Keep Cockroaches From Making Your Home Their Winter Retreat With One Simple Fix

Winter is a wonderful respite from the bugs that usually invade our homes and yards come spring and summer. However, not all the creepy crawlies are asleep for the season. Cockroaches are among those insects that do not vanish in the winter. In fact, if you're not careful, you may find that a whole colony of roaches have infested your home. And if you want to get rid of these cockroach pests and make sure they never make your house their winter retreat ever again, you need to seal up any cracks or gaps where they might squeeze through.

There's a reason that the cliché of cockroaches outliving the human race exists. They are thoroughly resilient insects that have the ability to flatten their exoskeletons in order to fit through seemingly impossible openings. As such, that little sliver of a gap between your floor and baseboards is, to a cockroach, akin to a wide open door.

There are a few different ways you could go about sealing these gaps, but by far the most effective method is to use caulking. This is a highly flexible sealant that can fill almost any crack it is used on. The most effective kind of caulking would be one that is made entirely of silicone, which is water resistant and dries very hard. You could also use standard acrylic latex caulking, which can be painted in order to match a room.

While you can try to deter roaches with an all-natural item from your kitchen, like lemon peels, it won't be nearly as effective as using a caulking sealant. The caulking will harden inside of the gap, leaving no opening through which the cockroach can get through. But before you even get the caulking gun loaded, you need to do a scan of your house to see where there might be gaps that roaches are entering through.

Cockroaches can find their way through almost any crack in any room in your home. Check the seams between the wall and ceiling and the walls and your floors. These insects, like many others, are also drawn to food — so seal any gaps in your kitchen cabinetry and along the splash board behind your sink. Other areas you should seal would be along baseboards, door and window moldings, crown molding on the ceiling, around the base of your toilet and other exposed plumbing, and anywhere where you might feel a draft.

Since cockroaches are one of the grossest bugs to have in your house, be sure to do a thorough job. They are known spreaders of harmful bacteria like E.coli and salmonella, as well allergens and other pathogens through their droppings. Plus, they just look creepy as all get out. You definitely want to do whatever you can (including caulking) to keep these guys out of your home.