Are you inviting pests into your home?

MANILA, Philippines - Moms spend all day taking care of their families and the homes. As they prepare for a good night’s sleep after a long day’s work, the last thing they want to worry about is what lurks in their homes at night. And some of these silent intruders may even bring serious health risks with them.

Moms would never knowingly risk the health of their families. But what they don’t know is that their current kitchen practices may be doing just that. Six out of 10 Filipino households use dishwashing bar solutions, also known as leftover laundry bareta and water, to clean their plates and other kitchen utensils. Although it may seem like bar solutions successfully clean their dishes, many moms do not realize that bar solutions still leave behind food and bar residue. This food and bar residue attracts our silent intruders, cockroaches, which come to feed on this residue.

In a study conducted by the Japan Environmental Science Centre (JESC), cockroaches were released from a simulated shelter onto a table with two plates: one washed with bar solution and the other washed with dishwashing liquid. The results show that the cockroaches were attracted to the plate washed with bar solution, even lingering on the plates as they feed on the food and bar residue. On the other hand, the plate washed with dishwashing liquid stayed clean and untouched by the dirty pests.

Aside from the presence of cockroaches being a concern of cleanliness, it also poses serious health risks. Cockroaches pick up disease-causing germs from trash, toilets, sewers and other dirty places, and carry these germs in their cuticles and gut.   Some of the diseases caused by germs from cockroaches are typhoid fever, cholera, pneumonia, meningitis, and chronic diarrhea. In fact, these diseases are so serious that the Department of Health mandates reporting of occurrence of these diseases within 72 hours. According to the 2005 Department of Health Statistics Report, pneumonia is one of 10 leading causes of morbidity with a total of 690,566 cases every year.

So stop feeding cockroaches. Instead of using a dishwashing bar solution that leaves behind food for cockroaches, use a dishwashing liquid that completely cleans.