no interest.. but the roaches like the food the Budgies eat) so like you I was on the brink of rehoming my Budgies but I decided not to. I'll try everything even if it'll be an I'm going battle...

The roaches also lived in my small kaleidoscope too. So gross!
 

Riptide Queen

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I put some of those enclosed roach bate things in places where I saw a roach and the only one I've seen since was dead. Don't know if it would kill the German ones or not. My bird isn't flighted so I can leave them out for now,but I can just pick them up and put them away if I need to with no residue left behind.
For me I have these small species of roaches, in Hawaii we have the huge gross ones and the small ones but the small ones reproduce like it's no tomorrow and the street I live on is notorious for roaches according to my mom. We live in a apartment with 12 floors and we live on the 7th floor which is pretty high up when you see our building. Not too many big ones but the small ones love to live with my birds! So I had to do a massive cleaning with my partner yesterday and good thing we did! There's still a good bunch left as we couldn't get to every single nook and cranny but it was enough to bring the roach population down to a very low amount. I did set sticky traps so hopefully that'll do some good too!
 
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