Nobody wants to see the presence of cockroaches, particularly having to deal with their droppings or feces at home! Besides being unsightly and smells bad; cockroach feces affect human health negatively because certain proteins (or allergens) can be found in their feces.
Cockroaches feces can be very easy to spot. The appearance of cockroach droppings are also become one of the visible pieces of evidence of the cockroach infestation at home. Thus, knowing what cockroach droppings look like, as well as how to deal with the cockroach droppings will help you to prevent a cockroach problem in the future.
Continue reading the information about cockroach droppings in this article, or directly contact Rentokil if you think that you are currently dealing with severe cockroach infestation at home.
Cockroach droppings identification
Cockroaches leave behind brown or black cylindrical droppings. In general, cockroach feces are less than 1mm wide and of varying lengths in size. However, the color and size of cockroach droppings will greatly depend on the cockroach species that you are currently dealing with at home.
Cockroach feces consist of any kind of food they have digested, including dead animal flesh, garbage, and even human waste. Thus, their feces can be in a solid or semi-liquid form depending on what they digest.
The following are tips on cockroach droppings identification based on its species and other animals, such as mouse droppings.
What do large cockroach droppings look like?
One of the most common large cockroach species found in Indonesians houses is American Cockroach. American cockroaches typically leave solid black cylindrical droppings with blunt ends and have a distinct ridge along the edges.
Regarding its size, the large cockroach droppings average size is approximately 1/8 inch long or equivalent to the same size of a rice grain.
If you have found a significant amount of feces with the form as described above, you may be dealing with a significant American cockroach infestation at home!
What do small cockroach droppings look like?
Some of the small cockroach species which commonly found invading Indonesian houses are the Brown-banded cockroach and German cockroach.
In general, smaller cockroaches leave behind semi-liquid black or brown feces that look more like spots or stains or resemble coffee grounds or black pepper.
One thing you can do to spot the differences between Brown-banded cockroach and German cockroach droppings is German roaches’ feces are wetter or moister, this is due to German cockroaches preferences to live in a moist environment.
Cockroach droppings vs mouse droppings
For the untrained eyes, both cockroach and mouse droppings look very similar and hard to differentiate. With a closer look, there are several main differences that can help you tell it apart between cockroach and mouse droppings.
In regard to forms, mouse droppings don’t have ridges the same as cockroach feces. Mouse droppings are larger in size with fine texture and pointy tips – not the same as cockroach droppings with blunt ends.
To emphasize the difference between these two pest excrements: mouse droppings often found to have bits of hairs stuck to it, which is unlikely to be found in cockroach feces.
Where can you find cockroach droppings in your house?
Cockroaches don’t have any specific place to poop, then the cockroach feces or droppings can be practically found anywhere in your house. The easiest way to find cockroach droppings is to look at several spots that are close to their nesting sites (warm and humid places) and where the food sources are available.
Check these common places at your house below to spot the cockroach droppings:
- Kitchen area – inside the cabinets, drawers, under the cooking utensils and behind refrigerators
- Bathroom area – near the drain pipes and behind the sinks or bathroom cabinets
- Laundry area – warm areas near the motors at the back of washing machine
How can you get a disease from cockroach droppings?
Can cockroach droppings make you sick? The short answer to this question is yes.
A cockroach can carry and may spread the disease from its body parts and excrement. Cockroach droppings are one example of cockroach excrement besides their eggs, saliva and the decomposed body parts which are known to develop allergic reactions to humans.
Unlike mosquitoes which can transmit direct vectors of diseases through mechanical transfer, cockroaches act as reservoirs to some harmful pathogens, including salmonella and staphylococcus.
Due to their unsanitary eating habits, cockroaches can pass harmful pathogens through their droppings. When a cockroach feasts on something contaminated, such as a raw piece of chicken or animal feces; the organism will enter and may lay dormant in their digestive system. The pathogen can then be excreted in cockroach droppings and will contaminate surfaces and food wherever they crawl.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are some diseases from cockroaches, which is commonly associated with intestinal diseases, such as:
- Diarrhoea
- Dysentery
- Typhoid fever
- Cholera
Get rid of cockroaches with Rentokil
It’s important to clean up cockroach droppings as soon as you see it around your house. Despite how dangerous cockroach feces are to human health, it’s excrement also acts as pheromones to other cockroaches.
Cockroach droppings contain a chemical signal that is able to gather other cockroaches to join in foraging for a source of food and water. This means you might only see one cockroach roaming around; but have hundreds of others hiding and waiting to get out when the time is right!
The best way to reduce the risk of cockroach-borne diseases is to enlist the help of a professional cockroach control exterminator.
Contact Rentokil online to talk with one of our pest control specialists for advice on eradicating cockroaches at your house.
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