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Cockroaches love water. In fact they need it to survive. Did you know they can go 1 week without water? This means eliminating water sources is really important in having a roach free home!
A lot of homes have drippy faucets in the kitchen, bathtub shower heads, bathtub spouts and bathroom sinks. The average American household wastes 10,000 gallons of water in water leaks, which is about 270 loads of laundry! At first, you may just think it’s annoying and maybe even postpone fixing it. I get it, because I’ve been there. But you MUST fix these leaks. Especially if you have roaches.
Aside from preventing roaches from coming back, once you fix your water leaks – you will save a whopping 10% of your water bill. There is a cool tool that will show you how much water you are wasting by entering the number of drips per minute. Click here to check it out!
MY LEAKY BATHTUB
I had a drip coming from my shower head and also my bathtub spout. I let this go on for several weeks, until my cockroach infestation began! I remember walking in there at night, and all these cockroaches were all over the tub! It was insane, there was like a cockroach pool party going on. Who knew roaches could swim (or float)? I knew that if I wanted to completely eliminate those nasty roaches I had to fix these leaks.
The drip of the shower head was pretty easy to fix. I had an old shower head and once these shower heads get old, it’s pretty common for them to start leaking. I ended up buying this one:
Bath Shower Head
I love it. Our bathroom is old, but this shower head makes taking a shower so much nicer. I remember with the old shower head, the water pressure wasn’t strong enough, and I thought I was going to have to call a plumber to adjust the water pressure in the home, but it was as simple as just replacing the shower head. Once I replaced it (which was really easy to do), I eliminated the leak and also benefited with great water pressure and a lot of different water pressure settings!
Then I had the leak in the bathtub spout. Again, these leaks are really common if your bathtub is old. I had a plumber come check this leak out and he told me that he had to break into the wall, because most likely it was the pipe in the wall that had to be fixed. It was a big job and I told him that I had to think about it. I couldn’t believe all the money I was going to have to spend to fix this leak, but then I spoke with several of my friends and did a lot of research.
It turns out HE WAS WRONG. The majority of the leaks from the bath tub occur in the bathtub spout or the bathtub handle and NOT behind the wall!
I first opened up my bathtub spout and even though the leak was dripping from there, the problem was not there. It was actually coming from the handle. I opened up the handle, but there was a special tool that you need to get and I didn’t have it. Also, once you open it up, you may need to change the parts in there and each brand has their own special parts, which means you have to go to a specialized plumbing parts story and buy the exact part.
Bath Handle Open
I figured I would just hire a plumber to do it. By the way, if you are good DIY or handyman, then go for it, but i’m a beginner and I felt more comfortable hiring a plumber.
When the plumber came, I had done so much research that I explained to him what I thought the problem was. This was basically for him to know that I knew something and so that he wouldn’t take advantage of me and overcharge me. The plumber I hired was awesome. I watched him the whole time and asked him questions.
Bath Plumber
He opened up my handle and indeed confirmed what I thought. There was actually a small washer that had cracked and it was causing the leak. So he popped in a small tiny washer back and my leak stopped! A shady plumber may have told me that I had to change the entire parts in there, which can cost jut $70 for the part. But this plumber was honest and put in like a 10 cent washer. The overally cost for the plumber was $80. I was so happy I called him.
The roaches stopped coming from the tub after this was fixed. There was no more leaking water.
So if you have a leak in your house, fix it as quickly as you can. Not only will you save money, but this will help prevent the roaches from coming back!
