A favourite holiday hotspot for Brits is battling a serious invasion of cockroaches which are immune to insecticides. Holidaymakers have been finding them in their hotel rooms as staff are overwhelmed with the problem which is worse this year.
And ‘super cockroach’ breeds which can fly up the the fifth floor of hotels have been spotted too, an expert explained.
CNN Greece reported that Professor of Agricultural Pharmacology at the Agricultural University of Athens, Elias Kioulos who said insect population had exploded. He said: “They have become more resistant to doses of insecticides that previously might have neutralized them. In the past, professionals would spray an area and get rid of them, now they have to spray again in a month.”
He explained they have now developed resistance to sprays. There are five main species of cockroach responsible – including the American and the German. Prof Kioulos said: “We are seeing the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) to a greater extent, a large cockroach that is a resident of sewers and the sewage system and which has great flying ability, as it can fly up to the 5th floor.”
At the same time, there is an “equally large species, the so-called oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis) which is darker in appearance. It mainly prefers old cesspools in villages but also areas that may have greenery and foliage. “In eastern Attica, this species is quite common and can coexist with the American cockroach in the sewage system”. In this case, at least, the female does not fly.
Prof Kioulos added: “A smaller species that we often observe is the German cockroach (Blattella), which mainly infests professional spaces. Catering has an extremely big problem,” he points out. “It is a small cockroach, but it has a much greater reproductive potential than the others, with its egg sac containing from 36 to 40 eggs, while the other species have from 16 to 20 eggs.
Two more species are being reported with greater frequency in Greece. The first species is a small cockroach that resembles the German, which according to Mr Kiulos is called brown banded and is found mainly indoors.
The second is also a brown cockroach called (supella longipalpa) and can even be found in bedrooms, mainly because it is being forced out of kitchens by the German cockroach. Its food is food scraps, but precisely because it is being displaced, it hides and looks for food in the drawers of the room.
The “key” to dealing with cockroaches is extremely meticulous cleanliness. “Restaurants where the kitchens work non-stop and the “hidden” spots where they hide food for cockroaches or the construction of the counters that favor the creation of shelters for these insects are a basic source of their survival,” explains the professor.
Therefore, poor cleaning is a key point in preventing their development.