German roaches have a reputation for being the worst of the worst when it comes to cockroach problems. And with so much focus on the adults, you might assume that a baby German roach or two is the least of your worries, But…

Cue dramatic music…

These terrible, tiny pests are the most telling sign of an established—and growing infestation.

When it comes to the baby German cockroach, step one is identifying them, and steps 2 through “whatever-it-takes,” are getting rid of them.

Let’s get started.

What Do German Cockroach Babies Look Like?

Take your worst nightmare and shrink it down to half the size of a ladybug. Flat, oval-shaped and six-legged: that’s your baby German cockroach.

They’re usually dark brown to black in color but newly hatched and molting nymphs are soft and white as their fresh exoskeletons harden. Older nymphs look more and more like adults, eventually growing wings in the final stage before adulthood.

Even as a baby, a German roach’s antennae are longer than its body, and it carries a pair of sensory appendages called cerci it will use throughout its life. Baby German roaches already feature their signature pattern: a pair of parallel black bands that begin behind their heads and run the rest of the length of their bodies. You might need a magnifying glass to see them but they’re there.

How big are they?

These tiny terrorizing bugs don’t look like much more than little beetles when they’re babies. Unlike larger species like American cockroaches, German roaches and their babies are extremely tiny—less than half an inch long for the adults and mere millimeters (the size of small grains of rice) when first born. You’ve probably seen ants that are the same size.

The Nymphal Stage: Tiny Baby Roaches to Big Adult Problem

Young roaches are called nymphs from the time they’re born until they reach adulthood. As a baby cockroach matures during the nymphal stage, it sheds its exoskeleton over and over, each time growing a new, larger one. Baby German roaches molt 5–6 times over a period of 50–60 days.

Fun (or really, not so fun) fact: A baby cockroach molts by gulping air until its body expands enough to breaks open its old exoskeleton.

When they finally reach adulthood, they begin searching for a mate. German roaches simply don’t waste any time—they start reproducing just days after becoming adults.

Baby German cockroaches are a health hazard.

They don’t bite. They don’t sting. So why are they a problem?

German cockroaches carry bacteria from all of the unsavory places they venture into—pipes, gutters, walls, dumpsters and more. They can spread that bacteria on food and cooking surfaces, bringing diseases and allergens into your home.

While a single cockroach might not be a problem, the real threat comes from the fact that cockroaches are seldom loners.

Does the Presence of German Cockroach Babies Necessarily Mean an Infestation?

There is nothing cute about a baby cockroach. German roaches, in particular, are one of the most notorious household pests in the world. Seeing even one nymph is reason to be worried.

Why? These roaches breed continuously, producing offspring all year long.

One egg capsule from a single female German cockroach contains 30-40 eggs! When they’re ready to hatch, cockroach nymphs emerge as independent bugs, ready to fend for and feed themselves. A colony can jump from a few roaches to hundreds in a matter of months.

Baby roaches don’t venture far from their nest. Put it this way—if baby roaches are surviving well, it means the adults had an easy time finding food sources and a hiding place where they could lay their eggs.

Which brings us to…

What are German roaches (of any stage) attracted to?

German roaches are attracted to damp or humid areas. Exterminators have treated infestations in basements, attics, closets and bedrooms. They can thrive almost anywhere there’s enough moisture available.

Their favorite habitats, though, are kitchens and bathrooms. German roaches usually hide during the day in cupboards, crevices and behind appliances, only emerging at night to scavenge for food on floors and countertops. Seeing baby roaches in the kitchen? It’s a better than good bet they’re German.

Other Signs of a German cockroach infestation

Maybe you’re not sure if you’ve seen a baby German cockroach because it scurried under the refrigerator so quickly. These are a few other signs you might have an infestation:

1. Cockroach droppings
2. A stale, musty odor
3. Egg cases or molted skins
4. Dead roaches

Depending on the species (and German roaches are one of these) roach droppings look like tiny black specks gathered on the floor or in a cabinet. You might mistake it for coffee grounds if it weren’t for the musty odor. That odor sticks to surfaces and food they’ve touched, too.

German cockroach egg cases look like tiny, quarter-inch purses or capsules. They’re dark brown and show that the roaches are already laying eggs and hatching. Dead roaches might seem like a good sign but it could mean there are more than could fit in the nest.

German Cockroach Nymphs in Your Home: What It Means

Baby cockroaches are about as bad a sign as you can find. See, finding a big brown adult cockroach could mean you’ve just caught one lonely wanderer. Finding baby roaches signals that, at the very least, there are a few adults nearby and they’re ready to reproduce again.

Once you find baby German cockroaches, it’s time to act… fast. In about two months, those babies will be fully developed and ready to start having babies of their own. Don’t give them the chance.

Getting Rid of Baby German Cockroaches: No Holds Barred

The moment of truth. If you’ve read this far, chances are you’re sweating, stressed and dreading what we’re about to say. But we’re not here to scare you; we’ve got the facts and proven advice for getting rid of them.

Fact #1: You can get rid of baby German cockroaches for good. They’re resilient, clever and stubborn but they’re not unstoppable.

That’s the good news. The bad news…

Are they hard to get rid of?

The German cockroach is Public Enemy #1 for homeowners and pest controllers for a reason: they’re tough to exterminate. They grow quickly and, worse, they have dozens of babies each time they lay an egg case.

Fact #2: They thrive on just a little food, a lot of moisture and a good hiding place. Even the cleanest homes are at risk.

How long does it take to get rid of them?

Be prepared. Taking on baby cockroaches yourself is going to take awhile. You’ll need to search, clean, carefully place baits along with other treatments. and then monitor the effects.

It can be done though, and if you’re ready to try, see “How to Get Rid of German Roaches Step-by-Step” for a complete guide.

You could also hire a professional exterminator who could eliminate a cockroach infestation in 2–3 weeks. That’s usually enough time for the pesticides to work their way through the colony and stop the adult roaches from reproducing.

Hiring a pro will be more expensive, but will also eliminate the dirty work!

How do you get rid of roaches fast?

We cover a variety of all-natural and DIY cockroach control methods that have the potential to eliminate infestations. However, the most effective, fastest solution to a baby German roach problem is to use pesticides.

Whether you choose baits or a spray, these products are designed to kill roaches individually, introduce insect growth regulator to render them infertile, and take down entire roach colonies at a time. When it’s time to get serious about pests, don’t take chances.

Baits are the best German cockroach killers.

Baits may be your best bets against German roaches, not because they’re as fast as kill-on-contact sprays, but because they spread their active ingredient from roach to roach, packing a much harder punch against medium- or large-sized infestations.

When you’re dealing with baby roaches, you have to treat the problem like it’s an already-established infestation. Using sticky cockroach traps can help you gauge the size of the colony and narrow your search for the nest.

Baits should be used in concentrated amounts and in specific areas where German roaches most likely walk. Use your knowledge of their habits—target areas where you think they’re going for food and water.

You can include natural cockroach killers in your extermination plan, too.

Fact #3: Both food-grade diatomaceous earth, boric acid and borax work as effective insecticides against adult and baby German cockroaches.

Keeping German Cockroaches Away

You’ve dealt with baby German cockroaches once; you don’t want to do it again. For everything from cleaning, sealing and repair tips to the essential oil smells that cockroaches hate, don’t miss our complete guide to keeping cockroaches away for good.

Conclusion

When we’re talking cockroaches, bad things tend to come in small packages. German cockroaches are the worst species to find in your home, and seeing even a single baby German cockroach is a likely sign of infestation.

But with this information and help from your local exterminator, you can get back to your cockroach-free life.

You’ve got this!

Written by Andrew Martin. Reviewed by Rae Osborn, PhD.

Disclaimer: This page is strictly for informational use. When using insecticides, keep in mind—the label is the law. Insecticides should be applied correctly and safely when needed, and according to the laws of your state or country.

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Sources

1. Ross, Mary H. and Donald E. Mullins (1995) Understanding and Controlling German Cockroaches: Biology. Oxford University Press.
2. German Cockroach: Biology, Identification, Control (2013) NC State Extension. Retrieved from https://entomology.ces.ncsu.edu/german-cockroach/

To the surprise of no one who has ever lived in Texas, it’s one of the “roachiest” areas in the entire United States.

With multiple climates, many of which are pretty close to “cockroach heaven,” and weather events that are kind of like “cockroach hell” (floods and heat waves tend to drive roaches into nearby homes), Texas is not a place well suited to folks who can’t get at least a little used to having these bugs around.

