Palmetto Bug
Some Very Sound Information Regarding The Palmetto Bug
The palmetto bug is actually a cockroach, the American version to be precise. He is common to the southern portion of North America, heavily infesting such areas as Mexico and Florida. Also known as the water beetle, the palmetto bug prefers moist to wet, cool, dark places and can frequently be found imbedded in faltering foundations and rotting natural debris. Once indoors however, he makes himself quite comfortable with human foods and hiding places. The house is like a wonderland to most roaches, and getting rid of them can be nearly impossible. Though the palmetto bug is not considered as veracious a pest as most other cockroaches are, he carries a known 22 hazardous bacteria and is still responsible for countless squeals and gasps across the country on a daily basis.
Keen for the most part to the dank outdoors, decomposing or biodegrading woods and plant materials near or around the home’s foundation will invite the palmetto bug indoors. Once inside, he finds that human and pet hair, shoes, fecal material, sweets, fingernail clippings, and just about anything else that will sit still is fair game. He may lay wait in your basement or within a crack in the wall beneath your plumbing until the coast is clear, at which time the palmetto bug will happily digest anything in his wake. Along with his eating habits and skills for scaling steep angles, such as those of you table legs, come the dangers of the diseases and bacteria that he leaves behind. When wandering about on your counter tops and tables, the palmetto bug distributes such micro-organisms as found in raw sewage and rotten meats.
As if this weren’t bad enough, the palmetto bug, along with his many direct family members, it is very difficult to kill these roaches off in mass numbers. Should a chemical be launched against them, those who are not killed by it become immune to that particular element, and then passes this immunity directly onto its offspring. By and by, we have created a super bug out of the hardy and plentiful cockroach, and the repercussions can be seen by millions.
In summary, the palmetto bug may be deterred by the absence of natural decomposing materials in your yard. Even those wood shavings and compost which read as pest safe can only be guaranteed for one season. Once these wood products are exposed to the elements for over one year, they become just as vulnerable to palmetto bug infestation as a rotten tree stump is. Chipped decorative woods, shavings, and compost should be completely removed and cleaned up each season. Leaves and grass clippings should also be removed to a far away area.