Cockroaches
Cockroaches Above Finchley's Food Shops
The High Road through North Finchley and the parades on Ballards Lane have shops at street level and flats above, and many of the shops handle food. A commercial kitchen runs hot for most of the day, and the pipes, flues and ducts that serve it pass up through the building. Warmth and moisture rise with them. German cockroaches in particular live close to that heat and can move along pipework into the kitchen or bathroom of the flat above. How cockroaches get into properties covers the routes.
Why the flat upstairs is affected
The flat above a shop often has its kitchen or bathroom directly over the shop's, with the waste pipes stacked. Gaps where those pipes pass through the floor, and the boxing around them, are sheltered and warm. You may see cockroaches at night near the sink, the boiler or the back of the fridge, even though your own kitchen is spotless. Whether cockroaches mean a property is dirty answers that worry.
Rare in Finchley houses
It is worth being honest: a self-contained Victorian terrace or interwar semi on a residential street is rarely where cockroaches settle. When one does turn up in a house, it has usually come in with deliveries, a second-hand appliance or luggage. A large dark beetle in the garden or a ground-floor room is often a ground beetle rather than a cockroach. If you are unsure, a photo helps before booking. A flat in a purpose-built block with no shop below is somewhere in between: less likely than a flat over a takeaway, but more likely than a house, because pipes and heating run between the flats.
Signs in a Flat Over a Shop
- Cockroaches seen at night around the sink, the cooker or the boiler
- Small dark droppings like ground pepper along the backs of shelves
- Brown egg cases in tight gaps behind the fridge or in the boxing around pipes
- A musty smell in the cupboard where the pipes come up from below
The signs of a cockroach infestation explains each one, and German and Oriental cockroaches helps you tell which you have. Droppings that look more like rice grains point to mice instead.
What to Do Now
- Tell your landlord or agent, and if you own the flat, the freeholder, since the source may be the shop below
- Keep food in sealed containers and do not leave washing up or pet food out overnight
- Fix dripping taps and wipe up water around the sink before bed
- Avoid shop sprays, which can scatter cockroaches into the pipe voids
Booking Cockroach Control for a Flat
When you book, say that you live above a shop and what kind of business it is, which rooms you see cockroaches in, and whether neighbouring flats have mentioned them. Clear the cupboards under the sink and next to the cooker, and pull out the fridge if you can. How quickly it settles depends on the flat and on what is happening below; why you may still see cockroaches explains what is normal. Get back in touch if numbers are not dropping.
Food businesses
If you run a food shop, café or takeaway in Finchley, commercial premises are quoted per site, so contact us with the type of business and what you have seen. Treating the shop and the flat above around the same time gives the best chance of it not coming back. Rat control in Finchley covers the yards and bins behind parades. The borough-wide page is Cockroach Control Barnet.