Does that mean your home has to be stuck with a Texas cockroach infestation? Absolutely not.

Let’s take a look at roaches in Texas and nail down the best ways to get rid of them.

Types of Roaches in Texas

American Cockroach

About

The biggest roach gets the most nicknames. Whether you know it as a tree roach, a palmetto bug, a wood roach, or Cockroach Rex (a current favorite of ours), the American cockroach is one monster of a bug.

Appearance

If you were to hold a ruler to a random Texas cockroach and found it well, really big—this is the roach it would be.

American roaches are oval-shaped and flat, with spiny legs, long wings and long antennae. They’re reddish-brown in color and often feature a yellow ring behind their heads. With the distinctive color of their wings and their often massive size, American roaches are easy to ID.

Habits

American cockroaches don’t mind living outdoors most of the time, where they live comfortably in harmless places like compost, trees, and decaying logs, as well as some of the worst places—storm drains, city dumpsters, and sewer systems.

However, they’re quite happy indoors, too, where they’ll nest in basements, boiler rooms, kitchens, and other spaces with lots of moisture.

Flight

While there are actually four kinds of flying roaches in Texas, the American roach is the one everyone remembers—and with good reason. With a wingspan up to four inches, the American roach looks huge mid-air, makes a flutter you can hear, and has a bad habit of flying right toward you. (sometimes landing right on you).

German Cockroach

About

Of the various types of cockroaches in Texas, German cockroaches usually do the greatest harm. Like a video gone viral, once German roaches take hold somewhere, they’ll spread and spread until they’re everywhere.

Appearance

Tiny and light brown, German cockroaches are among the smallest roaches, and partly because of that, often go unnoticed until an infestation is widespread.

Aside from its tiny size, you’ll know a German cockroach by the distinctive dark stripes running down its back. Most visible on the cowl behind its head, the markings appear bolder and thicker on younger roaches that haven’t yet grown wings to cover them.

Habits

German cockroaches can squeeze into tiny crevices with their flat bodies and leave behind dozens of eggs at a time. They prefer well-hidden, tightly confined spaces near lots of food and water. In most homes, that means a concentration of them in kitchen and pantry areas, with a seething, filthy nightmare often brewing in the spaces behind and underneath the fridge.

Most roaches actually prefer to live outdoors, but not the German cockroach. Texas droughts, floods, and searing temperatures never touch them because they always live indoors, and always inside human structures.

Though also technically a flying cockroach, Texas residents won’t see them do it often. What they will see is the damage this evil Texas cockroach does. They get into everything, defiling open food, and leaving cockroach droppings everywhere they go. They also spread disease.

Oriental Cockroach

About

With its striking, shiny black exoskeleton, the Oriental cockroach is one of the most distinctive and easily identified roaches in Texas. With its seriously potent stink (you will smell them), it’s one of the strangest too.

Appearance

At about 1.25 inches in length, Oriental roaches are mid-sized insects. They’re rounder than German or brown-banded roaches and have shorter antennae.

To identify the Oriental cockroach, first look for its jet black color, then look for wings. If wings are short or nonexistent (and it’s not a wingless cockroach baby from another species), you’re probably looking at an Oriental.

Habits

Oriental roaches live in cool, damp areas. You’ll find them in basements, garages, bathrooms, laundry rooms and along the perimeter of your house.

Much less agile than other species, slow-moving Oriental roaches feed on crumbs from the floor and find shelter under appliances. These bugs don’t fly or climb; you might catch one in the shower at night or as it explores your basement.

Brown-banded

About

Brown-banded cockroaches should head straight to East Austin because they’re the hipsters of the cockroach scene. Refusing to act like other roach species, they don’t like moisture, don’t like doing things at ground level, and regularly (if they’re males) fly to high-up hiding places.

Appearance

The brown-banded roach is named after the signature set of brown bands that cross its back. Its body is light brown to tan in color while the stripes are typically dark brown.

These roaches are nearly as small as German cockroaches and can be just as nasty to find in your home.

Habits

Being the moisture-hating outliers that they are, brown-banded cockroaches enjoy drier areas of Texas and prefer higher elevations.

They’ll nest in ceilings and attics, hide beneath roof shingles and even attach their egg cases behind wall decorations.

Asian Cockroach

About

It might sound like we’re about to describe the German cockroach all over again but this is in fact another cockroach species to watch out for in Texas.

Appearance

About 1/2 inch long, light tan and featuring two dark stripes, the Asian cockroach looks so much like a German roach that researchers sometimes confuse the two species.

Habits

Although they look like German roaches, Asian roaches in Texas do mostly live outdoors.

They’re much stronger fliers than their German cousins—but not nearly the threat to your home. More of a nuisance pest than a homewrecking one, it’s their flying that gets under most people’s skin. Leave a window open in a well-lit room on a warm Houston evening and you might find yourself swatting Asian roaches for a good part of the night.

How to Solve a Texas Cockroach Problem

Getting rid of Texas cockroaches for good takes a multi-step cockroach control strategy that the pros call integrated pest management (IPM).

Sanitation and Exclusion

Start with the keystone steps—sanitation and exclusion—that hold up the rest of the plan.

Sanitation Tips for Texas Roaches

Sanitation cuts off roaches’ access to food and water, making them desperate to eat anything they can find.

1. Use the vacuum to pick up crumbs, dust and dead and living roaches. Be sure to reach behind and under appliances and furniture.
2. Wash the dishes every day and change the garbage bag as soon as it’s full.
3. Store all of your food and ingredients in hard containers with tight-fitting lids.
4. Repair leaky pipes, dripping sinks and loose hose faucets to remove water sources.

Exclusion Tips for Texas Roaches

Exclusion kicks them out of their hiding spots and makes it difficult for roaches to get in, get comfortable and get away from your traps.

1. In eastern Texas and especially along the Gulf, battle moisture with dehumidifiers and fans.
2. In western Texas, make sure your storage areas—especially in upper floors—are well-ventilated and decluttered.
3. Cockroaches love a good cardboard box for nesting; use plastic containers to store things safely.
4. Keep your landscaping clear of debris and avoid over-watering the soil. Look for the dark spots that signal trapped moisture around shrubs and trees and thin out the mulch.
5. Seal gaps around water meter boxes, pipes, dryer vents and basement windows.
6. It might be necessary to cover soffits with screens to keep out flying roaches in Texas.
7. Texans already know to check their shoes for spiders and scorpions; you’ll want to check ‘em for roaches, too.

Texas Cockroach Control Plan

Once the roaches are desperate for food and displaced from their usual haunts, it’s time for a choreographed attack with the latest and greatest pest control tools.

1. Traps – Use baited traps, like roach motels, or any of these great roach traps to start catching the pests ASAP. You’ll start to see where most of them are hiding and kill plenty along the way
2. Gel bait – Use pea-sized drops of gel bait to target the colony—the heart of the roach infestation that’s hidden well out of reach. Insecticidal dust works well along with baits, killing any roaches that walk through it. You can treat wall cavities with dust to get as close to the colony as possible.
3. Outside – Opt for a quality perimeter spray or granular bait to create an anti-roach barrier along walls and in mulched areas. This is especially important if you’re finding American or Oriental roaches in your home or business.

Need an exterminator?

If you’ve ID’d more than a few German, Asian or brown-banded roaches in your home, consider enlisting a professional pest control service. These bugs can explode into truly nasty roach infestations if they’re not controlled quickly and completely.

Since the climate and environment vary widely across Texas, research local exterminators that have experience treating homes in your area.

Ask about the specific products they use and inform them of any pets or other special conditions you might have. They should start with a walkthrough where you show them places where you’ve seen activity and they get an idea of how best to move forward with treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Roaches in Texas come in nearly a half dozen flavors but whatever the species, they’re disgusting bugs to find in your home.

With the details in this survival guide, you can identify the roach(es) you’ve seen and kickstart your plan to eliminate cockroaches for good.

Say goodbye to the Texas cockroach today!

Sources

1. Brown, Wizzie et al. Cockroach Biology and Management: How to Control Them? Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Retrieved from https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/library/insects/cockroach-biology-and-management/
2. Hurt, Harry III (1976) The World’s Most Despicable Bug. Texas Monthly. Retrieved from https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-worlds-most-despicable-bug/
3. Wu, Gwendolyn (2019) Roaches are everywhere. How do I get rid of them? Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/houston-how-to/article/Roaches-are-everywhere-How-do-I-get-rid-of-them-14446305.php

There comes a time when you realize quick fixes won’t solve your cockroach problem. You’re fed up, tired, and just want to be done with the bugs for good.

