Burbank's 1940s houses and the pipes beneath them
Census estimates put the median Burbank home at 1959, and the 1940s are the city's biggest building decade: about 10,200 homes, 22% of the 46,200 total, went up then, and 51% of today's homes were built before 1960. About 44% of all homes are detached single-family houses.
With houses that old, much of the risk sits below the floor. UC IPM explains that American cockroaches are common in sewers and water meter boxes and forage into the ground floor of buildings when pipes are damaged, screens are missing or the water traps in drains are faulty. In an older Burbank house, a loose cleanout cap, a dried-out floor drain in the laundry or garage, or a gap where a drain line enters the slab are the openings we expect to find.
Spraying the kitchen will not fix that kind of problem. For American cockroaches we work at the entry points: drains, cleanouts, the garage and the foundation line. We also recommend running water into seldom-used drains so the trap stays full.
Sources: [1][4]
Valley heat and Burbank's summer roach season
Burbank summers run hot. The Western Regional Climate Center's long-term summary for the Burbank Valley Pump weather station (1966–2016) shows average daily highs of 88.3°F in July and 89.0°F in August, compared with about 67 to 68°F in December and January.
UC IPM notes that American cockroaches prefer warm, humid conditions, usually above 82°F, and readily live outdoors when conditions are right. That makes the large reddish roaches most likely to turn up on patios, in garages and at floor drains during Burbank's hot months, usually at night. The Oriental cockroach, which prefers cooler, damp places, is most likely around single-family homes with ivy, ground cover or woodpiles near the walls.
Because these species build up outdoors and wander in, a Burbank inspection covers the yard as well as the house: meter boxes, planting beds against the foundation, door sweeps and the gap under the garage door.
Sources: [2][4]
The other half of Burbank: shared-wall apartments
Burbank is not only houses. About 18,800 homes, 40.6% of the total, are in buildings of five or more units, and 56.7% of households rent. In those buildings the species we expect is the German cockroach, which UC IPM describes as the most common indoor cockroach in California, especially in multi-unit housing, and which can spread through a building when an infestation is severe.
LA County Environmental Health inspects apartment buildings of five or more units, and responds to complaints about smaller ones, for health code violations that include vermin such as cockroaches. Burbank is not among the cities the county lists as outside its housing authority, so a tenant whose landlord does not respond can reach the county at (888) 700-9995. For owners, we plan treatment unit by unit or across the building and leave a written record of every visit.
Sources: [1][4][3]
