Bought a house and found an old infestation that was never cleaned
Home buying has been a roller coaster of emotions. I just closed a week ago and found remnants of what used to be a severe roach infestation in my kitchen, garage and partially master bath that was not disclosed to me before hand. (Apparently it wasn’t legally required since it wasn’t an active infestation) There doesn’t seem to be any live roaches left but now I’m having to do severely extensive cleanup. Every nook and cranny I look in I’m finding dozens of dead German roaches, roach poop and eggs sacs. I had it professionally cleaned a few days ago, but I’m still finding hidden spots they missed.
My main question is how can I be more thorough than I’ve been without remodeling the kitchen? It’s out of budget but I feel so gross moving my food and cooking things in this space.
So far we’ve moved all appliances and cleaned and scrubbed base boards behind there, cleaned and scrubbed every single cabinet, including taking drawers out and scrubbing rails, cracks and all interior hard to reach spots.
We are taking out cubby baseboards (bottom cabinet parts that connect to floor) to scrub behind there next and will need to do a ton of caulking.
Next is figuring out which appliances are salvageable… The refrigerator really grosses me out. I see dry egg sacs in the clear plastic part where the water dispenses so we’ll probably just get rid of it. But should I take apart the oven? Would I find dozens of dead roaches in the back area? The microwave? The dishwasher? I’m feeling so overwhelmed thinking all of these appliances need to be replaced.
Thank you in advance