Wood roaches or tree cockroaches are plant pests that can rot wood and plant stems. Tree cockroaches live outdoors, nesting in weathered wood, bark, and wet wood. Tree cockroaches won’t last long indoors because they need constant humidity. Tree cockroaches will enter the house when experiencing an emergency, such as extreme weather conditions and drought to seek shelter.
Tree cockroaches don’t breed in your home and pick up leftovers from your food, instead, they attack furniture and wooden parts of the house. The house that tree cockroaches infiltrate usually has wooden sides, wooden furniture, and uses a wood fireplace inside. The male species will sneak under doors or through gaps. Not infrequently tree cockroaches also sneak between the piles of firewood.
Sometimes this roach is called “accidental invaders,” tree cockroaches live outside but roam inside or are brought into homes. Tree cockroaches are often confused with German, American, or Smoky Brown cockroaches. The male species are brown because of the color of their wings. The female species are wingless and rarely seen. Both males and females have translucent lines on the outer edge of their chest and the outer edge of their wings.
This cockroach looks like a typical German cockroach, although the degree of resemblance depends on the species as appearances vary. Tree cockroaches and “house” cockroaches can be distinguished by their behavior. Tree cockroaches are not sensitive to light, so you can see them both during the day and at night. They are not nervous and are less likely to run away when you get close. In addition, they will roam around your house without congregating in a particular area.
Do Wood Roaches Bite People?
Tree cockroaches live in groups and infiltrate houses or logs in large numbers. If your house is infested by tree cockroaches, they will settle in one area and feed on organic debris and food debris (crumbs). In the case of cockroach bite, Tree cockroaches are harmless and don’t carry any disease, they don’t even bite or sting. But they can contaminate your home with dirt, saliva, and debris. The rest of this dead skin can cause asthma for people with certain allergies.
Tree cockroaches are nocturnal, or nocturnal. Only the male species can fly even over short distances. Female tree cockroaches usually produce 29 egg bags with 32 eggs in each bag in one period. The tree cockroach’s life cycle lasts for 2 years so that approximately a female tree cockroach can produce 950 eggs. The tree cockroach’s metamorphosis lasts for 10 months. Tree cockroaches reproduce in piles of firewood in houses.
How to Prevent Wood Roaches?
Tree cockroaches are harmless and will not bite you. But tree cockroaches will damage the wood around your house. You should not use insecticides and pesticides because there are cockroaches that are already resistant or already resistant to insecticides so this method is not effective. Here are some tips and tutorials to prevent tree cockroaches from coming into your home:
Outside The House
Tree cockroaches can be avoided by taking the following precautions:
- Dispose of used and weathered wood so that cockroaches do not settle. Also, don’t forget to check the area under the furniture made of wood
- Close the trash can. Even if you don’t smell trash, cockroaches can still smell it. By closing the trash can, the smell will be disguised and the cockroaches will not come
- Clean the garbage to be recycled, especially food jars. Jars should be washed with soap to remove odors from food.
- Using borax as a pesticide. Borax can kill cockroaches effectively by absorbing cockroach body fluids. Borax is commonly found in household cleaning products
- Close windows tightly
- Clean the door and window area from twigs and leaves
Inside The House
Tree cockroaches do not eat food scraps from your home, but the presence of cockroaches still carries disease so it should be avoided. When you find a cockroach in the house, you should not step on it because the germs on the cockroach’s body can spread. If your house has cockroaches, here is a tutorial on how to make a trap for cockroaches:
- Use an old jam jar or an old sweet food storage jar, because cockroaches love sugar
- Enter bread covered with jam or beer as bait to attract cockroaches
- Grease the inside of the jar with Vaseline, so that the surface of the jar becomes slippery so cockroaches can’t get out
- Close the jar tightly
- Discard when the jar is full or there are no more cockroaches in the house.
Apart from tutorials above, you can also use a glue trap (like glue on mice) that is applied to the cardboard so the cockroaches can’t escape.
In The Yard
Cockroaches are small and have a flat body so they can sneak through small crevices in your home. To prevent cockroaches from entering your home, it’s a good idea to cover crevices in your home, cover sinks and bathtubs, fix leaks in pipes or anything else that can make cockroaches survive. Cockroaches can live for months without food, but cannot survive without water.
Tree cockroaches live in trees and wood, but it is possible for tree cockroaches to enter your home. To prevent this you can spread diatomaceous earth in your yard. This diatomaceous earth contains silicon which can kill cockroaches and other pests. Silicone is known to absorb the water content in the cockroach’s body so that the cockroach dies due to lack of body fluids or dehydration. The cockroach’s exoskeleton contains oils and fats that function to maintain the concentration of body fluids in the cockroach.
Diatomaceous earth can stick to plant surfaces and have no effect on your plants. Diatomaceous earth dispersal should be done in dry conditions, do not forget to use goggles and a mask so that you are not exposed to silicon dust. The results can be seen 2 weeks after deployment because diatomaceous earth can kill nymphs and adult cockroaches slowly.
In addition to using diatomaceous earth, you can buy parasitic insects. These insects will infest pests in your gardens such as aphids and cockroaches. The way to see the presence of these wasps is by looking at the changes in the aphids. Aphids will turn crusty and golden brown or black after being exposed to this parasitic insect. The aphids will dry up to mummify and this is a decent indication that the parasitic wasp is doing its job.