Cockroach poop: what does feces look like, what size, how to get rid of droppings

Feces Cockroach poop is a clear indicator of the presence of pests in the room. Finding them is not so easy, since pests leave them behind as they run. But in places where they spend more time, feces accumulate. You need to look for them in the kitchen, bathroom, toilet, closet. Cockroaches do not live in other rooms or stay temporarily and do not leave noticeable marks. It is possible to completely get rid of feces only by exterminating the family of pests in a house or apartment.

What does cockroach excrement (poop) look like? Close-up photo

At each stage of development, different features of the life activity of insects are noted. The body of young individuals is still developing, the process of formation of many organs has not yet been completed, it will be completed upon reaching the imago phase. Cockroach feces are also different.

According to their structure

You can guess what pests have infested your home.

Cockroach excrement (actually oothecae)

Adult cockroach poop

Insects, if they have formed digestive tract organs, leave cylindrical feces. They are quite hard, but small in size. The color of excrement is dark and can vary from brown to brown, sometimes black. As the feces dry, they change color, dry out and lose their main shade or, conversely, darken.

On surfaces

You can see individual small spots (1-2 mm).

The excrement of an adult is actually the ootheca of a cockroach

How nymph cockroaches poop

Young individuals have different litters. Nymph poop is more runny. But larvae, just like adults, leave excrement on surfaces in spots.

Their color

may vary, but mostly brown.

Traces of vital activity of cockroaches cockroaches.

What do Prussian cockroaches look like and how to get rid of them?

The Prusak cockroach, the photo of which is shown below, is a classic representative of the “uninvited guest” in any home. The fight against this type of insect has been going on for thousands of years and has not yet been crowned with complete success.

There are almost always owners of houses and apartments who study all kinds of information in order to get rid of the Prussian. However, to defeat a cockroach, you need to know about the features of its life cycle, reproduction and nutrition. Below will be a description of the most important characteristics of such an insect.

Why exactly “Prusak”?

Many people are interested in why cockroaches are called Prussians. Where did this name come from? There is an opinion that these insects were brought to St. Petersburg and Moscow after successful battles with Prussia. When the soldiers took the captured valuables home, cockroaches “came” with them. Accordingly, they received the nickname “Prussians”, coming from the name of the country.

However, in contrast to this opinion, the Germans, on the contrary, call this type of insect “hares,” believing that they were brought from Russia. It remains almost impossible to accurately establish the truth at the moment, however, it is precisely because of such historical events that the now traditional red cockroaches are called Prussians.

Where are you most likely to find a lot of insect feces?

Cockroach poop is found everywhere. This is due to the fact that insects leave droppings while moving; they do not even need to slow down or stop to do this. As a result, literally all surfaces where pests have visited become dirty. This increases the risk of developing diseases, since during the day and at night the cockroach manages to crawl a significant distance in different directions.

Sometimes excrement merges with the surface and is not visible. It also increases the risk of developing diseases. On light-colored surfaces, you can immediately see brown spots and remove them. These traces cause disgust, because they are found mainly in the kitchen, where there are many food sources for pests. Cockroach excrement may be on dishes, but on a wooden cutting board or spatula they look less striking than on a white plate. Before use, dishes should be washed, as contaminated areas may not be noticed.

But a small amount

cockroach feces is an acceptable norm, because it cannot cause harm.

In dark places, such as under a sink, use a flashlight to search

Places where droppings accumulate

Cockroaches have the habit of defecating on the move. Therefore, it is very difficult to see one poop. Since pests live in numerous colonies and stay together, the amount of droppings increases in places where they accumulate. The more feces, the higher the degree of contamination of the room.

Insects live in rooms where there is access to food and water. They settle in the bathroom, toilet, dark corridor, kitchen. Only in conditions of complete unsanitary conditions do they crawl in the bedroom, nursery, living room, and throughout the apartment. Cockroaches intensify their activity at dusk, so traces of feces are often found in the morning after a “lush” meal in the kitchen. In dark rooms, insects are active around the clock.

Hiding places for insects are baseboards, places behind furniture, cracks under the floor, back panels of household appliances. It is in these places that you should look for traces of droppings. The pests themselves are found there. When a room is heavily infested, a specific cockroach smell develops in the pest habitats.