If that’s you, it’s great news. Because there’s no better place to start. Effective, long-term cockroach control will treat the root of the problem and put you back in charge. It’s also easier than you might think.

Consider this your guide to a permanent, no-fail roach control plan—an introduction to the best tools and techniques (including home remedies) that control roaches, along with advanced advice for doing the job cheaply, safely, and well.

Ready to solve your roach problem? Let’s go!

Roach Pest Control: Do You Really Need an Exterminator?

We’ve all taken on projects that at some point, became more than we could handle. Roach control can be like that too, when you underestimate what you’re facing.

A moderate cockroach infestation will leave you feeling pretty satisfied once you’ve cleared the critters out. But discovering a horror show pulsing behind your walls will make you wish you’d called a pro.

Before deciding to do the job yourself, try to make at least a general assessment of the infestation, judging its severity.

You may have a serious infestation if…

• You’re seeing lots of roaches, even in the daylight. Roaches don’t usually come out during the day, so seeing them in broad daylight could be a sign that there are many roaches hiding.
• You’re finding a lot of cockroach egg cases around your home. Roaches don’t like to leave eggs where predators (like you) can find them. Stumbling onto eggs with any regularity could be a sign that a roach population is ready to explode.
• You’re seeing (and smelling) cockroach droppings everywhere. Roaches aren’t picky about where they do their business, but whatever droppings you see out in the open is nothing compared to what’s happening behind your walls.
• You live in an apartment or condo where you have no idea what bugs are doing elsewhere in the building. For all you know, the roaches you’re seeing are the tip of the iceberg, and the ones enjoying your neighbor’s apartment will be headed for yours soon.

Tip: If you’re an apartment dweller, do make contacting your landlord or property manager the first task on your list. Legal responsibilities aside, they may already have a cockroach/pest control service under contract—which would make everyone’s lives easier.

If you do have a serious roach infestation—a truly ugly one, it may be smart to skip the DIY, and bring in a cockroach exterminator to clear it up.

Short of that, roll up your sleeves. Because the plan below has helped thousands, and will probably help you, too.

Part 1. The Roach Control Secret Weapon You Must Have

We live in an age of wonders, but many things that work best in life don’t come with a lot of sizzle. Cockroach control products are a case in point, with some that are chemical marvels and others that seem almost crude.

This “secret product” (secret because it’s sort of hidden in plain sight from consumers) is one of the crude ones. And besides being easy to use and gratifyingly cheap, it will also be a game changer for you. In fact, it’s one of the few products most professional exterminators simply couldn’t do without.

It’s the cockroach glue trap, a flat or folded piece of cardboard coated with glue and lure. If you’re like most folks who’ve dealt with roaches before, you’re probably familiar with sticky trap products like the roach motel, and you’re fairly satisfied with how they kill.

But killing isn’t the best thing sticky traps do. And if that’s all you know them for, you’re not benefiting as much as you could.

Because as it turns out, pest professionals don’t use use glue traps so much to kill roaches as to collect intelligence about them—to measure an infestation so they can make choices about the next steps to take.

If you’re serious about succeeding long-term with a roach control plan, you’ll want to use them that way, too. Doing it that way, you’ll place sticky traps throughout your home, then later count the catch from each one.

From that count, you’ll gain two important pieces of information:

1. Where roaches tend to congregate.
2. And where they tend to travel.

By starting your plan with sticky traps, you’ll learn where you needn’t waste your time. And where to hit roaches hardest.

Sticky traps are your secret weapon in this battle. Because you’ll know where to bring the fight.

Tip: Pick up a couple dozen sticky traps regardless of any other approach you use. They’re inexpensive, show you where to focus your efforts, and help to reduce roach populations, too. Use half your traps at the beginning of the job, and the other half when it’s done. The second set will alert you should any new roaches appear.

Part 2. Three Killer Cockroach Control Products That Eliminate Roaches Completely

Twenty years ago, cockroach elimination was a different, more troublesome story. Back then if you had an infestation and were committed to the cause, you’d rent a pump sprayer, lug it around your house or apartment, and pump lethal poison into every room.

The bugs would die dramatically—scores of them, right before your eyes. And while the carnage was sort of satisfying in its way, it wasn’t nearly as extensive as it appeared.

Because what you were really doing wasn’t solving the problem. You were doing what a cockroach bomb does today: killing all the dumber bugs, and sending the smart ones into your walls.

A few weeks later, your cockroach problem would be back. And you’d hire an exterminator to finish the job.

So much for the good old days. Because today’s cockroach control products are far better and go about killing in a very different way.

Gel Bait: Cutting Edge Poison and Lure in a Gel Matrix

Poison insect baits are nothing new in the cockroach world and have been used in one form or another for a very long time. They also weren’t particularly exciting killers—that is, until someone put them in a gel.

At their most basic, gel baits are just a matrix of lure and poison that kill roaches when they nibble. But the beauty lies in how they do it.

The gel matrix keeps the lure and active ingredient (the poison) moist, fresh, and tempting for up to several weeks. While the special poison does its job slowly—often leaving cockroaches to die in the heart of the infestation.

There, other roaches see its body as food, and get poisoned themselves when they eat it. When those roaches die, there may be enough poison in their tissues to kill still more. It’s an effective system that strikes the problem at its source.

Cockroach gel bait is sold in convenient bait stations, but syringe-based applicator products are the ones you’ll want.

To apply gel bait from an applicator, you’ll squeeze out tiny drops in areas your sticky traps have shown you they tend to go—inside and behind kitchen cabinets, around pipes, wiring and vents, under sinks, beneath appliances and in any cracks you find in walls.

Within a month of applying gel bait, you’re likely to see a lot of dead roaches, and then a dramatic (and satisfying) reduction in cockroach populations. Many people who try the product happily stop there and assume they’ve solved the problem.

But that’s typically a mistake.

Because roach problems respond far better to a multi-pronged attack, and can win out even over the power of gel bait if that’s all you ever use. To permanently beat roaches down, you’ll want to hit them with at least one, and possibly two more potent tools.

To learn more about using Gel Cockroach Bait, go to the guide here.

Silica Gel: Deadly to the Touch

Roaches are not exactly sedentary creatures. To find food, water, and mates, they need to move around, which is what makes our next product—silica insect dust so effective.

Insect dusts are fine powders applied to the areas roaches travel. The dust sticks to their legs and bodies, either damaging their exoskeletons or passing into them. Roaches die eventually, succumbing to dehydration or internal damage.

You may already be familiar with insecticidal dusts like boric acid and diatomaceous earth (DE), but neither is as effective (or as safe) for cockroach control as silica gel.

Silica gel doesn’t grind into roaches like DE, and doesn’t poison them like boric acid. Instead, it soaks up their protective oils like a sponge, leaving them to fatally dry out. Silica gel is applied in the same way as boric acid and DE, but kills roaches faster and with fewer escapees.

Silica gel is packaged in the product CimeXa. In addition to being wildly effective, it’s one of the least toxic insecticides available, and is a great choice for homes with pets or small children.

To apply: Cimexa is applied with a special “puffing” tool called a hand duster. It’s also sold in containers that can be used in the same way. Spread a fine dusting across surfaces where roaches walk. It’ll keep working as long as it stays dry.

Production Freeze: Block Baby Cockroaches with an IGR

Though gel baits and dust are effective, cutting-edge tools, they don’t destroy cockroach eggs waiting to hatch in your walls, your basement, or the back of your cupboards and drawers.

That means that even after you’ve wiped out every single living roach, you could still be in for a second wave.

An insect growth regulator (IGR) protects you from that wave, not by killing, but by stunting the growth of new roaches that emerge. Those roaches never fully reach full maturity, so don’t successfully breed, effectively breaking the next cycle of infestation.

You may not need an IGR to completely solve your roach problem, but it’s a great insurance policy against the sort of sneaky re-infestation that could ruin all the other work you’ve done.

To apply IGR: Spray it into cracks and behind cupboards or stick self-contained devices in areas roaches hang out. IGR’s can also be mixed with other insecticides and applied with a pump sprayer.

