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The German cockroach is the most common pest cockroach in New Zealand.
The females may be seen with a light-tan egg capsule protruding from the abdomen. One female may produce between four and eight capsules with 30 to 50 eggs in each.
These insects can spread disease organisms and illnesses such as gastro-enteritis, dysentery, diarrhoea, and food poisoning.
They carry disease organisms on their legs and deposit them while they are moving and feeding.
Cockroaches generally hide in areas close to moisture and food.
As long as the interior of a building has warmth, moisture, minute food fragments, and hiding places such as tiny cracks, there is a chance of cockroach infestation.
Corrugated cardboard (most cardboard boxes) for example, provides enough space for cockroaches.
Cockroaches are generally nocturnal. If you see stray cockroaches during the day, it suggests that the population is high and that hiding places are overcrowded.
Food sources for cockroaches are more widespread than most people realise.
Most species are scavengers, eating starchy materials, sweet substances, and meat based products.
They also eat such materials as cheese, leather, bakery products, starch in book bindings, glues, hair, dead animals, and plant remains.
Wastes such as beer spillage are also attractive to them.
Crumbs of food in a work-desk drawer are enough to feed these pests.
Fragments of ice-cream and drops of cordial in theatres are all that is needed to feed a population, especially as it is likely to be added to each day.
Moisture is even more essential to cockroaches than food.
Sinks and wash-up areas provide them with water, so kitchens are invariably a focus of infestation.
Bathrooms and laundries are other likely areas, although they have been found in bedroom drawers, where they can feed on materials such as organic-based glues.
If a complete service is to be performed, all parts of a house may have to be examined and treated.
In order to reduce the risk of cockroach infestation we advise clients to carry out the following steps:
1. Remove all food residues
2. Eliminate "dead" spaces where any form of organic matter may accumulate
3. Inspect incoming goods, including their containers etc.
4. Rotate stock systematically so that no packages remain long enough to become infested
5. Develop high standards of hygiene
6. Wash down all food preparation surfaces after use
7. Allow insecticide 7-14 days for complete effect although your treatment will often continue to control insects for several weeks
8. Clean up and destroy any egg capsules you may find to prevent reinfestation.