Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, went to your kitchen to get some water, and found cockroaches lingering in your dishwasher?
It’s no longer new to us, but we should never get used to it. It’s disgusting, isn’t it?
Cockroaches in the dishwasher probably have run through your entire kitchen where tableware, utensils, and foods are kept. What if they went over your food too? That’s indeed a problem.
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To address this infestation, this article will help you know why cockroaches stay in the dishwasher, how to deal with them, how to prevent them from coming, and what are ways to eliminate them.
Why Are There Cockroaches in the Dishwasher?
To answer this question, you must first ask “What are cockroaches’ preferred places?”.
For sure, they see your dishwasher as a comfortable place where they can benefit from it.
Cockroaches like to stay in warm temperature areas. Aside from this, your dishwasher has lots of characteristics that cockroaches like. A dishwasher has humid, moist, water and small food particles so when it’s not in use, cockroaches grab the opportunity to make it their temporary shelter.
Uncleanliness is also a great factor in why cockroaches like to stay in a certain location in your home. Therefore, it is important to always keep your kitchen clean. Yes, there’s a possibility that these roaches would invade your refrigerator or your microwave as well.
And, make sure that you thoroughly clean it because the food and grease residue can still attract cockroaches and other pests.
How do Cockroaches Get into the Dishwasher?
If you see cockroaches lingering around the dishwasher, they may be waiting for an opportunity to enter their desired place.
Keeping your dishwasher open welcomes cockroaches, especially when there are unrinsed food residues from tablewares, kitchenwares, and utensils. Cockroaches can smell the leftover food particles and they will surely trace where it’s coming from.
If you’ll set aside cleaning your kitchen, expect the presence of other pests coming out of nowhere. Pests like rats could crawl their way up to your appliances like how cockroaches do.
However, it is ideal to keep the dishwasher’s door open. Air is essential inside in order to prevent mildew formation, which is not a good thing for the stuff we use for eating.
But, don’t worry, keeping your dishwasher’s door closed is not the only way to solve your problem. There is a more important and highly effective way to get cockroaches out of the way- cleanliness.
How to Deal with Cockroaches in the Dishwasher
When you find even just one cockroach inside your dishwasher, you don’t need to have second thoughts.
Immediately rewash all the dishes because you can’t easily determine if they are contaminated with the roaches’ excrement and saliva.
Always remember that it’s much better to be sure than to risk your family’s health by using those tablewares.
How to Clean the Dishwasher
- The first thing you need to do in cleaning your dishwasher is to remove all the food residues using a toothbrush or a toothpick. The filter is where you can find most of the leftover food particles.
- Remove the filter, utensil holders, and dishwasher racks. Then, soak them in warm water with 1 cup of vinegar for a minimum of 30 minutes.
- Get a piece of cloth or a paper towel to wipe the dishwasher’s spray arm and walls, especially its corners, cracks, and crevices, which can be difficult to thoroughly clean.
- Moreover, you should use vinegar instead of soap when washing the whole interior of the dishwasher. Run it on a hot water cycle. The dishwasher-safe bowl or cup containing vinegar must be placed on the bottom of the dishwasher.
- What’s good about vinegar is that it can be easily found in anyone’s kitchen so you won’t need additional expense, and it is proven effective in removing grease and sanitizing the entire dishwasher.
How to Prevent Cockroaches from Entering the Dishwasher
The best solution to a dishwasher cockroach infestation is cleanliness. Hence, you must clean your dishwasher regularly. After you eat, wash the dishes right away.
Prolonging the dirty dishes leads to dirt sticking in the machine without being noticed. These food and grease residues’ smell matched with the moisture and humidity serves as an invitation to cockroaches.
How to Make Sure Cockroaches Won’t Return to Your Dishwasher
There is a big possibility that cockroaches only discovered your dishwasher because they were first attracted by your entire kitchen.
That being said, you need to check your kitchen’s situation. Food is already given. But, if your kitchen is too messy and unorganized, you may need to conduct a thorough cleaning operation.
How to Clean Your Kitchen to Avoid Cockroaches
Here are the steps you can follow in order to clean your kitchen so the cockroaches will dislike it.
- In cleaning your kitchen, you need to remove all the unnecessary stuff. We usually keep things with the thought “I might need this later” until we notice them piling up.
- This kind of mess is what cockroaches prefer. With this, it will be easier for them to hide so you won’t notice them fastly multiplying, especially during the daytime.
- After removing the extra mess, wipe down the stovetop, counters, and walls. You can use a wet towel or a sponge for this.
- Throw all the trash and clean the trashbin’s location. Make sure that starting from then, you will always keep the trash bin closed.
- Don’t give cockroaches easy access to your food. Keep them covered, stored in containers, or placed inside the refrigerator.
- Don’t let unwashed dishes stay longer in the sink or inside the dishwasher.
- You can also pour a thin line of boric acid in your kitchen area especially around the dishwasher. The boric acid, when ingested, attacks the cockroaches’ nervous system.
- You can also use bay leaves for roaches to keep them away.
Why it is Important to Eliminate Cockroaches in the Dishwasher
Cockroaches like to stay in warm, dirty, and messy areas. So, the cockroaches in your dishwasher most probably have gone to dirty places first.
Because of this, they carry lots of diseases which can be transferred to the tablewares and kitchen wares that your whole family uses.
When people ingest the cockroaches’ saliva and excrement, they may experience dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid fever, plague, leprosy, and cholera.
Conclusion
Cockroaches do no good, especially to our dishes. So, infestation in the dishwasher must be combatted immediately.
Cleaning and organizing must be done from time to time so they won’t see it as a good environment to stay.
Save yourselves from these pests, eradicate the cockroaches in your dishwasher through cleanliness.
You have to make sure that you don’t let these buggers get inside your house, especially your kitchen!
Stay Safe!