Life cycle features

If everything is already extremely clear about what Prussian cockroaches look like, then we need to dwell in more detail on their reproduction.

The entire life cycle of insects can be represented in the following sequence of stages:

• Egg;
• Larva (nymph);
• Sexually mature individual (imago).

Traditionally, cockroaches do not have the pupal stage characteristic of other insects. Nymphs hatch from the eggs, which visually already resemble adults. They differ in size and color. Over time, several moults occur, and the larvae increase in size and acquire all the characteristic features of the imago.

Females lay their eggs in a special capsule made of a protein shell - an ooteca. Visually it resembles a leather bag. In it, the eggs are arranged in 2 or more rows. One such ooteca contains on average up to 40 future individuals. The black cockroach, or rather its female, can lay up to 60 eggs.

In most cases, the ootheca is attached under the abdomen. The female carries it with her until the eggs mature. When the moment of hatching comes, she leaves her “bag” in a secluded place. After a short period of time, small cockroaches crawl out of it and almost immediately lead the usual lifestyle for these insects.

Forms of stool according to the Bristol scale

The Bristol scale distinguishes 7 main types of stool. On the left side is an illustration of poop. In the middle – type numbering and a brief description. On the right side there is a transit scale - it indicates the time of formation of one or another type of feces. You can find other variations of the Bristol scale.

The Bristol Stool Shape Scale does not accurately diagnose the disease, since it only presents classifications of poop shapes. In the case of any disease, this data is not enough and it is necessary to take into account such parameters as the color of feces and the buoyancy of poop. At home, this table is useful only for an approximate assessment of the condition of your intestines. Also, if necessary, it will facilitate your dialogue with the doctor and reduce the level of embarrassment.

We recommend that you print out the Bristol Stool Shape Scale and hang it in your toilet. This way it will be visible to you and you will be able to determine the shape of the poop immediately after you poop.

How cockroaches get into an apartment

In the external environment, cockroaches will die out at the first cold snap:

• at -5°C, individuals will die in a maximum of half an hour;
• at -10°C - in a couple of minutes.

Therefore, it is vital for them to be in a warm environment created by man for himself. This applies to both residential and non-residential heated premises.

In apartment buildings, insects have all the necessary conditions for normal life:

1. Constant nutrition thanks to waste accumulating in garbage chutes.
2. Delicacies in the form of crumbs and leftovers in the apartment itself.
3. Basement humidity and access to water in residential areas.
4. Almost complete absence of natural enemies.
5. Warm all year round.

Even new houses are not protected from their penetration, because heated communications (heating mains) may well be infested with parasites: omnivory allows cockroaches to be found in places that are not so friendly to them.

Cockroaches are organized insects. Their populations have special scout individuals who save time in finding a suitable territory.

Migration of pests occurs mainly:

• through the garbage chute;
• through ventilation.

Cockroaches penetrate different rooms, mastering new places or escaping from bullying from neighbors. So you must always be prepared for their appearance.

The best living conditions for cockroaches

To destroy or at least expel uninvited mustachioed guests from your apartment, it is necessary to create unfavorable conditions for their residence. And for this you need to decide on the best conditions:

1. Most crawling parasites prefer warm temperatures, so they adapt well to the heat. As for frost, our grandmothers often used the method of freezing parasites.

During the cold season, doors and windows are opened in the apartment; within 4-5 days of ventilation, the temperature in the room reaches no more than -8 degrees. Cockroaches will not be able to live in such an environment, so they will retreat as quickly as possible. However, a person will also not be able to live indoors, so this option for expelling mustachios is very doubtful.

1. The dirtier the apartment, the better it is for insects. Especially if there are related problems with the sewerage or plumbing, water from the tap is constantly dripping and the siphon is leaking - this is just the thing for parasites. All that remains is to leave the shelter on time, eat up the scraps left on the table, drink plenty of water and bask until the morning, enjoying the delights of the life of dependents.

Thus, if you want to get rid of cockroaches forever, remove all leftover food, do not collect garbage, make sure that there is no dripping water from the tap - and soon the cockroaches will leave your walls.

