Using pesticides around my pet rabbit

Question
Are you able to provide me on any advice regarding using pesticides in my rabbit's room ?  I live in a block of flats and my rabbit, Button, has her own room which is large,  rabbit friendly and which I keep as clean as possible. However, there are two air-vents on the bottom of the one wall and I have noticed there are roaches which appear to be living in these vents.  They come out at night and eat her food. Although I have been aware of this i have not reached the point where I have felt that drastic action needs to be taken, up to this point. I live in a very tropical climate with a lot of night humidity and last night when I went in there were quite a few milling around and I fear what I thought was just the occassional problem, may have escalated.  I do keep her room as clean as possible and clean her litter box every day, but they are there for her food, which I cannot remove at nights.  I really need to do something now as they are just going to continue to multiply. How do other people deal with this.  Would I be able to spray the vents and, if so, how long would Button have to be removed from the area before she can go back in.  Please let me know if you can help.

Answer
Hi,

I believe you will have only limited success if you cannot store her food away.  She should be eating hay, do the roaches eat the hay?  If she has a big hopper feeder you need to change the way you feed her, and only give her enough pellets for a meal, so that nothing is left to attract the roaches.

When your rabbit is in her cage for the night, put sticky traps out (lots) as they are active at night.  Replace as needed.  only take them up when your rabbit is out ofthe cage exercising.  Keep track of how many you are catching each day and track the numbers.

Spray roaches you see with a bottle of soapy water,  this will kill them in a few minutes.  

Mix a solution of a quart of water and the juice of two lemons and their rinds together.  Wash floors and spray into your ducts and vents and this will help repel them.  I'd probably take some straight lemon juice and wipe down baseboards, holes, and floor right around the vents, on the vents, even lightly over carpet if that's near the vent.  Clean off the rabbit's cage with the solution.

Catnip is a natural roach repellant and is safe for rabbits (it has a mellowing effect on some rabbits).

If you can get a steam device that you can get steam into the areas where they live you can kill them with steam.  I'd try to steam the heck out of those vents and make sure the vents are sealed and the ductwork was sealed.  I'd probably steam clean the carpet and her bedding as there may be eggs that are present.

You need to repair any cracks or holes that they may be coming in through. Caulking works good and is paintable.

You may be able to spray the vents with a roach killer spray and not have it envelope the whole room.  I'd probably keep her in another room while doing this and wait a day before bringing her back.  That way you could really go at them and also steam 'em or get them and then saturate the area with the lemon juice mixtures, and keep the sticky traps out.

Lee