If you have owned and lived in your home for more than ten years, you are already familiar with most of the pests that invade. It’s only once in a while that a new looking creature comes along and gets you curious. For many homeowners around Raleigh, wood cockroaches are these pests. These medium-sized roaches look similar to their close relatives but are undoubtedly unique enough to raise concern. To help you identify and combat wood roaches around your home, here are a few things you should know.
How To Identify Wood Roaches
Wood roaches are roughly three-quarters to an inch in length, are dark brown, and have tan wings. These wings are the first thing that sets wood roaches apart from other common cockroaches in the area. You see, most cockroaches have wings but cannot fly, or at least not well. Adult male wood roaches, on the other hand, are great at flying and do so often.
Beyond their difference in appearance and ability to fly, wood cockroaches leave the same signs other roaches do around the homes they invade. Greasy smear marks, coffee ground-like fecal matter, and tan to reddish-brown colored, pill-shaped eggs are a few great ways to tell if your home has a cockroach infestation.
Do Wood Roaches Invade Homes Often?
Many species of cockroaches, including German roaches and American roaches, prefer living inside homes over living out in the wild. Wood roaches are a bit different. Due to their diet of decaying organic matter and love for everything wood, wood roaches love living outdoors. The only time these pests invade homes is when homeowners bring them inside on firewood or when the weather outside becomes too brutal to survive, and your home is the safest place around to hide.
Are Wood Roaches Dangerous?
You may already know this, but cockroaches, on average, are extremely dangerous pests. Wood cockroaches are one of the few exceptions to this. Where most species of roaches feed on and spend time around trash, sewage, and dead animals, wood cockroaches almost exclusively live around wood and eat decaying organic matter such as rotting trees and leaf litter. This makes them much less likely to pick up and carry dangerous diseases.
Although wood cockroaches don’t spread dangerous diseases, they are still dangerous to certain individuals. If you have asthma or are sensitive to dust or particulates in the air, you might have trouble breathing when enough of these pests are around. As cockroach infestations grow around homes, shed skin and particulates of fecal matter get into the air and act as dust for individuals with respiratory problems.
Prevention Tips For Wood Cockroaches
Because wood cockroaches don’t invade homes for the same reasons other roaches do, prevention is a bit different. It requires constant attention to what you are carrying into your home and general knowledge of how to exclude pests by sealing your home’s exterior. To put these two things in place, use the following strategies around your Raleigh property.
- Check firewood and other wooden items for roaches before bringing them indoors.
- Store firewood at least 30 feet from your home’s exterior.
- Keep your yard clean and free of leaf litter/decaying organic matter.
- Trim back bushes and tree branches from the exterior of your home.
- Use a caulking gun to seal up gaps, cracks, and holes in your home’s exterior foundation.
- Fix leaky pipes and fixtures in and around your home.
- Make sure your gutters are working properly.
- Repair broken window/door screens, weatherstripping, and door sweeps.
For additional help keeping wood roaches out of your Raleigh home, trust the professionals at Innovative Pest Solutions. Using only the most advanced methods and top of the line pest control treatments, we will create a lasting barrier around your home that pests like wood roaches cannot cross.
Give us a call today for more information or to schedule an inspection for your Raleigh home and property.
