If you’re ready to let cockroaches run amok in your home for a month, you might be able to earn $2,000 on the side. A request for participants for research to investigate the performance of several anti-cockroach treatments was recently made by The Pest Informer, a pest control and media firm located in North Carolina. Participants agree to have roughly 100 American cockroaches released into their property if they join up. The team will test a specific pest elimination strategy over a period of 30 days to see how effective it is.
They will utilize typical cockroach treatment solutions at no extra expense if the infestation is not cleared up by the conclusion of the trial. “With over 20 years of experience as pest control experts and owners of our own pest management firms, we know a thing or two about getting rid of bugs,” the company claimed on its website. “That being said, as technology evolves, we’re always on the lookout for new and improved ways to get rid of pests (particularly cockroaches).”
Although the firm is only looking for five to seven houses to participate in the trial, David Floyd, the company’s owner, told NPR that they’ve already had over 2,500 applications in less than a week. “We’ll be looking at a combination of current popular DIY solutions as well as a handful we’ve come up with ourselves,” Floyd explained, “but we’ll keep these under wraps until our testing is through.”
The biggest species of common cockroach is the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). They are native to Africa and the Middle East, but ships brought the species to the Americas in the 17th century. They’ve been a plague of householders ever since, scurrying within for warmth and food. Cockroaches, which come in thousands of different kinds, are despised for good reason. They carry a variety of infections, including E. coli and salmonella, as well as asthma-inducing allergens.
It appears that the technique of eliminating these pests has recently grown more difficult as well. In some regions of the world, “superbug cockroaches” that are impervious to numerous commonly used bug sprays and pesticides have developed, according to 2019 research. Let’s hope the Pest Informer team realizes they have a lot of work ahead of them…