Part 3: Home Remedies for Cockroach Control

Few home remedies even remotely compare for effectiveness against store-bought traps, bait, and dust. But if you’re short on cash or want to get started before more heavy-hitting products arrive, try these:

DIY Duct Tape Glue Traps

DIY sticky traps? Duct tape doesn’t work as well as store-bought traps, but does work. Tear off a couple 6-inch pieces and lay them sticky-side-up along baseboards, countertops, the bathroom floor and kitchen cabinet shelves. Stick a tiny piece of food to the center as bait. Replace daily or as needed.

Plaster Roach Bait

Have some leftover plaster in the garage? Mix it with cornstarch and spread it in cracks and crevices to give roaches a toxic snack. Or, if you have borax, sprinkle it onto a dollop of peanut butter.

Your Vacuum as a Roach Killer

Don’t forget to vacuum! An oft-forgotten but powerful tool is your vacuum. Use it to suck up dead and living roaches you might find out in the open. Just remember to discard its contents into the garbage can outside right away.

Interested in more home remedies for roaches? Click here.

Part 4: Natural and Environmentally-Friendly Cockroach Control

If you want to control roaches without using man-made chemicals, there are alternatives that can help with mild to moderate infestations. You can also use them to supplement your other cockroach control supplies, so long as any strong scents (like peppermint) don’t cross paths with them.

Check out these easy eco-friendly alternatives:

Boric Acid and Powdered Sugar

A simple mixture of boric acid and powdered sugar becomes a deadly natural bait. If you have a bag of food-grade diatomaceous earth you’re using in the garden or as a supplement, that’ll also work as a roach treatment.

Essential Oils

Among the many essential oils that bring us calming relief and fresh fragrances, a few also kill cockroaches. Peppermint oil shows the strongest roach-removal potential.

Natural Sprays

You’ll find environmentally-friendly cockroach products online and in stores, too. Wondercide indoor pest control spray does the trick. Another effective roach control product, Zevo Roach Spray uses a different blend of oils to kill these nightmare pests.

Want more natural roach killers? Click here.

Part 5: Ongoing Roach Control Through Sanitation and Exclusion

While your roach control products are working in the background, you can prevent future roaches by cleaning, sealing and organizing your home.

If you’re thinking, Oh great, more chores, think of these as battle strategies, instead:

1. Cleaning = starving roaches out by removing their food sources.
2. Sealing up = eliminating roach entry points.
3. Organizing = getting rid of nesting and egg-laying locations.

Anything roaches could possibly eat or drink: take it away from them. Every hiding place, entry point and escape route: close it off.

Focus on problem areas, like the kitchen, bathroom, basement and any other space that’s dark and cluttered.

Controlling Problem Areas

To Control Roaches in the Kitchen

Use your vacuum to suck up all the crumbs cockroaches would love to eat from behind the stove and under the table. Wipe the grease splatter off of oven knobs and clean cooking scraps out of the drain and garbage disposal. You should be washing dishes (and wiping down pet bowls) every night, too.

Kitchen cabinets, especially the ones where you store food, are high-risk targets for hungry cockroaches. They’re prime locations for placing gel bait or silica gel.

If you’re not already doing so, store foods and ingredients in glass or metal containers (that roaches can’t chew through). If there’s extra space in the fridge, take advantage of its tight-fitting seal to store some food products there.

To Control Roaches in Storage Areas

These pests love using cardboard boxes to hide and lay their eggs in (they’ll feed on cardboard and paper, too). Send them packing by switching to plastic bins with tight-fitting lids.

Controlling Roaches That Try to Make Their Way Inside

Several kinds of roaches live outside, but will invade your home when conditions are right. Take a notebook and inspect the entire exterior of your house for cracks and holes that they could use to enter. Make it a priority to seal them up with steel wool, caulking or insulating foam to stop them well before they become a problem.

Part 6: About Common Types of Roaches

Before you go, we’ve put together a quick guide to identifying the common types of cockroaches you might be dealing with. Check out each link for our full species overview.

German cockroaches are the tiny cockroach species that terrorize homes, grocery stores, restaurants and warehouses around the world. Light brown with two dark stripes, they spread quickly and thrive indoors, especially in apartment buildings.

American cockroaches are the big, reddish-brown ones—your classic ugly cockroaches that can be up to two inches long. They live outdoors and indoors, forming colonies of thousands in sewers and drain pipes.

Oriental cockroaches are glossy, black cockroaches that people often mistake for beetles. They’re mid-sized, winged but flightless. Oriental cockroaches live outdoors so, if you’re seeing them inside, focus on sealing up any exterior cracks and holes through which they could have entered your home.

Asian cockroaches are the German roach’s doppelgängers. They’re both yellowish-brown with dark stripes running down their backs. To separate them, you’ll have to look closely at its back: a German roach has brown coloring around its dark stripes while an Asian roach has white coloring.

Conclusion

When a roach problem hits home, you need to hit back with a cockroach control plan that puts you back in charge.

Identify your target areas, assemble the best modern tools, and get rid of roaches with methods that work for the long-term.

You can do this. And there’s no better time to start.

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Sources

1. Desiccating Dusts. Beyond Pesticides. Retrieved from https://www.beyondpesticides.org/resources/safety-source-on-pesticide-providers/what-is-integrated-pest-management/desiccating-dusts
2. Nagro, Anne (2019) Rethinking German Cockroach Control. PCT Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.pctonline.com/article/rethinking-german-cockroach-control/
3. Potter, Michael F., et al. (2014) Silica Gel: A Better Bed Bug Desiccant. Retrieved from https://www.pctonline.com/article/pct0814-silica-gel-research-bed-bugs/
4. Omg, Barb, et al. (2006) Cockroach Control Manual. University of Nebraska Extension.
5. Potter, Michael F. (2018) Cockroach Elimination in Homes and Apartments. University of Kentucky Extension. Retrieved from https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef614

The worst part of your cockroach nightmare is waiting for it to end. You’ve seen them crawling around, you’ve caught them eating your food and you just want them gone.

How long do cockroaches live? As long as you let them.

We’re going to explore the cockroach lifespan from birth to death, explain what can shorten it and show you how to stop waiting and start getting rid of roaches today.

Ready? Let’s go!

The Roach Lifespan: From Egg to End

Early Life

The cockroach begins its life as a minuscule egg, one of as many as fifty held inside an egg case, called an ootheca. The female cockroach carries its egg case for 1 to 2 months until shortly before the eggs hatch. Then, it attaches the ootheca to a well-hidden surface.

Growing Up

The baby cockroach—called a nymph—goes through as many as 10 instars on its way to adulthood. During each of these phases, it sheds its exoskeleton and begins to grow a larger one. A newly molted nymph might appear translucent white before its brown or black exoskeleton develops anew.

All of this occurs over a period of months, which varies from species to species.

• German cockroaches mature in about 2 months.
• American cockroaches take about 600 days to reach adulthood.

During its final, “young adult” stage, the cockroach nymph looks much like its parents. This is also where it earns—er, grows—its wings if it’s going to have any. By this point, it’s ready to join in with the adults… terrorizing homes.

Adulthood

As soon as it reaches adulthood, the cockroach is ready to mate and reproduce. It’s also in the prime of its life, doing the maximum amount of exploring and scavenging for food anywhere it can—dumpsters, sewers, warehouses, bathrooms and kitchens.

A Day in the Adult Cockroach’s Life

An adult cockroach has 3 jobs:

1. Hide. Roaches spend most of their time in hiding. Even fully-grown roaches can squeeze into coin-sized crevices and holes the width of a pen. Because they’re so good at hiding, it’s tricky to guess how many there really are. One or two roaches out in the open might mean dozens or hundreds hiding in the walls or beneath the floor.
2. Eat. If a cockroach isn’t hiding it’s probably out looking for food. Roaches are primarily nocturnal and do most of their scavenging in the dark. They need very little food to survive but search daily for it, and eat just about anything, including paper, book bindings, fingernails, and hair.
3. Breed. Finally, cockroaches are prolific breeders. Remember the ootheca with 50 eggs in it? Well, one female can produce 8 or more of these egg cases—a lifetime total of 300-400 offspring!

What All That Activity Means for You

For roaches, that daily grind is simply what cockroaches do. For you however, it can mean trouble.

Those sewer trips and sneaky dumpster runs leave bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa clinging to their bodies. Then when they show up back at your place to eat your food, they deposit it on your shelves, your drawers, and in your food itself.

And then there are the droppings!

Cockroach droppings are yet another way roaches bring dangerous bacteria into your home. All those tiny black specks you’ve noticed lately? They’re cockroach feces. And along with all the egg casings roaches leave behind, they can trigger allergic reactions and asthma attacks, too.

