Cockroach Control in Denia, Spain

Abstract:
Dénia (Alicante, Spain) is a middle size city located at the southeastern of the Iberian Peninsula, equidistant between the cities of Alicante and Valencia. It is close to Cape of San Antonio which is the nearest Peninsular point to the Balearic Islands. It has a temperate climate, typically Mediterranean. Given its warm weather Dénia is an eminently tourist city that increase considerably its population in summer, but these climatic conditions also favoured the presence of high cockroaches levels throughout all the year. The anomalous city-planning development and the presence of great number of archaeological rest have determined that it is one of the more complex cities for to carry out a cockroaches control program. Until 1999 only summer treatments were used at the points where citizen complaints about the presence of cockroaches were registered. The null effectiveness of this type of performances make necessary to design a new control program that contemplate regularity in the treatments, adoption of structural measures, active matters rotation and formulates accord with the pest species, focus characteristics, and permanent evaluation of the population levels. The population evolution of cockroaches in Dénia during past 9 years (1999-2007) and the effectiveness of the developed control measures are presented in this study.