My landlord is exterminating my apartment complex?

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Chinessa

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 23, 2012
Messages
65
Location
North Carolina
Okay, so I've run into an issue. My neighbor (she actually lives in an apartment upstairs from me) has been having really bad problems with cockroaches in her apartment. Luckily, I do not have this issue. She told me today that our landlord is going to exterminate our whole building sometime next week. Once she figures out a time, she's going to let everyone in the building know and everyone will have to leave for some time.

Here's my issue. I'm not sure what to do with my chinchilla, my ball python, and my two crested geckos. Obviously, they will come with me when everyone has to leave the building. But what about their cage/tanks? I've never had to deal with fumigation or whatever it is they do to kill bugs, but it freaks me out! I don't even want to have any of my stuff in the apartment when it happens! What about my cookware, etc? My chin's cage is pretty large, about 4 feet tall and too heavy for me to carry by myself. If necessary, I will remove her cage from my apartment (as well as the herp's tanks). The only thing that sucks is that I don't have anywhere nearby to put all of them! My boyfriend lives 30 minutes from here, and I don't mind having all of the pets live with him for a week or so. It'll just be some work. If my neighbor hadn't told me about this, I probably wouldn't have known until the day before! I have class and other things I do throughout the day, how on earth would I have been able to get everything cleared out by then!?

I guess I'm just looking for advice on what to do. Have any of you had experience with this? Is it safe to leave their cages in my apartment? I don't know if I would even feel comfortable with that even if it is safe...
 
That's a great question! You probably should take all the cages and tanks with you just so you don't have to scrub off the residue later on. It may be a good idea to wipe everything down if you leave the cages there. I'm so sorry! :(

As for the cookware, that sounds horrible! You will probably want to wash all your clean dishes and pots and pans before you use them again. (You just made the OCD crazy person inside me twitch!)

I remember taking all the cages out completely when they just sprayed our apartment for bugs about a bajillion years ago when I first adopted chins. I'd probably go insane if they did a full fumigation.
 
I work as an exterminator so maybe I can help with your problem. First it would be nice for me to know what type of roaches are being treated for, but since I can't see or talk to the tenants who have them, I will assume they have german roaches which are very commonly found in apartments. Treatment for german roaches is not a fumigation. Fumigation is something that is done for termites or other wood destroying pests. If you've ever seen a house that was tented, that was a fumigation. Treatment for german roaches is most likely going to consist of a liquid spray and/or bait. The technician will likely spend the majority of their time treating the units which are actively seeing a problem. This means all the cabinets in their kitchen and bathroom areas will be treated, and most likely they will spray the baseboard areas throughout the rest of the apartment. I can only guess as to what pesticides they may use, but assuming they know what they are doing, they are not likely to use a fogging agent of any sort. Fogging fills the entire air space but it is not a very practical treatment for roaches as it repels them into other areas which they may have not been residing already. This is what is important for you to find out prior to the service being done. If they are planning to fog, you will definitely want to remove all the animals from the apartment. Fogging leaves no residual so cleaning of cages and equipment would not be necessary. Again though, I highly doubt they will want to fog the apartment. If they plan to bait, the bait goes into cracks and crevices in the cabinets or other areas in the kitchen and bathroom areas. Baiting is expensive and time consuming, and I doubt they will bother with it. But if they do bait, there should be nothing to worry about in regards to the animals or their equipment. No what is most likely going to happen is they are going to spray all the units with some sort of pesticide. There is a bunch of choices for what they may use, but the technique is going to be the same no matter what. They will focus on doing a crack and crevice spray in the kitchen and bathrooms, then they will spray baseboards in areas that are easily accessible. They are almost certain to be using 1 gallon hand held sprayers for this application and the sprayers only spray out a fan or pin stream. The sprays are directional and are easily controlled. There is little chance that a technician would spray in a room which housed pets, instead it would be avoided all together. If you want to be extra safe though, move the cages to the center of the room so they are as far away from the baseboards as possible. You can always ask to talk to the technician who will be performing the service. It's pretty common for people to ask us to avoid spraying a room because there is a pet in the room. Another option would be to put the pets in a bedroom (one without an attached bathroom) and just keep the door shut. Tell the technician, or leave a note stating that the room is not to be sprayed due to pets. Again, that would only work so long as they are not fogging. If you'd like further advice, send me a PM and I can go over everything with you.
 
oh yeah, and as for the cookware, since your unit is not having issues, you may not be asked to do this, but they may ask you to take everything out of all your kitchen and bathroom cabinets so that they are completely empty. If that happens, its because they want to spray or bait. You'd have to move everything to the center of the living room, setting things down on the floor is fine, and if you like you can throw a blanket over top of everything, (although its not really necessary since the sprays are directional and low volume, but it makes people feel more at ease) You won't need to wash anything, and you certainly shouldn't scrub the cabinets or anything afterward. Scrubbing things just removes the barrier and renders the pest service completely ineffective. Once the spray dries you have nothing to worry about, just don't put your dishes and food away before the spray dries.
 
Jeremiah...thanks for explaining that! :) I don't allow bugs into my house, I keep them out by sheer will (I know I am crazy) but this could help me so much in the future, you have no idea! You are awesome, thank you so much!!! :D
 
Thanks for the education Jeremiah! No need for it here at this time but it is great info to have.
 
Thanks so much, Jeremiah!! That made me feel a lot better. :D Now I'll know what to ask the technician when they are here. Anything to do with chemicals tends to freak me out, haha.

If you want, I'll let you guys know what goes on when they do treat the place.
 
A while a go, in a different apartment, I went through pretty much the exact same thing you are. The upstairs apartment was infested with cockroaches after someone moved out. They treated the upstairs apartment completely and sprayed the bathroom and kitchen in my apartment. I was there while they sprayed and talked with the guy. He said that since we let the chins out in the living room he wouldn't spray in there even though he didn't think the spray would harm them. It put me at ease talking to the guy, before that I was freaking out about it.
 
We get our house treated every 3 months for roaches and some other bugs. I freaked our exterminator out the first time he came over and I told him I think we have a rodent problem (he laughed quite a bit when he saw the chins).

Other than that and not allowing them to chew the baseboards while the chemicals are wet, the pest control guy told me everything was fine. But, as has been pointed out, I'm sure it depends on the chemicals used.
 
When I lived at my mom's house there was a major German cockroach infestation. An exterminator came to spray my room and I told him not to, because of my chinchillas. He swore that they would not be affected and sprayed the floor around their cage. Being young (and obviously naive) I hadn't thought to remove them from the house. Around an hour after the exterminator left, my chinchilla starting convulsing. It was then that I removed him from the house and he continued seizing for a few hours. I am glad to say he survived and is still as spunky as ever. I'm sure the chemicals are harmless when dry, but toxic when wet (and not just to the touch.)
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences, guys. I guess as long as I take Abbey and the rest of the gang with me, we should be fine. You all have definitely calmed my nerves!
 
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