Finding Roaches In Your Kitchen Sink?

Among the toughest pests to deal with is an infestation of cockroaches. These ugly and filth-ridden annoyances are known to sneak into homes through the tiniest of gaps and holes and will hide in places that you won’t suspect until you see them overflowing out. While the cockroach is most typically found in the kitchen where it can be close to food sources to munch on, cockroaches especially love moisture.

How To Get Rid of Cockroaches In Kitchen Sink

While cockroaches can go up to a month without food to eat, they can only go 7 days without water so you will likely see them near water sources, such as your kitchen sink. Cockroaches are even known to access a home by traveling through drain pipes and will infest indoor areas by using the drain of your kitchen sink as a gateway to the privacy of your home. If you have been seeing cockroaches crawling around your kitchen sink, especially late at night when you take a trip to the kitchen and flick the lights on, it can be a horrible sight to see. Removing cockroaches from your kitchen sink and your entire home is possible if you follow this guide below.

Why Cockroach Infestations Should Be Taken Seriously

Unless you have a thing for brown creepy crawlies taking over your home, no one likes the sight of cockroaches. The idea of a cockroach infestation can be embarrassing and can give off the perception to visitors that you are a slob and don’t take care of your home like you should. If an infestation is present, you would likely do anything you can to remove the invasion and erase the reputation of your home being a cockroach magnet. However, cockroach infestations are more than just an annoyance or blow to your vanity—they are a health hazard. If you have a cockroach infestation, you are more likely to get sick and are more at risk of catching diseases than if you didn’t have a cockroach problem. Cockroaches are attracted to filth and as a result, they carry whatever bacteria or germs from their frequenting of unsanitary places on their feet wherever they go. This means that when they crawl over your kitchen counters and belongings, they are leaving tracks of the very same filth. It is through this behavior that cockroaches are able to spread disease-causing bacteria like salmonella and dysentery as well as contaminate food. Aside from this cockroaches also are nasty in how they leave droppings wherever they frequent. Not only does this leave an unpleasant smell but can also contain pathogens that can trigger allergic people to experience asthma attacks. This is why if you have a cockroach infestation, you should not delay in proactively doing something about it because the cockroach population will only grow larger and larger as time goes by.

Why Cockroaches Frequent the Sink

You might be wondering if roaches come up through the drains? There is really not an easy answer to that particular question, yes some cockroaches can enter to drains, but typically they are found there because they are in search of moisture. Cockroaches are a very simple creature to satisfy. All they need are three basic essentials: food, water and shelter. The food comes from all the left behind crumbs, spills and dirty dishes that go unwashed and piled up in your sink. As long as you offer them all of this, cockroaches will keep on coming back for more. Let’s say you do a good job about washing your dirty dishes. It usually takes a lot of water to clean everything up and more often than not you have splash over water left behind or you may forget to dry off your sink after dish washing. This provides cockroaches with an oasis of water to quench their thirst when night falls and you are fast asleep in bed (cockroaches are nocturnal, so they do most of their scavenging for food late at night.) Another reason why cockroaches are making your kitchen sink a popular place to hangout is if you aren’t regularly clearing out your garbage disposal, food that goes down the drain collects there so cockroaches get both the water they need and food to enjoy on top of that. Cockroaches also are naturally attracted to moisture and thus they are going to be where the moisture is. This is why they are almost always around plumbing and often they also use plumbing and drain pipes to travel and gain access into a home from outdoors. This can especially be a problem if you are living in an apartment where plumbing pipes are interconnected between multiple units. Cockroaches take full advantage of this and use the plumbing pipes as passageways to new apartments, coming up from the drains either from the bathroom sinks or the kitchen sink.