How Long Do Roaches Live; Or, WHEN DO THEY DIE?

Not soon enough…

The average lifespan of a cockroach is about 1.5 years.

But their lifespan depends heavily on food and water availability, climate and habitat. Some roaches freeze. Others fall into the mouths of predators. Most cockroaches die of dehydration or starvation.

What if you could take advantage of that weakness? What if you could get rid of cockroaches by taking away their food and water?

How long can a cockroach live without food and water?

These bugs can live up to a month without eating! That’s a bad sign for the starvation system.

However, they’re extremely sensitive to dehydration: a cockroach can’t survive longer than a week without water. Even a few parched days can make a roach too sluggish to get by.

When you take away their food and water, a cockroach immediately begins shedding weight.² Its cells die at a higher rate. Mitosis—cell division—slows by up to 50% as part of the insect’s natural response to a lack of food and water. You’re winning!

Of course, you wouldn’t see this happening. Here’s what you would see:

• Reduced cockroach activity: Without adequate food and water, cockroaches become weak and lethargic. They’ll stop scurrying around as much. If you were seeing a lot of roaches, you’ll notice a big difference within a few days. The change in a small infestation will be harder to notice but, after a couple of weeks, you’ll hardly see any living roaches.²
• Dead cockroaches: A few roaches might kick the bucket on the floor or behind an appliance but most will die in their nest, out of sight and out of reach.

So, is it possible to starve roaches out?

If this sounds like a solution to your pest problem, remember that cockroaches eat almost anything. These insects have survived for over 300 million years because of their ability to scavenge food and find water almost anywhere.

Unless you’re sleeping in a lab, it’s practically impossible to starve them out. You’d have to eliminate every crumb, scrap of garbage and drop of water. And you’d have to keep it up for a month or longer!

Then there’s the problem of roach eggs—your sanitation won’t have any effect on the baby roaches already waiting to hatch in the walls or crawl spaces. They’ll grow up just when you think you’ve won and emerge as an even larger second wave facing an exasperated, exhausted enemy force.

Finally, there’s no way to know if you’re winning. You might not see any dead roaches, even if your plan is working.

It’s simply not worth the work, not when there’s a better, more powerful, proven and provable system at your disposal.

A state-of-the-art, professionally-inspired pest control system.

How long can cockroaches withstand an all-out attack?

We’re going to eliminate cockroaches using 4 state-of-the-art tools:

1. Bait
2. Traps
3. Dust
4. IGR

But it all begins with sanitation. Along with thorough cleaning, scrubbing and vacuuming, exclusion plays a vital role in eliminating roaches. You want to make sure they can’t find anywhere to get comfortable or, more importantly, lay their eggs.

Exclusion involves sealing up every potential entry point, crack and crevice that would allow roaches to enter and escape. That way, new ones can’t find any way to enter your home and existing ones can’t escape the doom you’ve laid out for them.

What happens when you clean, seal and organize?

Immediately, roaches will have to change their habits. Their normal food sources are gone, their pathways are cut off and they’re looking for new places to breed. Without easy access to water, they’ll start dying within the first week.

Now that they’re weakened, it’s time to roll out your cannons.

Baiting Roaches

Your main weapon against cockroach infestations is gel bait, or a set of bait stations.

When there’s no easy food around, the smell of gel bait becomes irresistible to hungry roaches.

It’s going to look like you’ve attracted even more roaches but those are simply the ones that were hiding.

It means the baits are working. You might even observe roaches limping out into the open to die. Baits will start to kill roaches within 1-3 days. Some infestations could be completely eradicated within 2 weeks.

Learn all about choosing and using roach bait.

Trapping Roaches

Traps like insect monitors, roach motels, or sticky traps catch lots of roaches on their own. They’re baited with a food scent that will drive starving roaches crazy. Good traps can kill roaches overnight but eliminating an infestation takes longer.

Read up on 15 of the best roach traps.

Dusting for Roaches

A strategic sprinkling of insecticidal dust in the places where your traps caught the most cockroaches will kill any that managed to escape.

Anywhere roaches travel, sprinkle CimeXa, boric acid or another deadly dust that will stick to their legs.

The insecticide poisons the cockroach while it grooms itself. A cockroach won’t survive longer than a day after walking through the dust.

Get our step-by-step guide to using insecticidal dust.

IGR to stop reproduction

An insect growth regulator (IGR) prevents cockroach nymphs from reaching full maturity (and in some cases, prevents eggs from hatching). Any nymphs that absorb the IGR will have their growth stunted and their strength weakened.

More importantly, these roaches can’t have babies. While your other control methods kill as many adult roaches as possible, an IGR ensures that any that survive (for the time being) aren’t able to lay any egg cases to surprise you later.

IGR-affected roaches probably won’t survive more than a few weeks. These weakened insects will bumble around until they fall prey to a trap, bait or dust that’s left after the initial extermination.

Conclusion

How long do cockroaches live? Left to their own devices, they’ll survive about a year.

But there’s one factor that can affect the cockroach lifespan more than anything else: you.

If you heed the advice above and follow our comprehensive guide to killing cockroaches, you could be enjoying a roach-free home this time next month.

Be patient. Be determined. Be brave.

You can do this!

Frequently Asked Questions

Written by Andrew Martin. Reviewed by Rae Osborn, PhD.

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Sources

1. German Cockroach: Biology, Identification, Control. (2013) North Carolina State Extension. Retrieved from https://entomology.ces.ncsu.edu/german-cockroach/
2. Reynierse, James H. et al. (1972) The Effects of Hunger and Thirst on Body Weight and Activity in the Cockroach (Nauphoeta Cinerea). Animal Behavior.
3. Park, Moon Soo and Mario Takeda (2007) Starvation suppresses cell proliferation that rebounds after refeeding in the midgut of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana. Journal of Insect Physiology. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2007.10.011
4. Park, Moon Soo, et al. (2009) Starvation induces apoptosis in the midgut nidi of Periplaneta americana: a histochemical and ultrastructural study. Cell and Tissue Resesarch. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s00441–008–0737-y
5. Valles, Steven (2017) German cockroach. University of Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Retrieved from http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/roaches/german.htm
6. Omg, Barb, et al. (2006) Cockroach Control Manual. University of Nebraska Extension.
7. How Long Can Cockroaches Live Without Food? (2019) PFHarris. Retrieved from https://pfharris.com/how-long-can-cockroaches-live-without-food/
8. Hahn, Jeffrey (2018) Cockroaches. University of Minnesota Extension. Retrieved from https://extension.umn.edu/insects-infest-homes/cockroaches#pennsylvania-wood-cockroach-137714
9. Wilson, Tracy V. V. How Cockroaches Work. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved from https://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/cockroach2.htm

Some things in life you go looking for. Others come looking for you.

When you have a cockroach problem, you may not know exactly how they found you, but you’ll be darned if they stick around for long.

What kills cockroaches instantly? We’ve got answers that may surprise you, along with a plan to keep them away for good.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Kill them Fast, But Also Kill Them Slow

Want roaches gone fast?

You should. They’re nasty, dirty bugs that can destroy everything you own. They’ll use your home as a dinner plate and a toilet, spreading germs and allergens everywhere they go.

The truth is, roaches can be killed very quickly. At the snap of a finger really, with a number of effective products—some of them off-the-shelf, and some of them homemade.

But there’s also a problem with all these products that their marketing won’t tell you:

If you’re looking for more than a temporary fix (which you really should be), you’re going to have to supplement them with something else.

Sure, you can bomb or spray roaches to oblivion. You’ll see them die in droves.

But these products rarely deal a fatal blow to roaches’ secret weapon—their deeply protected nest. Instant killers aren’t designed for it (no matter what bug bomb pamphlets say). And if you rely on them exclusively, you’ll find yourself in a common cycle: no matter how many roaches you kill, they’ll keep endlessly coming back.

Luckily, there’s a solution. One that kills roaches instantly—just like you need it to, but also kills them thoroughly, so you don’t have to face them again and again . It’s called the fast/slow method, and it combines an instant roach killer with a handful of slow-acting ones designed to remedy the problem at its source.

It gets roaches out of your face right now, and leaves your home roach-free in about 30 days or less.

Sound like a plan? Let’s take a look at the instant roach killers:

What Kills Cockroaches Instantly: Home Remedies and Powerful Pyrethroid Sprays

1. Pyrethroid-Based Sprays: The Big Guns

Ah, pyrethroids. Where would all those dead bugs be without you?

