A comparative Analysis of Two Traps in Estimating Cockroach Prevalence in Public Buildings in a Tropical Region

Abstract

Cockroaches are found in residential facilities where they contaminate food and leave a persistent offensive odour. Poisonous aerosols that are used in indoor control of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana have a perfume inert component. The perfume additive does not deter applicators or inhabitants from exiting treated rooms thereby compromising the safety of the user especially for persons with multiple chemical sensitivity disabilities. Baited traps are becoming the preferred control method for household cockroaches due to safety concerns associated with conventional pesticides. Two adopted non-poisonous traps were each set on 17 selected residential sites distributed within 0.7 – 2.8 km from the central business district in Sunyani, Ghana which has a population of 250,000. Three 13-day trapping cycles which were separated by at least 32 days during March to July, 2014 indicated that 5-day old traps were the most attractive(t17 =6.16; P= 0.000015). Total cockroaches trapped at the 17 experimental locations in 90 days were 382 for jar traps and 170 for sticky traps and was significant between the two trap types (t6
= 12.35; P=0.00017). Cockroach population due to: proximity to the central business district, room usage, human presence or proximity, community population and lifestyle had no definite contribution to cockroach prevalence. The key factor that makes washrooms for example have low cockroach infestation than kitchens relates rather to the comparative cleanliness of rooms and availability of food remnants, and extent of garbage storage.