Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I rated this 5 stars because it did the job VERY well! We inherited roaches when we bought the house and started seeing them 1-2 weeks after moving in. We had two visits left by a professional pest control company, which is a big rip off. All they would do is use a pole and brush to remove webs around the house, and spray a very thin line of Talstar, a professional strength pesticide. We told them we had roaches left over from the previous owners and they sprayed a little Talstar by the back door, but that was it, which didn't do ANYTHING. The following month the same thing happened so we fired that company and researched the issue. I spoke to a professor at a university that has been posting research papers on roaches since 1966, so I doubt many people know as much about roaches as he does. Step 1: Do a THOROUGH cleaning of the house, behind the refrigerator, toasters, under and around the stove, etc., and remove as many food sources as possible to make this gel more attractive to roaches. Step 2: Remove all water sources, which means each night empty pet water bowls and dry them out, dry sinks and tubs and showers, then cover the sink, tub and shower drains (and any others) so roaches cannot climb down into the water traps to get water. Porcelain toilets should be too slick for roaches to climb, but if they get into the toilet, they most likely won't be able to get out, but you don't want that, you want them to eat the gel and return to the colony (more on this below). So wipe down toilets so the sides are clean and there is nothing the roaches can grab to climb. This is a SLOW acting poison, which is what you need for roaches. This roach killer takes about a week to kill the roaches which is a benefit, and I'll tell you why. You only see the adult roaches, and maybe now and then you'll see an almost full grown sub-adult, but you never see the younger roaches or nymphs (baby roaches) because they all hang out back at the colony. These roaches survive mainly by eating frass, which is the name for roach poop. Pretty disgusting, but roaches have long digestive tracts that takes 72 hours for food to pass through, so by this gel taking about a week to kill the adults means the frass is eaten by the colony and passed as frass and eaten again and it continues to spread through the colony. As the first roaches that ate this die at the colony, then the other roaches eat these dead roaches and ingest the poison that is in that roach, and start spreading it again. Eventually all of the roaches have been exposed and die. Part 2: The IGR - Insect Growth Regulator. I grow roaches (Dubia roaches) for my bearded dragon and the adults give birth roughly once a month and give birth to 30-40 nymphs (baby roaches). These babies with ample food, water, heat and humidity take about 6 months to reach adulthood and sexual maturity. I'm assuming most species of roaches are similar. Anyway, the IGR works at a VERY low concentration, down to the parts per billion, so as the adults poop at the colony and other roaches eat it, then they poop and it is spread more and more, in short order all the roaches at the colony are ingesting this IGR and if the roaches do not progress in their growth cycle, they do not become sexually active adults and since the adults are the ones eating the bulk of the gel and bringing it back to the colony, they die with high concentrations of this poison in their bodies and poop. Once the adults die, the smaller roaches eat the dead roaches and ingest the poison and they die, and are eaten by other roaches that ingest the poison and they die and on and on. So that is why you need a slow acting poison instead of a fast acting poison. Fast acting poisons kill the adults, but the colony continues to grow and the young adults become adults and start mating, and the cycle starts all over again. And since the IGR is in the poop and the sub-adults and nymphs continue to eat and poop the IGR, they never reach sexual maturity and with the poison, they die off as well. To keep future roaches at bay: You may have seen pest control companies spray a little stream of pesticide around homes in the past. This is a product called Talstar, which is the brand name. The active ingredient is Bifen-IT, which is also sold here on Amazon by that name. That little stream is ineffective and more for show than actually helping with pest control. If you read the label they recommend when you spray around the exterior of the home that you spray at least 2 feet up the side of the house and at least 3 feet out into the lawn around the base of the house so any insects coming to your house will have to crawl through several feet of this product before reaching the house, thus stopping future roaches from crossing your lawn and entering your house, as well as ants, spiders and other insects that nobody wants inside their homes. I personally spray this across my entire lawn and in <24 hours it has taken out 90% or more of the flying insects that bite in the warm months, and in <72 hours 99% of these bugs are gone. If you put this down across your lawn before the weather is warm enough for bugs to come out, when the bugs are out, you'll have a protective barrier down. This stuff lasts about 90 days in the sunlight and rain, so I apply when the temperatures are no longer getting below freezing at night, then about 90 days later, then again about 90 days after which is roughly 270 days, which is enough to get me through the warm weather and back into winter where bugs are not coming across my lawn to my house. Since doing this, I've never had a single roach problem. Bifen-IT is applied with water, and once dry, it is safe for humans and pets to return to the area where the pesticide was applied. I'm OCD, so I apply this a day or two before the rain, and keep my daughter and dogs out of the area until it has rained once. However, if you think about it, this is applied at a rate to kill small insects that weigh less than 100,000th of what a human does, and insects are constantly cleaning themselves with their mouth and getting this product into their bodies where people are normally wearing shoes and do not wash with their tongue, they bath and rinse everything down the drain, so in that respect, it is even more safe. I love this stuff because it allows us to enjoy our yard without being attacked by bugs, and it keeps ants, spiders and roaches from crossing into our lawn and reaching our house. I also go in once a year and spray the inside walls in my crawlspace as well as the columns because ant colonies can live there and still get inside the house.