The only method for exterminating cockroaches for the lazy is to call a disinfection service.

Symptoms of cockroaches

In the vast majority of cases, the owners of an apartment infested with cockroaches find out about their appearance by chance, seeing an individual that did not have time to take cover.

Cockroaches are very secretive, nocturnal and run away at the slightest danger.

Despite their secrecy, these pests leave behind evidence:

1. Their waste products pollute the places where they often appear. Cockroach feces are small black dots, with which, when the number of parasites is high, the surface they like is strewn.
2. Each individual, growing up, leaves behind several molted shells. Accumulations of old skins can be found in secluded, shaded places. Empty oothecae that protected the eggs are also often found there.

If in doubt, you should suddenly turn on the lights in the kitchen and bathroom at night. This method will certainly reveal the problem.

Prevention

Prevention is important and not at all difficult. This is a set of daily measures that should become a habit. The table shows the main measures to keep your home clean and prevent pests.

Table - Prevention of cockroaches

If you don't want to deal with cockroaches, fall in love with indoor plants. It is worth paying attention to curly geranium, which pleases the eyes of household members and repels insects. The leaves of the plant emit a pungent odor that pests cannot stand. In addition to Prussians, a bright flower will repel flies, mosquitoes and ants.

Favorite places for insects to live and breed

Insects choose hidden places to live. They need to find an area protected from light. Here cockroaches wait out the daylight hours. Towards evening they go out in search of food. Insects do not need to constantly feed themselves. They consume energy slowly, so nutrients last for a long time. But in search of water, insects can crawl out even during the day.

To avoid getting caught

in front of people's eyes, they choose the most remote places:

• inside the oven, other household appliances;
• behind the furniture (on the back wall);
• under loose floor and wall coverings;

• areas under the sink, next to pipes, where you can quickly get water;
• under the refrigerator;
• behind the baseboards;
• on the wall next to the battery.

For high-quality disinfestation, skirting boards should be dismantled

Vultures soil themselves with their excrement to regulate their body temperature

Most people have an overwhelming aversion to vultures due to their terrible appearance and tendency to feed on carrion. But since vultures don't sweat like we humans do to regulate their own body temperature, they do it in a different, more disgusting way - by soiling themselves with their excrement at every opportunity.

"Urohidrosis" is a term used to describe the way some species of vultures deliberately soil their feet with excrement. As this excrement evaporates, it effectively serves its cooling function after a hot day spent eating rotting antelope flesh. An interesting fact is that some species of vultures pee and poop on themselves up to 10 times in an hour.

Vultures are known to feed on carcasses, which are teeming with disease-causing bacteria. Luckily, their digestive enzymes are as destructive as the carrion they eat. For this reason, the steady supply of intestinal waste running down the vultures' legs actually acts as a built-in cleansing pump.

Koalas feed their babies poop paste

Koalas are one of the cutest animals in the world. When you see a mother koala caring for her little cubs, this scene evokes genuine tenderness in you. Wait a minute! What is the cub doing? Is he sucking his mother's anus?

You see, since baby koalas are unable to digest fibrous eucalyptus leaves, their mothers do it for them. Other animals solve this problem by regurgitating a “pre-cooked meal”, but mother koalas take it a little further - they secrete a special substance “like feces” directly from their anus; it has all the nutrients a growing baby needs. Yes, baby koalas eat shit. Literally.

This substance contains digestive bacteria that are vital for the development of koalas. So, if a person takes on the responsibility of caring for an orphaned baby koala, they should regularly feed it not only milk from a bottle, but also “donor poop”. The world first learned about such a strange feature of koalas in 1933 from a report by researcher Kate Minchin, who observed these marsupials for a long time:

“...from the koala’s pouch protruded the head and paws of her cub, whose face was covered with yellow-green mucus. The baby buried his nose in his mother's cloaca and greedily ate the substance secreted from her rectum. And although it was clear that the mother koala did not particularly like this, she remained quiet and calm and did not interfere with the cub from doing its own thing.”

This is a truly amazing ability that helps koalas survive in harsh conditions. It may also explain why koalas survive in areas where chlamydia is rampant.

