Guaranteed Homemade Roach Traps: Mass Slaughter

Traps for cockroaches are popular, especially among apartment dwellers. However, store bought roach motels can be dissatisfactory for one main reason: they are not big enough. Many apartment dwellers have difficulty getting rid of a new generation of cockroach after it hatches from hundreds of eggs. Even spraying for roaches can be disappointing because the spraying must be continued over and over again until the un-hatched generations all die off. There is, however, a more short term solution which gets rid of hundreds of roaches at one time, from adult to tiny baby roaches. And, you can make it in your home in about ten minutes.

Materials. You will need wide-neck quart jars (each jar is one trap), petroleum jelly or Vaseline, berry fruit juice, and water. The roaches are attracted to sweet things, so do not use citrus juice. The sour taste and smell repels roaches and they will not be caught and drowned. Also, just about any size jar can be used, so long as it is pint-sized or larger. Petroleum jelly or Vaseline, whichever one you use, will not be used in large quantities, so a small container is sufficient.

How they are trapped. Roaches can go up to forty days without food, but they can only go about a week without water. Roaches need water and are heavily drawn toward it. In addition to this, cockroaches love sweet things. They can smell sweet food from a large distance and much more easily within an apartment house. Roaches can easily attach to the sides of the jars and climb up the sides. They crawl inside, fall or crawl over the petroleum jelly or Vaseline, and drink or sometimes swim around in the sweetened water. Due to the slipperiness, they cannot climb back out once they have crossed the Vaseline or jelly. You can catch up to four or five hundred roaches in one week, if you place your jars in the correct locations.

Making the traps. Get a clean jar and take the lid off. You will not be using the lid, so put it in a safe place where you can easily find it. Put a half inch or an inch of berry juice in the bottom of your jar. This will be just enough to taint the water and make it easier for the roaches to smell. Next, fill the jar two-thirds or three-quarters of the way to the curve of the jar where it curves in to the lid. After this, put an inch wide layer of petroleum jelly or Vaseline on the inside of the jar, all the way around about two inches below the rim or right where the curve is in the jar. This should still be at least an inch or two above the level of the water.

Place your roach traps in pantries, dark corners, cabinets, under desks or in closets. Roaches love air flow, so you will attract more at one time if you leave the door slightly ajar. They also prefer dark places, so do not set the jars where lots of light touches them. Within a week, you will have caught quite a few roaches, but as more roaches approach, others are made aware of it. You should catch an even greater amount the second week. Change your traps out once a week, but be aware that the smell of the juice turning to vinegar and of the dead roaches floating in it will be pretty strong by the end of the week. You do not have to wash the petroleum jelly off to put more on. Simply pour the dead roaches down the sink, lightly rinse it out so that the smell does not remain, and put in more berry juice and water and set it back in place for the next week.

After all of the roaches are caught, there will still be a need to keep your traps going. As eggs hatch and baby roaches grow and reproduce, there will still be residual roach infestation until all of the roaches which have been hatched are caught. In a month or so, your roach population should be zero with a system in place to catch any strays or potential reproduction threats.