Appreciation post: watched my garage go from roach motel to boring in 3 weeks
I had German roaches so bad in my garage off Buford Highway that I would see 10 or 12 scatter every time I flipped the light on at night. A guy from a local pest company came out, put down gel bait in the hinges and outlets, and told me to stop spraying the store bought stuff because it was just scattering them. Week one I still saw a few, week two it dropped to maybe two, and by week three I flipped the light on and saw nothing but a spider web in the corner. It cost me $180 and honestly the quiet is weird now. Has anyone else had gel bait work that fast, or did mine just finally die off on its own?
Buford Highway is like a roach superhighway, all those restaurants packed together and the bugs just move between buildings when one place gets sprayed. I see this same thing with weeds in my yard. I spray the tops with the store stuff and they pop back up two weeks later because the roots never died. The gel bait works because the roach takes it back to the nest and kills the whole family, not just the ones you see running. That's why the spraying made it worse for you, all it did was push them deeper into the walls where they kept breeding. Week three with no roaches tracks with the bait cycle since it takes a couple weeks to wipe out the colony, so your guy knew what he was doing.