Dorm rooms are one of the favorite places for cockroaches to live, especially if you have kids cramming in dorm rooms. Do you have cockroaches in your dorm rooms? If so, you will surely think about how to get rid of cockroaches in a dorm room.
Everyone hates cockroaches as a pest and doesn’t want them in their dorm rooms or anywhere in their homes and properties. Luckily, you can keep them out of your dorm rooms by storing food properly, removing cluttering, blocking gaps in your walls, etc.
If you want to keep cockroaches away permanently from your dorm rooms, follow the below instructions.
Why Do Cockroaches Come and Hide In Your Dorm Room?
Cockroaches are always in search of their livelihood. So, they attack the places where they find sufficient food and water. Moreover, they are attracted to dirty areas. You can find cockroaches everywhere in your dorm when dishes or trash build up because they are eager to eat some crumbs and have a feast.
The main reason for cockroach presence in your dorm rooms is they make their way into your home for food and water and start hunting everywhere in your rooms. Secondly, if you leave food scraps in your rooms while eating, you may find roaches there. Further, you may have cracks in your dorm walls that appeal to cockroaches to come and hide.
What Are Common Places for Cockroaches to Live In Dorm Rooms?
Cockroaches, as previously indicated, are always looking for food, water, and shelter. You can locate them in the following areas of your dorm room:
- Beds: Your beds are one of their favorite places to hide in your dorm room. They use the minute crack in your bed as their hiding place.
- Couches and Chair: If you have dust on your sofas and chairs in your rooms, you may find roaches residing there.
- Baseboards: If you have baseboards around the walls of your dorm rooms, there may be chances of cockroach presence in between the space of wall and board.
- Wardrobes: Cockroaches may wind up inside the dressers since they can hide in a dormitory by climbing into your baggage.
- Trashcans: Because trash cans are the best supply of food for cockroaches, if you have trash cans in your rooms that aren’t covered, you might find cockroaches there.
Ways to Keep Roaches Away From Your Dorm
Getting rid of cockroaches from your dorm rooms is a burdensome task. Here are the easiest ways to keep them away from your dorm:
Store Food in a Tight Container
Cockroaches are always drawn to food and water. The likelihood of a cockroach infestation may increase if you keep food out in your dorm rooms. According to Parasite Epidemiology and Control Journal, in addition to hiding in your room, cockroaches spread deadly parasites by contaminating your food.
Thus, to prevent cockroaches from consuming your food, you should store it in tight plastic containers.
Vacuum or Clean Your House Regularly
If you clean or vacuum your house regularly, cockroaches wouldn’t find any dust or food particles and will stay away from your home and dorm rooms. Additionally, regular cleaning wipes out roaches eggs, or droppings and prevents their growth.
Hence, it’s much simpler to notice cockroaches and rapidly remove them if you keep your dorm room tidy and clean.
Inspect Windows and Doors for Any Gap
Spend a few minutes looking around your entire room’s windows and doors for any potential entry points for roaches from the outside. As cockroaches can pass through 3mm tiny holes, you should closely inspect your windows and doors for entry points. If you find any gaps, close them immediately using a caulking gun to prevent the entry of roaches into your dorm rooms.
Add Weatherstripping to Your Doors
No matter if your dorm room door opens inside your home, cockroaches can enter there if they already make their way into your home through the main entrance. To prevent cockroaches from entering your home through the crevices between the door and its frame, add weather strips to all of the doors that open to the outdoors.
Remove Trash Regularly
Cockroaches are naturally driven to garbage cans because of the plentiful food and dampness. Moreover, when you throw things in garbage cans, drips and spills can leave all sticky or sweet residue on them. Your garbage cans should have a tight-fitting cover that must fasten correctly. In this way, cockroaches can stay away from them.
Clean Dirty Dishes
Food gets attached to dirty plates, including big chunks, tiny particles, and invisible residue that is only visible to cockroaches and other pests. Since insects like cockroaches are drawn to wetness and food, a dirty, damp saucepan in the sink is like winning the lottery. Thus, you not leave any dirty dishes in your sink and wash them regularly to ward off cockroaches.
Eliminate Dampness and Any Standing Water
Cockroaches are attracted to warm, dark, and stagnant water and spoiled food. For water, you may find cockroaches in your drainage pipes, vents, and your sinks. To prevent roaches from entering your home and eventually your rooms, clean off any standing water as soon as you notice it.
Avoid Cluttering
One of the main reasons for cockroach presence in your dorm rooms is the cluttering of things. Cockroaches and other pests are fond of cluttering. The best way to keep roaches at bay is to clean your room regularly and place everything in its place to avoid cluttering. Now, you may be thankful for having a small, confined dorm room because it’s easy to keep a space this small, tidy, and clean.
Keep Bags and Suitcases Away from Your Bed
Keeping all suitcases and bags off your bed is the best way to prevent cockroaches from entering your dorm room. Cockroaches frequently travel on these objects and enjoy getting stuck in tiny gaps and cracks. Whenever you come from a trip, clean your bags deeply and place them away from your bed to prevent cockroaches.
Place Wet Towels and Clothing on Hooks
Cockroaches adore dampness and water, heaps of clothing, or papers that they might utilize to make a cozy nest. Thus, hang your towel and wet clothes you used as soon as possible after the bath. Moreover, you should place all your dirty clothes in a carton and don’t let them mix with wet clothes to avoid molds.
