I found yesterday cockroaches in the condo we are renting. I am so upset. I don’t know if guests brought them, or they live in the condo complex. I never heard before of cockroaches in our town. When I asked our last guest who stayed for a month if he saw any, he very casually replied that he saw a couple. He didn’t think it was something out of ordinary, but others probably will. I am not sure what to do in this situation. Of course I will do my best to eliminate them, but they have a good chance of winning the battle and mingling with our guests in the future. If they live in the complex, they will keep coming back. I am not sure if I should I stop renting short term, as I am afraid that guests will carry an unwanted “souvenir” back home. How big of a deal are cockroaches? Is this a deal stopper for airbnb renting? Anybody had any experience with eliminating them?
I have an exterminator come monthly since my condo is in the tropics and the cockroaches are humongous. Does not kill the lizards just roaches and spiders
How long does the smell last? Do you have to block out some booking time for the smell to dissipate?
I simply open the windows and the smell disapates. The whole condo complex does it once a month. It is included in our condo fees
With a good pest control company, any chemicals they use will dry within an hour and then be completely safe for children and pets. It’s a regulated industry, so you always want to go with a reputable company. We get ours serviced every other month.
Had them in our townhouse once. Be sure and call in experts. This is not something you can do with a product from the hardware store. The longer you delay the worse the infestation.
Not sure how helpful my reply is. But I once moved into a trailer that was infested with roaches. It didn’t seem like the pest control company could do much as I was told that once the next door neighbor’s trailers get sprayed…they just run to the other ones. Anyway, I finally had to move and then I noticed there were some roaches in the new place. I wondered if I had brought them with me, or if the new place also had roaches.
So someone told me to buy boric acid powder from the hardware store. I did and sprinkled it around like I was supposed to. They disappeared so not sure if it was a coincidence or not.
The roaches were most likely there to begin with. They are ghastly and a total deal breaker for many people, including myself. They can also hitch a ride in or out, so that’s why it’s recommended to set your luggage in the bath tub for a day or 3. Roaches and other bugs supposedly can’t climb up the steep sides of a tub. Or else you leave the bags outside your house for a couple of days.
As for pesticides, none of them is safe. If they kill a living thing how can they be? It’s all about dosage of course. It takes more to kill bigger stuff–like us. But they can still enter your body and do damage.
Borax is supposed to work pretty well and it’s less toxic. Other than that it’s just a matter of coexistence–and a handy flip flop 
Thank you for your advice. I sprinkled boric acid and diatomaceous earth, sprayed with cockroaches spray, and tee tree oil spray which smell they are supposed to dislike. They definitely were not there before, but it is possible that somebody else brought them to the complex, as it’s a popular rental place.
Thank you! I mixed boric acid with sugar and flour and sprinkled this powder under sinks, etc.
In some places, cockroaches are just a way of life. I live in Western Australia, and when we walk the dog at night, we see them across the footpath. They live in palm trees and other places in tropical areas.
Our apartment complex is 50 years old. The entire building is treated twice a year, and we treat our apartment between every guest - to prevent those coming in and killing those who snuck in. When you have a number of units, different people do different things. Some attract cockroaches.
I do dread when a guest will eventually encounter one, especially if they are not from here. When I came to WA, it really freaked me out.
It is bad. I hate cockroaches.
Agree. I don’t like them but can be hard to avoid. I do cockroach bombs which help.
Roaches can come in all kinds of way, it doesn’t mean that an apartment or a guest or a host is dirty.
For example, they love the glue in paper bags from grocery stores. They lay their eggs and then you buy things and put them right into the kitchen, where they’ll end up being close to the food and water.
I have some plug ins, that mess with the electromagnetic currency and bugs and rodents supposedly don’t like them. I put them into all of my rentals. So far they seem to work. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but being in Georgia it’s difficult to avoid them completely.
According to me you could have done pest control service for once in your suite for customer satisfaction, before giving the room to others or you could have taken up some advice from cockroach pest control Brooklyn NY services that what precautions to take before giving rooms to your guest.
I am a cockroach expert. Having been a landlord you almost have to be. Sometimes people bring in their own cockroaches when they move. I remember when one tenant moved into my condo they brought their own refrigerator and I saw a cockroach crawling out of .I have many cockroach tales to tell! I can tell you that if your condo is a lower-class complex and you have section 8 tenants within the complex you will have roaches it’s just a given! And they move from condo to condo they can squeeze through the electric outlets you would be surprised . I was managing my sons condo for him and of course it was a lower and condo the roaches were so bad when you open the dishwasher they would pop out at you! I basically had to demo the whole kitchen ripped out all of the cabinets and replace the appliances . I had to patch all visible cracks and holes in the walls in the kitchen’s before I put new cabinets in. I brought an exterminator in and he came four times to spray! Of course the unit was vacant thank God. We used a variety of poisons I also threw bug bombs in the attic. There was a new poison that he used which essentially makes the cockroaches sterile so they can’t reproduce. We used about six different methods and we finally got rid of the roaches after about two months! But the issue is if you have filthy neighbors they will give you cockroaches. My sister had a condo and the people upstairs for section 8 and super filthy. They got evicted when they moved out the cockroaches had nowhere to go but downstairs and she inherited hundreds of cockroaches from the evicted tenants upstairs ! I just got back from China having visited my son whose wife had a baby. I packed a lot of roach motels in my suitcase because I knew he would have cockroaches , and I will tell you something else those big suckers are very strong. I put one in his bathroom my son picked it up and said hey mom we got one! He was huge what we put it back down the next day I went to check it to see if there were more and guess what the cockroach was so strong he pulled himself off of the roach motel ! Another time I remember I caught roaches in a motel and after a few days I looked and guess what that after a few days the Roach that was stuck in the motel had babies and there were about 20 cockroach babies stuck in the motel 