Lastly

Of course, the appearance of cockroaches in nature is due to simple necessity. These are a kind of environmental orderlies, cleaning up organic residues. So we can consider cockroaches as an indicator of the sanitary condition of the home: they are not attracted to cleanliness.

In addition, their decorative varieties, for example, the ash cockroach, are gaining increasing popularity. This shows how diverse nature is. Benefits can also be derived from the deliberate breeding of insects, the mere mention of which previously made me shudder. Frame error

How to get rid of cockroach droppings

Insect excrement can be easily removed if it is found after a bowel movement. But old cockroach poop is not always possible to remove from surfaces. As a result, they penetrate into the structure of materials. The looser the coating (fabric, wood, wood-shaving material), the worse stains are removed.

Considering that insects poop

do not stop while they are in the apartment, you will have to clean all surfaces often, otherwise after disinfestation some of the furniture and things will simply be thrown away.

Methods for removing excrement stains from surfaces:

• dry cleaning: use a vacuum cleaner, this allows you to remove the remains of excrement that dry out and get into the air;
• wet cleaning: surfaces are wiped with a wet rag; this method allows you to remove only fresh traces;
• the use of special detergents: chemicals remove old stains, you should start with laundry soap, if it does not help, start cleaning surfaces using dishwashing liquid, means for removing difficult stains (for washing the oven, toilet), but it is important to consider the type coating material, otherwise you can easily damage it.

Clean your home regularly, especially in the kitchen

Folk remedies

Despite the fact that insects tend to adapt to any conditions and chemical “attacks,” many folk remedies and methods do not lose their effectiveness. And most importantly, they are safe for people and animals.

Bay leaf

Ammonia

Expected effect. The main sense organ of insects is smell. Using long antennae, they detect odors and find food. Using ammonia, you can confuse all the cards for pests. The pungent odor of ammonia will not only mask all other odors, but will also force pests to leave the room.

Boric acid

Expected effect. The most popular folk remedy that housewives have successfully used in the fight against household pests since Soviet times. Despite the fact that the powder is merciless against cockroaches, it is absolutely harmless for humans and pets. After eating boric acid, cockroaches will die. Borax powder has the same effect.

Expected effect. Mint has a very pleasant aroma. But cockroaches do not share this opinion. Its smell irritates them and makes them run away to a more favorable place.

Baking soda

Expected effect. Baking soda, which is widely used by humans for culinary and household purposes, is poisonous to cockroaches. Once in the body of an insect, the substance destroys its organs from the inside. This is inevitable death for cockroaches. The main thing is to force the pests to eat the powder.

Kerosene

Expected effect. If, despite all the measures taken, the number of cockroaches does not decrease, you need to move on to the old-fashioned shock measures. We are talking about kerosene, which has a pungent, suffocating odor. Cockroaches definitely can’t stand this. But the smell of fuel does not have the best effect on humans, so you need to work in a respirator, and after treatment leave the room for at least a few hours.

Freezing

Cockroaches cannot tolerate cold, so in winter, when the thermometer drops below - 10°C, they can be dealt with without chemicals. It is enough to open all the windows and leave the room for several hours so that it freezes properly. This method is suitable for a private home where it is possible to drain water from heating pipes and a boiler. In a city apartment, such manipulations are undesirable, since low temperatures can negatively affect the state of communications.

If you live in a city apartment, you can try to freeze out not the room itself, but individual interior items (bedside tables, stools, carpets) where insects could have infested. But this method does not guarantee results, since cockroaches could crawl throughout the apartment.

Insect nests

Many people mistakenly believe that cockroaches have peculiar “nests” - places where they gather as a colony. This is truly a misconception, since these parasites do not have nests. Cockroaches really tend to gather as an entire colony in one specific place, but this is explained by the fact that they simply find the most comfortable place in the apartment and gather for reasons of comfort.

A person may mistakenly stumble upon one of these places and because of this decide that it is a cockroach nest. You might even think that the cockroaches in the colony have a queen like a bee, but this is not so. Cockroach colonies do not have such an organization.

Penguin poop accumulates so much that it can be seen from space

We all know from documentaries and run-of-the-mill cartoons that penguins gather in huge groups when it's time to lay eggs. We also know that birds in such numbers are capable of producing absurd amounts of crap. (Think of what happens when you park your car under a tree.) In general, when penguins concentrate in one place, they leave behind so much excrement that it can be seen from space.

