August 16, 2014
The Worst thing that can happen to your property after full occupation apart from a fire or a natural disaster is an infestation; which is actually a really big risk when you are running your rental at full occupancy.
All the little buggers need to survive is one sloppy tenant that refuses to clean the dishes after they eat and leave scraps out to feed the pests and before you know it you can have a full blown infestation on your hands. Roaches, mice, and other pests will bother all your tenants can possibly cause them to leave the residence itself and get you slapped with a severe health code violation.
Roaches are the most common pest you will have to deal with, they’re simply everywhere, but due diligence and not being lazy once you get the inkling of a possible infestation will go far into helping you nip the problem in the bud before it gets out of control.
Remember that a single cockroach can lay hundreds of eggs once it’s mature. Then  the babies grow in a few days and are able to lay more eggs themselves, so there’s literally only one way to get rid of them and that is to wipe them all out.
There are quite a few things you can use to get rid of pests in your apartment, the most awkward part will be getting permissions from your tenants to get the house cleaned up and fumigated, tenant’s don’t really want to be disturbed if they don’t have a problem in their space. Surprisingly, large number of people are sloppy enough to not even care if they spot a roach or two walking along on the floor or walls. They just take it as part of the décor of apartment life.
These are some of the things you can use to get rid of roaches.
Petroleum jelly
The most low tech and undeniably the most messy of all the solutions, just pack petroleum jelly in the cracks and corners where your spot them roaches coming and going through, petroleum jelly will act as a sort of a wall prohibiting their movement and stop them from being able to go anywhere, they will get stuck and die.
Although not edible it’s still not a major health risk to children or pets. But if your pet or child eats petroleum jelly peppered with dead roaches, it’s still a matter of concern.
The Roach Injection
You can buy injection style tubes full of a food/water/poison mix that than seep into cracks quite easily, roaches eat this and die instantly because it’s toxic to them, since you only apply it in cracks there’s very little chance that your child or pet might come into contact with it. So it’s a safe bet.
Roach Baits
This is the best solution if you feel you don’t want to expose your pet or child with harmful chemicals in the home. The bait stations come equipped with a toxic mold that’s lethal to the roaches but harmless to pretty much everything. SInce it’s so tailored, it’s effectiveness is usually less than outright poisoning the roaches using the injection or boric acid.
Boric Acid – The Bane of Roaches everywhere.
Boric acid not only kills it literally burns the armor off the roaches backs, it’s extremely lethal to an infestation, you can get boric acid in two forms, in tablet or powder form, in powder form just puff it in the cracks and watch the roaches die in agony.
You can mix it with milk and make a lethal treat for the roaches; they will be attracted to the smell of the milk, and digest the boric acid and die.
Boric acid is a lethal poison, so remember to keep it out of the hands of children and pets.