How Do You Get Rid of Cockroaches in an Edgware Flat?

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Step 1: Cut Off the Water

The biggest effect for no money. A cockroach can go weeks without food and only days without water.

• Fix a dripping tap, however slow
• Check the waste trap under the kitchen and bathroom sinks
• Check behind the washing machine and dishwasher for a weeping seal
• Dry the sink and around it before bed
• Do not leave water in a pet bowl overnight
• Ventilate the kitchen and bathroom to reduce condensation
• Check under the bath and behind the panel

In a rented flat a leak is normally the landlord's to repair — worth reporting for that reason as much as this one.

Step 2: Remove the Cardboard

• Cockroaches live in corrugated cardboard, lay in it, and usually arrive in it
• Break down and remove delivery boxes the same day
• Do not store cardboard under the sink, in a cupboard or beside the bin
• Move stored items from cardboard into sealed plastic boxes
• Check any cardboard already in a warm cupboard
• Do not leave broken-down boxes in a communal bin store and bring the habit back

Step 3: Seal the Routes Between Units

This is the step that is specific to a flat, and it is the one most often skipped.

• Where pipework enters under the sink and behind the bath
• Around soil pipe and waste penetrations
• Gaps around extract ducting, particularly above a commercial kitchen
• Access panels to a riser or boxed pipework
• The gap under the entrance door onto a communal corridor
• Behind kitchen units where they open to a floor or wall void

Sealing works properly against cockroaches — unlike rodents, they will not chew through a filled gap. It will not solve an infestation on its own, and it substantially reduces what arrives from elsewhere.

Step 4: Professional Treatment

Gel bait and residual treatment placed at the harbourage — behind and under appliances, in the plinth void, at pipe runs — followed by the visits that cover the egg-case cycle.

Never Use a Bug Bomb

Its own heading, because in a block it is genuinely antisocial as well as ineffective.

• Foggers do not reach the harbourage. Cockroaches are behind and inside things
• They scatter the population — into wall voids, and in a flat into neighbouring units
• You can hand your problem to the flat next door, which is how a building-wide infestation starts
• They contaminate kitchen surfaces and food preparation areas
• They make professional treatment harder
• They are a fire risk if misused indoors

Establishing Whose Problem It Is

• Ask neighbours, particularly above, below and through a shared wall
• Ask about the communal bin store
• Look at where pipework and ducting enter your flat
• Check whether sightings are worse near a riser or a shared wall
• Several flats affected means a building problem
• A building-wide source is normally the freeholder's or managing agent's to coordinate
• A commercial unit below has its own legal duties

Read nextCockroach Control Edgware – How Much Does It Cost? →

What Else Does Not Work

• Supermarket sprays. Kill what they hit, not what is behind the fridge, and can repel roaches deeper into voids
• Boric acid scattered loosely, particularly with pets or children
• Ultrasonic repellers. No credible evidence
• Cleaning alone. Necessary, and not sufficient
• Sticky traps as treatment. Useful for monitoring only
• Stopping after one visit because things look better

If You Rent

• Report it in writing with photographs and dates
• Cockroaches can engage a landlord's repairing obligations, particularly where a leak or structural route is involved
• A communal or commercial source is not the individual tenant's to resolve
• Published pricing means a landlord can authorise treatment without a quotation stage
• Keep the record — this is a common source of dispute

Hygiene

• Cockroaches walk through drains and waste and then across surfaces
• They are associated with the mechanical spread of bacteria
• Wash surfaces and utensils before use in an affected kitchen
• Discard open food from an affected cupboard
• There is an established association between cockroach allergens and asthma

Related Questions

How long until they are gone?

Typically three to four weeks across the programme.

Will I see more at first?

Sometimes, as treatment disturbs harbourage. It is not a bad sign.

Can they come up through the drains?

They can travel along pipework and through gaps around it. A properly sealed penetration and a trap with water in it both help.