Steps For Eliminating Cockroaches From Infesting Your Sink

If you are sick and tired of cockroaches using your kitchen sink as their own personal lounge and drinking fountain there are things you can do to get rid of them. The key is tokeep your kitchen sink as dry as possible. When you are done washing dishes and are done for the night, make sure you take a dry towel or cloth and wipe your entire kitchen sink dry. This essentially takes away their main source of drinking water for the night. Another thing you can do is tofix any leaking faucets. If your kitchen sink faucet has a dripping problem, this needs to be fixed as soon as possible because cockroaches will take advantage of every drop that is left behind. Thearea under your kitchen sinkis another area to pay attention to for leaks and moisture as cockroaches will frequent this area as well. Seal any leaks or replace any worn pipes that are leaking water, your could also try and use duct tape as a cheap and easy quick fix. Otherwise you could use a silicone-based caulk. Keeping the area under your sink as dry as possible will also be crucial for getting rid of cockroaches around your sink. For a permanent fix of cockroaches in your kitchen sink, you will need to address cockroaches in your entire home by not just eliminating the water sources they enjoy but also the food and shelter they are taking advantage of. This means vacuuming, sweeping and wiping down your entire kitchen so there is no food sources available for the cockroach to sustain themselves. When it comes to shelter, you will need to take away the hiding spaces that cockroaches reside in in the daytime with the help of caulk. Go around your kitchens and bathrooms and along your trim and baseboards and seal all the cracks and crevices you see. Even the tiniest gap or hole needs to be sealed because thanks to the flat bodies of a cockroach, they can squeeze there way into these spots and hide out with ease.

Killing The Infestation

When you have done your due diligence to remove the sources of food, water and shelter, cockroaches will not automatically disappear and move on elsewhere. Cockroaches are a persistent species and will not give up and take off easily. They will need to be forced out through the use of effective cockroach control products. While there are a lot of options out there when it comes to killing cockroaches, the trick is to be strategic and use the best products for your given situation. For indoor infestation, what has proven to be the most helpful in eliminating a cockroach invasion is cockroach bait. This is usually a combination of a palatable enjoyable food grade attractant that cockroaches enjoy like sugar or protein with a slow-killing active ingredient. Once there is no competing food available, bait can be laid out in areas where you have seen cockroaches frequent. Cockroaches will readily eat the bait and then share with others and return to their nests. Cockroaches will start dying and will transfer the bait to other roaches who either eat their dead bodies or eat their feces. This will continue happening until the population is significantly depleted by the bait. Bear in mind, bait alone should not be relied upon to totally eliminate an infestation. We suggest using more than one cockroach killing product to hit the cockroach population with different points of attack. For example, combine bait with the application of boric acid powder in strategic areas like under appliances and in tight spaces that other pesticides are hard to reach.



Insect Growth Regulators are another useful complementary product for removing cockroach infestations because they specifically target the reproductive process that is relentless and causes infestations to thrive because they constantly multiply. Insect Growth Regulators (or IGRs for short) do not kill cockroaches, but they do disrupt the reproductive functioning of cockroaches so cockroach eggs do not hatch and cockroach nymphs do not reach adulthood. IGRs can also cause adult cockroaches to become sterile so they cant lay eggs. This can help greatly in making sure the cockroach population doesn’t grow while your other cockroach products kill the adults.

Preventing Future Infestations

After you have gotten rid of the cockroaches and your sink is not overrun with cockroaches anymore at nighttime, you have to implement preventative measures to keep the infestation from returning. Here are some things you can do: Move Your Garbage Can - Garbage cans are often placed under the sink. The combination of garbage and the moisture of a kitchen sink is basically asking for cockroaches to come and take over. Place your garbage can somewhere else to reduce the chances of attracting cockroaches. Taking out your trash daily is also essential. Use a Rubber Stopper -At the end of the night, use a rubber stopper or drain screen to cover the opening of your kitchen sink. This will block cockroaches from coming up from the drains at night. Clean out your Kitchen Drain - Your drains need to be cleaned out occasionally because not only do drains accumulate organic matter which can clog your drains, but all that built up food can attract roaches. Pouring down drain-o or some other drain cleaner will break down those food particles. Maintain Cleanliness -Cockroach prevention does not mean a one and done cleanup, it means keeping up with a regular cleaning schedule, especially before going to bed to make sure there is nothing out that attracts cockroaches. 

Take a Look at Some of Our Popular Articles on Cockroach Control:

All About Cockroaches- Our ultimate guide on cockroaches, includes information on how to identify their habitats, food source and the specific type of roach you are dealing with. How to Locate the Cockroach Nest - When you starting seeing random roaches around your house, it is time to locate their main location or the nest. This will help in your elimination of them. How to Get Rid of Cockroaches - Our how to get rid of cockroaches guide offers you easy to follow guides to knock out your roach problem, in just a few easy steps. The experts at Harris make roach control easy and effective. How to Prevent Cockroaches - Wondering how to prevent roaches in your home from even getting inside? Check out our roach prevention guide with easy steps on prevention, eliminating their food source and product recommendations.