Abstract

The German cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.) (Blattodea: Ectobiidae), is a ubiquitous pest in affordable housing. They represent a major threat to human health due to their contribution of asthma-exacerbating allergens and the potential to transfer pathogenic microorganisms indoors. Despite well-documented pyre- throid resistance, pyrethroid-based broadcast residual insecticide products are often used by residents to con- trol cockroaches in their homes. Additionally, there is little empirical independent testing of these products. Thus, it remains unclear how effective these commonly used do-it-yourself products are at controlling German cockroaches. This study represents a comprehensive examination of the efficacy of these products with direct, limited, and continuous exposure assays on a variety of common household surfaces on field populations of cockroaches with varying levels of pyrethroid resistance. While most products performed well when applied directly to test insects, mortality was substantially lower across all surfaces with limited exposure (30 min). In continuous exposure assays on a nonporous surface, products took at least 24 hr to cause 100% mortality in a field population, with some products taking up to 5 d to achieve 100% mortality. The findings of this study demonstrate a lack of residual efficacy from common pyrethroid-based consumer-use pesticides products. Given that it is not feasible to find and treat every cockroach in a home directly, the residuality of spray-based formulations is critical for products designed to control German cockroaches. Without residual efficacy, as shown in the consumer aerosol and spray products tested, we expect these products to add little to no value to cockroach control.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2024

Notes/Citation Information

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toae158

Funding Information

This project was funded by an Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Healthy Homes program (Grant number: KYHHU0061- 20) and partially supported by a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture, AAES Hatch/Multistate Grants ALA015-1-18039 to A. G. A. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily repre- sent the official views of the sponsors.

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