Moreover, the penguins have found a way to make this incredible pile of crap work for them. The continuous production of poop helps melt the surrounding snow and make the ground suitable for nesting. It's not just about direct contact. Since penguin excrement is dark in color, it absorbs more heat from the sun, which means the snow in such places melts faster. The animation below demonstrates this process clearly:

How to get neighbors to remove cockroaches

Even if you maintain perfect order, cockroaches can still settle in your apartment. For example, they often migrate from unscrupulous neighbors. And not only from adjacent apartments, but also from other entrances. Therefore, if you only treat your living space, the insects will come back very soon. This is a common problem that requires joint action.

Unfortunately, the owners of contaminated apartments do not always agree to take appropriate measures. In this case, it is recommended to seek help from the sanitary service, housing inspection or management company that manages the house. Be sure to obtain an expert opinion on the diagnostics performed and the presence of cockroaches. You can go to court with him.

Photo: Wallace Chuck/Pexels

If your neighbors lead an antisocial lifestyle and have neglected their apartment, file a collective complaint together with other residents of the building. It can be sent to the prosecutor's office, city administration or territorial division of Rospotrebnadzor. The application should be accompanied by written testimony from other dissatisfied neighbors, as well as photographs and video materials.

What do small cockroaches look like and how do they differ from ordinary ones?

Small cockroaches in an apartment are quite a big problem, because getting rid of uninvited guests is extremely difficult. Small cockroaches differ significantly from larger red locusts in appearance, but have similar behavioral characteristics, which include being predominantly nocturnal and lacking selectivity when choosing a food source.

Like other parasites, small domestic cockroaches are carriers of dangerous infectious diseases; it is imperative to combat uninvited guests.

What do small cockroaches look like? What are the features of exterminating these insects and how to get rid of an unpleasant neighborhood? Let us consider these issues in more detail.

Rules of war

Nobody likes red-haired tenants, and dreams of how to remove cockroaches at home quickly, painlessly and forever must be brought to life. But any means are ineffective if one simple rule is not followed. During the war, the house, and especially the kitchen and bathroom, must be kept perfectly clean. A drop of water, recklessly not wiped dry, can become the same life-giving elixir that will remove toxic poison from a cockroach. And titanic efforts will be in vain.

You cannot leave food on tables or windowsills. The microwave, stove and oven should be sparkling clean. Garbage, especially food waste, must be disposed of immediately. For an effective result, it is necessary to enter into an alliance with neighbors. Because even if you are lucky enough to expel cockroaches from one apartment, there is no guarantee that neighboring individuals will not want to immediately move into it. And then you will have to start all over again.

Chemical weapon

Cockroach organisms are very sensitive to insecticides. If they are used correctly and regularly, the effect will be definitely positive and lasting. Aerosols such as Raptor, Dichlorvos or their varieties Raid and Gett. Organophosphorus insecticides also have a more modern alternative - pyrethroid insecticides, for example, based on chrysanthemum acid (Diptron or Permethrin are very effective from this series).

The biggest disadvantage of aerosol poison is its pungent odor, toxicity and the need to leave the treated area for at least a day. A very popular alternative to aerosols against cockroaches is dust. But you should know that dust is dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, that is, the organochlorine pesticide DDT. It is classified as a super-hazardous ecotoxicant. Its half-life is almost a quarter of a century.

A huge range of DDT-based drugs are offered under different names: Medilis C, Tetrix, and also Dohlox and Kombat, Fas and Fas-Double... Their toxicity is so great that 2-4 g of the drug per square meter is enough for the mustachioed enemy to retreat. There are also Fas tablets for cockroaches, which you can buy at any hardware store or market. They are similar to dust. They are only less dangerous because they have a non-crumbly form.

You need to carefully treat every loophole with dust - a place where cockroaches are likely to appear - baseboard space, cracks in walls, floors, ventilation grilles... The powder is sprayed in a thin layer using a brush or rubber bulb. In this case, you should protect your respiratory organs, and then wash your hands thoroughly, or even better, take a shower. But it is worth remembering that in addition to removing cockroaches from the house, there is also a goal to stay in this house to live. Therefore, after some time, it is necessary to wash with the same thoroughness all places where insecticides were sprayed or splashed.