Medicine has penicillin. Basketball has Michael Jordan. And pest control has the amazing family of pyrethroids, chemicals naturally and synthetically derived from chrysanthemums that clock roaches with a mighty wallop.

Mostly safe for humans (but less so for some pets—read up to understand the cautions), pyrethroids attack insect nervous systems, stopping (known as “knockdown”), and quickly killing roaches in their tracks.

In use since the 1940’s, you’ve probably already used or been helped by pyrethroid sprays. Popular products like Raid, Combat, Black Flag, and Ortho sprays have long relied on pyrethroids to do the job.

Is every pyrethroid spray you find an instant killer? Yes. Pretty much. Unless you find some sort of off-brand (and there aren’t very many of them), you can be confident that most any pyrethroid-based spray is going to be fairly lethal.

There are differences in formula however that make certain pyrethroid-based products more effective. And as you might expect, the most effective ones tend to be the most expensive.

At the high end, you’ll find professional products you may not even be able to get your hands on as a consumer. While a notch or two below, higher-end consumer products, like Bengal Gold (which has gained a sort of cult following among its users) are widely sold.

Beyond their near-instantaneous roach killing abilities, pyrethroid sprays provide an important side benefit—”residual” properties that make sprayed surfaces toxic to roaches for days or weeks depending on which formula you buy.

2. Essential Oils: Natural Cockroach Killers

For those unfamiliar with the science behind essential oils, you may be surprised to learn how intensely studied they’ve been across numerous different fields. Pest control is one of them, and the research has been impressive.

Certain essential oils have been found to be effective against roaches. Some have repellent properties, some kill roaches on contact, and some do both depending on how much of them you use. While the toxicity of essential oils is lower than conventional insecticides, they may still be very effective in certain situations.

In practice, delivering a high enough dose of the oil in a high enough concentration is key, as is your ability to either hit the roach directly (to kill it), or get it into areas the roach travels (to repel it from those places).

Most off-the-shelf essential oil products aren’t going to do that for you. Aromatherapy candles and diffusers deliver an airborne dose that’s far, far too weak. And if you plan on using a spray, you’ll generally need anywhere from 2% to 10% to do it, depending on the oil.

The oils that work? Peppermint, clove, cinnamon, rosemary, and thyme have been found to have lethal properties. You can either make your own “instant roach killer spray,” or use a packaged product like Zevo or Wondercide.

To learn more about essential oils for roaches click here.

3. Sticky Traps: Eliminate Cockroaches Overnight

Less dramatic than instant cockroach killer sprays, sticky glue traps may not kill roaches instantly, but they often do it overnight. Depending on the severity of your problem, you could set up these unassuming killers before you go to bed, and find them full of roaches by morning. They’re highly respected in the pest control world, and for good reason: they work.

When using sticky traps for general purpose killing, you’ll want to place them where you suspect cockroaches have been crawling and congregating—along baseboards, behind appliances, under furniture and in pantry areas. Then check them every once in a while for what they’ve caught.

You’re probably familiar with roach motels, which are fine for this approach. We’ll tell you another trick with sticky traps in the next section, because they’re an excellent slow-kill pest control tool, too.

For more about using sticky traps, click here. To learn more about roach motels, click here.

4. Foggers and Bombs: Forget About Them!

Roach bombs and foggers. Who doesn’t love them? Are they fast? You bet they are! Full of drama and excitement? Oh yeah—the kind that sells lots of products.

Unfortunately, they don’t work too well, so seriously—don’t fall for them. They’ll impress you with the scores of dead bugs they leave behind, but those massive clouds of pesticide? They’re far from laser-guided and won’t penetrate the hard-to-get-to nooks and crannies you’d definitely need them to.

To learn more about cockroach bombs and why you may want to choose something better, click here.

What Kills Roaches Slowly: The Long-Term Prescription

Here’s the most basic fact about getting rid of cockroaches: They’re easy to kill individually, but hard to completely wipe out. They’re little survival machines, not so much as individuals, but in their ability to rebound against you as a group.

That means roaches are sneakier and more trickier than you might think. And to truly wipe them out, you’ll need some trickery of your own, including several tricks up your sleeve to completely finish them off.

Professional exterminators know this. That’s why over the last couple decades or so, they’ve moved more and more away from fast-kill interior sprays, toward the slower-acting products described below.

These products may not leave roaches sputtering around your kitchen within seconds. But they do kill with a thoroughness and level of safety that was never possible before.

Having learned what kills cockroaches instantly, let’s move on to the ones that used together, slowly wipe them out:

1. Sticky Traps: Useful for Slow-Kill, Too

Sticky traps aren’t just effective killers. They’re peerless information-gathering tools. By setting them out systematically and then counting the roaches that you’ve caught, you’ll learn not only how bad the problem is, but where it’s worst. Which tells you where to hit the bugs the hardest.

The technique is known as “monitoring,” and it’s the first best way to take control of a cockroach problem. To use sticky traps this way, you’ll need to also do some simple record-keeping (as in recording where you’ve placed them).

You’ll also want to buy sticky traps sold in larger packs (which end up being cheaper), and that make examining contents and recording information easier.

Learn more about finding cockroach hiding spots by clicking here.

2. Gel Baits: Wipes Out the Colony Over Weeks

With a week or so of “monitoring” various places in your home, you’ll know where to place a game-changing product known as cockroach gel bait.

Sold in syringes and plastic bait stations, gel baits can be astonishingly effective. They lure roaches with a powerful attractant, then kill them with a slow-acting insecticide after they eat it.

The slowness of gel baits works to your advantage because roaches have time to return to the highly populated nest. As they die there, other roaches will begin to eat the toxins they vomit or expel in their feces, getting poisoned, too. Over time, many roaches will die from a single tiny dose of poison, and possibly the entire nest.

Learn more about using cockroach gel bait here.

3. Insecticidal Dust: Applied Once, Lasts for Years

The third slow roach killer is a fine powder called insecticidal dust. Sold in natural and man-made forms (like silica gel, diatomaceous earth, and boric acid), “dust” is puffed deeply into cracks and crevices with a tool called a “hand duster.”

When roaches crawl through the light dusting, it sticks to their bodies and slowly destroys their shells. Like gel bait, the slow acting nature of insecticidal dust makes it more effective, because roaches never learn that it’s something to avoid.

Dusts don’t expire or degrade, so a single application could begin killing roaches right now, then help protect your home as long as the dust stays dry.

You can learn more about insecticidal dust by clicking here.

4. Insect Growth Regulator (IGR): Stops Future Roaches

Insect growth regulator (IGR) isn’t exactly a killer. Instead, it prevents young roaches from becoming fertile, halting future generations. Since baits, dusts, and traps are so effective, it could be considered an optional product, but if you have a true cockroach infestation, you should plan to pick some up.

5. Outdoor Products: Killing Roaches Before They Get Inside

Have outdoor roaches?

Outdoor products are mostly similar to indoor ones, but hold up better in outdoor conditions. There are slow-acting outdoor baits made specially for lawns, and a variety of outdoor liquids for the perimeter around your home. One of the advantages of these liquids (which are applied with a specialized pump sprayer), is the ability to mix products for simultaneous slow and fast-acting results.

Using Slow and Instant Cockroach Killers Together

Keeping Products from Working Against Each Other

If you’ve decided the fast/slow method is better than simply reaching for a can of spray (it is), you may already be making a purchase list. Good for you.

You can go ahead and order your slow-kill products. But before settling on the instant one, one suggestion:

Some instant cockroach killers leave a repellent residue behind. And while that may be great for keeping roaches away from your cupboards when you can’t stand the sight of them, it’s lousy when the little monsters begin avoiding your dusts, baits, and traps.

To keep your slow-kill products working the way they’re supposed to, you’ll either want to avoid products that contain repellents, or limit them to areas well away from your slow-kill products.

Tip: It’s also possible to strategically use repellent products to drive roaches toward your baits, dusts, and traps

Which products have repellent properties? Virtually all essential oils do, as well as some sprays. So before smashing the buy button, you should do a little quick label-reading (most product labels are available online) to see what’s coming in the can.

Hitting Problem Areas

Drains

There are certain problem areas you may need super fast results. Drains are one.

If roaches are truly coming up your drains from the sewer (not as common as you might think), you should first make sure that the little bend beneath your sink (called the P-trap) is filled with water. It provides a barrier that keeps roaches and other things out. Drain covers will serve that purpose, too.