Maintain Personal Hygiene
While routine cleaning and dusting may not be your preferred activity, it is necessary if you want to get rid of roaches in your room. Because cockroaches like unclean situations, you should also maintain your cleanliness by dressing appropriately and taking regular baths. Moreover, they enjoy unclean, disorganized environments where they can hide among dust bunnies and hairballs.
Thus, you should keep yourself and your surroundings neat and clean to avoid cockroaches.
Use Cockroach Traps and Baits
If cockroaches are already in your dorm rooms, you can use traps and baits to catch them. Several sticky cockroach baits are available in the market that you can buy to get rid of roaches. Further, you can use cockroach traps like gel traps to capture cockroaches.
Employ Cockroach Repellents
To prevent the entry of cockroaches into your home and dorm rooms, you can also use natural cockroach repellents like peppermint oil, cypress, cayenne pepper, and rosemary. All you need to do is to mix their essential oils in a small amount of water and then spray this solution in suspected areas of the cockroach infestation.
Other Pests That Live in Your Dorm Rooms
Although cockroaches are the most typical pest in dorm rooms, the following list of pests may be present there.
- Bed Bugs
Bed bugs are one of the most common pests that you can find in your dorm rooms. Archives of Dermatological Research claim that bed bugs are the most difficult pests to treat because they are hard to identify. Reddish brown bugs are among the most frequent types. Hence, if you find any bug, take precautions immediately to prevent further damage.
- Silverfish
Silverfish love moist areas of your dorm rooms. Thus, these insects breed in drains and plants that have overwater. Moreover, faulty faucets and window screens may attract them. Installing screen doors is the best idea for keeping out silverfish, but you should check for any tears or holes in the windows first to prevent their entry into your dorms.
- Flies
Flies are the most common household pests, they are used to attack that places that have a rich supply of food and water. If you eat food in your dorm rooms and don’t clean the leftovers, you will find flies whirling around. Flies are not irritating pests but also spread deadly infections by contaminating your food. So, you should keep your door closed to prevent the entry of flies into your dorm room.
- Ants
They enter college and house dormitories by windows, doors, or drain pipes. As many students live in college dormitories, it’s crucial to regularly remove trash to prevent ant colonies from growing. To prevent the ant infestation in your dorm, store the food in tight containers, and keep your doors and windows closed.
- Spiders
Spider is also a dorm living pests. They enter your dorm rooms to build their webs in bookshelves and doors. To reduce the likelihood of spiders in your dorms, you should remove obstacles from corners and use spotless rugs. Moreover, spiders love books and paper, so you should clean them regularly to prevent spider infestation in your doms.
FAQs
What Smells Keep Roaches Away?
You can successfully repel cockroaches using essential oils like peppermint, cedarwood, and cypress. Moreover, cockroaches hate the smell of coffee beans and crushed bay leaves. To deter roaches, mix 10-15 drops of essential oils in a small amount of water and then sprinkle this solution along the way of cockroaches.
What Kills Cockroaches Instantly?
Even though keeping away cockroaches from your home is a difficult task, you can use strong repellents like baking soda, boric acid, borax, and bleach to kill roaches instantly. You only need to do is to mix these powders in a small amount of water and then directly splash it on cockroaches or the suspected areas of their presence in your dorm rooms.
How Do I Get Rid of Cockroaches in My Bedroom Overnight?
Boric acid is a natural and best home remedy for overnight cockroach eradication. To remove cockroaches, combine the same parts of flour, sugar, and boric acid until the mixture resembles dough. With this dough, make little balls and place them in areas where roaches may readily consume them.
What Attracts Cockroaches in the Bedroom?
Cockroaches are always looking for food and water. You can find them in your bedrooms if they have access to food and water. Furthermore, if you have cracks in your walls and doors, trashcans, and dampness in your bedrooms, cockroaches will be surely there. To keep them away, you should remove all the potential sources of roach infestation.
What Should You Do If You See a Cockroach in Your Dorm Room?
If you see a cockroach in your dorm room, you should do the following things:
– First of all, clean your dorm room to avoid cluttering.
– Tightly seal your food jars.
– Avoid piles of things and clothes.
– Wipe out standing water to cut off their water supply.
– If a cockroach infestation is large, call a professional pest controller to remove them immediately.
Bottom Line
Cockroaches are one of the most prevalent pests in your house. Dirty dorm rooms draw cockroaches and other bugs, which is not only a nightmare to live with but may also be dangerous to your health.
Getting rid of cockroaches from your dorm rooms is easy, especially if you follow the proper management plan. Hopefully, the advice provided above will greatly assist you in keeping roaches out of your dormitory.
Above all, you considerably lessen the possibility of cockroaches in your dorm room or house if you are beware of them and do everything you can to keep your dorm clean.
References
Oyetunde T. Oyeyemi, Mariam O. Agbaje, Uchechi B. Okelue, Food-borne human parasitic pathogens associated with household cockroaches and houseflies in Nigeria, Parasite Epidemiology and Control, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 10-13, ISSN 2405-6731.
Lai, O., Ho, D., Glick, S. et al. Bed bugs and possible transmission of human pathogens: a systematic review. Arch Dermatol Res 308, 531–538 (2016).