In search of a recipe: how to get rid of cockroaches at home more than once, most likely, you came across a suggestion to try crayons. The main advantage of crayons (or their analogue - gel) is that they can be used without leaving your home. They are especially relevant if the task is how to get rid of cockroaches in a dorm or communal apartment. You can’t evict all the tenants during the sanitation period, but you don’t want to put up with unsanitary neighbors.

Expert advice

Expert opinion

Bragin Evgeniy Igorevich

Entomologist specialist, 19 years of scientific experience.

• cockroaches leave behind many traces of their vital activity, but excrement is the most dangerous because it contains substances that promote the appearance of other cockroaches (attract them);
• cockroaches also emit gases, their volumes are not so large, so the specific smell appears not for this reason, but because of the gradual accumulation of excrement;
• the structure of insect droppings usually does not depend on what they eat; even shoe leather and wallpaper are perfectly digested; special bacteria in the digestive tract serve this purpose.

Cockroach feces stains.

Cockroaches are absolutely omnivorous. They eat everything from plants to people, dead skin cells, garbage and even feces. Their high metabolism makes their appetite one of the most obvious signs of cockroaches. Cockroach feces may resemble tiny specks of pepper or streaks that resemble coffee grounds. A large volume of feces in a fairly visible place is an indicator of a large number of cockroaches. You will have to check everything: behind the stove, behind the refrigerator, in the cabinets, behind the sink, food, cereals, bread in the bread bin. By looking at the feces, you can determine the routes of their movement and the nesting site.

Hippos can use their butts as a snow blower

Hippos are considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa, but not just because they can kill you. The thing is that if you stand behind these huge animals, you risk literally being up to your ears in shit, because they like to do this:

This is incredibly disgusting. And it seems to you that the hippopotamus did this maliciously. However, these animals have a good reason for turning their tails into mini-propellers and spraying their own excrement in all directions, simulating the explosion of a colostomy bag. It lies in the fact that in this way they mark their territory, and this method is the most effective. Their colonic "rotary snow blower" is capable of spraying crap up to two meters in each direction.

As a rule, only male hippos perform such extravagant rectal shows. Female and baby hippos empty their large intestines either right where they are when they feel the urge, or into the water in which they live

This not only causes nausea in the crocodiles, but also serves the purpose of returning important restorative nutrition to the aquatic food chain. On special occasions, female hippopotamuses may also take part in "fecal shedding"

If a female hippopotamus is attracted to a male's behavior during mating season, she will express her interest in a very direct way. For example, he will crap all over his face.

Wombats poop cubes to mark their territory

If you've ever suddenly changed your diet to include more fresh vegetables and herbs, you probably know how much of an ordeal bathroom visits can temporarily become. If you have not been fed a disassembled Rubik's cube, then most likely you have never gone through the “torment” that wombats are doomed to - during each bowel movement they are forced to form a large intestinal analogue of this same Rubik's cube.

The reason why wombats do this is extremely simple: the cube shape prevents their poop from rolling around somewhere. Like many other animals, wombats mark their territory with excrement. Bowel movements that remain in place under all conditions are preferable in terms of creating non-confrontational boundaries. The ability to create poop with the properties of a cinder block allows wombats to “siege” hills and relief surfaces, alerting the whole world to the presence of a “giant” with a formidable sphincter.

Since wombats are nocturnal and have poor eyesight, it makes sense that they communicate with each other through the pungent odor of their feces.

Why are they dangerous?

A small cockroach, despite its small size, can cause a lot of trouble. It is important to know that small domestic cockroaches are carriers of dangerous diseases of infectious etiology, various helminthiases. Since they enter the apartment after traveling through the sewer or basement, the likelihood of infection with bacterial or viral diseases is high.

If only one parasite, which is a fertilized female, gets into the apartment, after some time many small cockroaches will appear in the apartment; these insects have the unique ability to multiply quickly and survive in extreme conditions.

Accordingly, it is necessary to take the necessary measures immediately after the appearance of parasites in the home.