For an instant kill, use bleach or a foam drain killer, but be extremely careful about mixing up your own potions, which could damage your pipes or worse—poison you along with the roaches, in a homemade toxic cloud.

Conclusion

While there’s nothing like a little murder spree to get you started, it’s only half the way to win the war. Because the real battle against roaches isn’t won quickly—it’s won slowly. With the right approach and a few of the right tools.

You’ve learned what kills roaches instantly and what kills them slowly. Now go ahead and get rid of them for good.

Written by Andrew Martin. Reviewed by James Miksanek, PhD.

Disclaimer: This page is strictly for informational use. When using insecticides, keep in mind—the label is the law. Insecticides should be applied correctly and safely when needed, and according to the laws of your state or country.

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Sources

1. Kato, Yuki, et al. (2019) Measurements of the Hansen solubility parameters of mites and cockroaches to improve pest control applications. Heliyon. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844019336060
2. Ramsay, Kris. Common Household Products That Contain Nonionic Surfactants. Hunker. Retrieved from https://www.hunker.com/13420814/common-household-products-that-contain-nonionic-surfactants
3. Appel, Arthur G., et al (2001) Repellency and Toxicity of Mint Oil to American and German Cockroaches. Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University. Retrieved from https://www.ortho.com/en-us/products/bugs/ortho-home-defense-max-ant-roach-spider1

Found a small cockroach in your kitchen cabinets? Or even (shudders)… lots of them? You already know small roaches can mean trouble. But what sort of situation are you really facing? And what do you need to do?

Grab a cup of coffee and get ready to take some notes, because you’ll need a plan to take care of these tiny homewreckers, and you’ll want to do it fast.

First, we’ll answer a few important questions about small roaches. Then show you how to get rid of them—and be free of them forever.

Let’s dive in!

I. Identifying a “Small Cockroach” Problem

On a certain level, small roaches don’t make a whole lot of sense. Though tiny compared to much larger cockroach species (like the massive American cockroach, aka water bugs), they typically pose a bigger problem.

Why?

Because unlike larger common roaches that actually prefer to live outside, small roaches seek out human homes. They’re also more tenacious visitors, and the most common small roach—the one you’re most likely dealing with—breeds with astonishing speed, producing dozens of offspring at a time.

Once inside, this little monster multiplies and takes over, ravaging your food, damaging everything it touches, and spreading allergens and bacteria that could potentially make your family sick.

This is the deceptively small German cockroach. Let’s look at it (along with a few other possibilities) to identify exactly what’s gotten into your home:

What Do Small Cockroaches Look Like?

The German Cockroach (the Cockroach You’re Most Likely Facing)

German roaches are the second smallest of the indoor cockroach species, growing to little more than 1/2 inch long as adults. Light brown, yellowish, or golden colored, they’re thin, very flat, and have long, transparent wings folded across their darkly striped backs.

These small skinny roaches are expert hiders—and also lightning fast. They stay on the ground most of the time, but can fly when they sense danger or want to reach food on a counter top.

The Brown-Banded Cockroach (Another Common Pest)

Though less common than German roaches, you could also be dealing with the tiny brown-banded cockroach.

Slightly smaller than its German cousin (under .5 inches in length), this small brown roach sports two distinctive horizontal bands across its back. Brown-banded roaches infest less aggressively than German roaches, but still need to be taken seriously.

The Asian Cockroach (A Tiny Impersonator)

Nearly identical in appearance to the German cockroach but far less dangerous, the Asian cockroach is a cockroach problem child found mostly in southern states, particularly South Carolina.

If you’re being overwhelmed by small flying roaches outside, this one’s the culprit. More of a nuisance than a pest, Asian roaches don’t really want to come inside. To deal with them, you can learn more about them here.

Baby Roaches or Nymphs (Also Highly Likely)

One final possibility, especially with really, really small roaches—you saw a cockroach nymph:

• Was it a small red roach? It may be a baby American cockroach, an outdoor species that can cause problems when it gets inside.
• Was it a small black roach? It’s probably a baby German cockroach because the nymphs can appear quite dark. Also keep in mind: if your small black cockroach is indeed a German nymph, it’s not a good sign. You may be facing a well-established, growing infestation.

Tip: Very small round roaches are likely to be German nymphs as well. They don’t grow wings until adulthood and their wingless bodies appear quite squat.

If You’ve Got German Roaches

Unfortunately, if you’ve found small roaches in your house—and they’re multiplying fast—they’re probably German. Which means that you’re facing a tough, tenacious, formidable adversary.

Bug sprays aren’t going to kill them all, roach bombs will waste your money, and roach motels (at least by themselves) will only take you so far.

What will work? Knowledge:

You’re going to turn German roaches’ over-sized behaviors against them.

II. Small Cockroach Behaviors (That You’ll Use Against Them)

Outsmart these bad bugs by learning their habits and cutting off their basic needs.

How Small Cockroaches Get In

It’s a strange, unhappy fact: German roaches not only seek out human buildings—they don’t live outside at all.

So if German roaches don’t live in your trees or lawn, how did they get into your house?

It could have happened in many ways:

Apartment buildings are notorious for widespread German cockroach problems. With few barriers between units, the tiny bugs easily crawl through walls from unit to unit and floor to floor. Small roaches in apartment buildings have little trouble finding food, water and mates. And when they do, they just move on to another unit.

So if you live in an apartment, yes—you can blame your neighbors. But consider this: you could have brought them in, too!

A piece of second-hand furniture might’ve come with more than just a few tiny blemishes. Your dry cleaning or a load from the laundromat might’ve come with a couple of six-legged hitchhikers. And your groceries or a takeout order could have brought a pair of stowaways straight into your kitchen.

It matters how your cockroaches found their way into your home, so take a moment to consider how it might have happened.

Infestation Hotspots

Once they’re in, German roaches have predictable behaviors that you can use against them. Their hiding spots are especially important, with two areas in particular:

The Bathroom

Unfortunately, the bathroom is one of the hotspots for small cockroach activity. Nothing like flipping the bathroom light switch at 2 a.m. and seeing small roaches in the sink!

They’re there for the same reason as the small roaches in the shower: these bugs dive into the drains for a drink and slip through the gaps around plumbing to return to their nest in the wall.

The Kitchen

The kitchen is undeniably a German roach’s favorite hangout. As soon as the lights are out, these pests start scavenging for crumbs on the floor, scraps in the sink, food in the garbage and leftovers on the counter.

It’s a free buffet for small cockroaches. In the kitchen, they have easy access to food, water and shelter, often hiding in cabinets, under the sink, or inside narrow gaps in kitchen counters. Even a dripping garbage disposal is enough to satisfy a cockroach, which can go a month without eating.

Now that you know what they need and where they get it, we’re ready to answer the million-dollar question: How to get rid of small roaches?

III. How to Get Rid of Small Roaches for Good

A simple, straightforward small cockroach elimination plan for big results.

Phase 1: Deprive Roaches of What They Need Through Cleanup

It’s a myth.

Your home doesn’t have to be dirty to have a “small cockroach” problem.

But every bit of dirt, mess, and clutter makes it easier for roaches to infest. That’s why cleaning is such a powerful weapon against these disgusting little bugs. It deprives them of things they need to survive.

Any kind of cleaning is helpful, but the most effective cleanup focuses on removing sources of food, places to hide, and the ability to communicate with other roaches.

Besides the fact that it works so well, cleanup is also great because you usually don’t need to buy much beyond a vacuum cleaner bag or two, and more importantly—it’s a way to do something right now to begin to solve your problem.

Vacuum Up Food Sources

Plug in the trusty vacuum and suck up all the dust, dirt and crumbs from everywhere you can reach: kitchen, hallways, living room and bedroom. Utilize attachments to reach under appliances and furniture, into cabinets and along walls.

Vacuum up every living and dead roach you see, too.

What you’re doing (besides suctioning up living bugs as you see them) is eliminating food sources, and possibly cockroach egg sacs on the verge of hatching.

Deprive Roaches of Hiding Spots

Call it “pest control for the soul.”

Next, you’re going to make it more difficult for cockroaches to hide, lay their eggs, and breed. And you’ll do it by decluttering.

Decluttering isn’t only good for pest control—it helps you take back your space. Take an honest, thorough look through the attic, basement, closets, and cupboards, and get rid things you don’t really want or need.

As you simplify your space, you’ll also be eliminating cockroach habitats, too—piles of paper, boxes, cardboard, and whatever other junk cockroaches have settled into (or might settle into in the future).

As you work, also take note of humidity in your home and of poorly ventilated rooms. If you can afford it, purchase a dehumidifier, or bring in a fan and open some windows. German roaches thrive in humid conditions, so creating a drier space will create an environment less friendly to them.

Wash Away Scent Trails

Roaches don’t communicate through sounds or gestures. They do it through pheromones and bacteria in their feces. That’s unhealthy for you and your family, and terrible for keeping roaches away.

You’ll want to eliminate those trails by cleaning up or tossing everything roaches have come into contact with, beginning with roach-damaged food.

Head to the kitchen, open your cabinets, dig out everything, and throw out every package of food you suspect has been contaminated or touched by roaches.

Do the same with foods that have been left open, including fresh fruits and vegetables, and even recent bags of snacks. If you think a roach might have touched something—anything, it’s time to let it go.

Next, fill a bucket with water and a mild, minimally-scented cleaner like dish soap (the stronger stuff will send roaches deeper into walls) and start wiping and scrubbing down surfaces with any sort of dots, specks, or smears—those are likely to be roach droppings and you’ll want to get them up.

Follow-up with a disinfectant spray, and use a mop and bucket with mild cleaner to clean your hard floors.

Eliminate Water Sources

The last important cleanup task has to do with eliminating water sources—all the drips, drops, and puddles that small cockroaches depend on to slake their thirst. You’ll need a flashlight to do a proper inspection and should plan to poke around.

Follow your bathroom, kitchen, and basement pipes with your fingers, especially where they meet or enter into the wall. Feel any moisture, including areas of condensation? You’re going to want to fix what needs fixing and tightly wrap any surfaces where condensation occurs.

Look for puddles everywhere and create a system for mopping them up as they occur. Small cockroaches love kitchen sinks, dish drainers and bathroom or shower floors. They love, love, love your open drains, so buy drain stoppers to keep them out.

For more on Phase 1, read our step-by-step Roach-Free Recipe: Prevent Roaches Through Sanitation, Part 1

Phase 2: Killing Roaches with Baits and Dusts

Pest control has come a long way since the days of dousing rooms with chemicals, or setting off a bunch of useless roach bombs.

Today you can kill more roaches with less effort using tiny amounts of poisons—sometimes no poisons at all.

The best of these products are typically applied where you can’t see, smell, or touch them. They’re known as “cockroach baits” and “insecticidal dusts.”

Gel Baits

Gel baits are powerful pest control products that attract roaches with a specially-formulated lure, then kill them with a tiny dose of insecticide. Because the active ingredients in gel baits are designed to attack the whole colony, they’re often the single best way to begin treating a “small cockroach” population.

You apply gel baits in the tiny cracks and crevices small cockroaches are drawn to, using modest, pea-sized drops. Drops are spread several feet apart, focusing on cracks and crevices, holes and gaps around plumbing, wiring, vents, and other areas small roaches travel.

For more on Phase 2, read our guide to Choosing and Using Gel Baits.

Dry Flowable Bait & Insecticidal Dusts

It’s just not possible to apply gel bait in deep, tiny crevices or other inaccessible voids. For these situations, there’s “Avert Dry Flowable Cockroach Bait.”

In addition to helping you reach difficult spaces, Avert won’t dry out and stop working. You can apply it and leave it to work for a year or longer.

You’ll apply Avert straight from the tube, squeezing puffs across surfaces and hard-to-reach places.

Similar to dry bait in that they’re also powders, insecticidal dusts kill small roaches by clinging to their bodies as they crawl through them, penetrating their protective exoskeletons and causing them to dehydrate (to death).

There are “natural” insecticidal dusts such as boric acid and diatomaceous earth you may already be familiar with, but a “man-made” product called CimeXA is both safer and more effective.

To apply insecticidal dusts properly, you’ll need a separate applicator product called a “hand duster” which “puffs” measured amounts of dust into cracks, crevices, and voids, usually with a selection of plastic-fitted tips.

Bonus option: To get rid of roaches when a roach infestation is heavy, drill an inconspicuous hole through the drywall so that it creates an opening into the wall cavity. Then, use the duster’s tip to squeeze the dust into the cavity.

Phase 3: Exclusion

While the Cleanup Phase aims to starve cockroaches and take away their water supply, exclusion is about keeping them from ever getting in. It’s also about adopting habits that make your home less attractive to cockroaches when they try.

Walk the rooms in your home with a tube of caulk, sealing every small crack or hole that a roach might use for shelter. Apartment dweller? Small roaches in apartment buildings don’t just hide in cracks and holes. They get in this way from other units, so sealing up is especially important for you.

Invest in sturdy glass or plastic containers with tight-sealing lids, then store your food inside. Take advantage of the roach-safe storage areas in your fridge (with its conveniently sealing doors), and chuck your flimsy Ziploc bags for anything cockroaches could get to, because they can chew right through.

Limit eating to one room to limit the spread of crumbs (and the amount of cleanup you have to do later). In the kitchen, change garbage bags often and never leave them unsealed once full. Wipe down your pet’s bowl each night, too.

And the most important tip?

Be vigilant about what comes into your home!

Check grocery bags and food deliveries before bringing them inside. Never bring home yard-sale furniture or other used items without checking them for roaches. Leave kids’ backpacks outside the door if a playmate’s house could pose a roach problem, and then inspect their clothes.

Phase 4: Monitoring for Success

If all goes perfectly, you’ll make it to Phase 4 and never have to fall back to any other phase!

This last step is all about monitoring your home for any signs of a comeback and hitting the roaches hard if you see anything suspicious.

Glue traps are great for this because they kill cockroaches, provide a simple visual gauge for how many other roaches are around, and remain effective for long periods. Roach motels make for good small roach traps because they’re easy to place, easy to clean up and fit lots of the little bugs before you have to replace them.

Finally, keep up the good cleaning habits!

If you see signs of increasing roach populations in the weeks after you thought you’d defeated them, it doesn’t necessarily mean failure. There might’ve been egg cases buried deep in a wall that hatched and will have to be dealt with. Follow the steps above and stay determined until your home is roach free!

Conclusion

Dealing with a small cockroach infestation can be a scary and overwhelming experience, especially if it turns out to be a large infestation. But with the tools and tips here, you can eliminate small roaches and win back your pest-free life.

Sources

1. Sutherland, Andrew et al (2019) Cockroaches Management Guidelines. University of California IPM. Retrieved from http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7467.html
2. Cockroaches. Illinois Department of Health. Retrieved from https://dph.illinois.gov/topics-services/environmental-health-protection/structural-pest-control/cockroaches
3. Kraft, Sandra and Larry Pinto (2016) German Cockroaches: 10 Key Facts to Remember. Pest Control Technology. Retrieved from https://www.pctonline.com/article/german-cockroaches-10-key-facts-to-remember/
4. Talis (2015) 5 Signs of a German Roach Infestation and How to Get Rid of Them. Brody Brothers Pest Control. Retrieved from https://www.brodybrotherspestcontrol.com/5-signs-of-a-german-roach-infestation-and-how-to-get-rid-of-them

Killing cockroaches can’t be that hard, can it? They’re just bugs and bugs can be squished!

Besides the fact that cockroaches can survive up to 900 times their body weight in crushing force, squishing a few (or even a few dozen) cockroaches isn’t going to stop them from multiplying, spreading and making things much, much worse.

We’ll show you how to kill cockroaches and take down the whole colony so that they never come back!

Remember, when using insecticides, the label is the law—read and follow the instructions carefully, not only for your own safety, but to make sure each treatment is as effective as possible.

How to Kill Roaches Part I: What You Need Before You Go to War

Key points:

1. Act fast, be thorough and don’t give up.
2. It’s about eliminating the whole colony, not killing single roaches.
3. Use a combination of tools and rotate your treatments for the best chance of success.
4. Knowledge is power. The more you learn about cockroaches and how to control them, the better off you’ll be!

If it’s so easy to kill a cockroach you find crawling along the floor, why is it so hard to get rid of these pests for good?

It all comes down to 3 cockroach adaptations:

1. They can survive on almost nothing.
2. They have a lot of babies, all the time.
3. They spend most of their time hiding, so people often don’t notice them until the problem has gotten out of hand.

The Stages of Infestation

The problem starts with one or two adventurous roaches, mucking through the mulch and leaves, following the path of a sewer line, hiding inside a grocery bag, or hitchhiking in the trunk of your car, until eventually… they get in.

That first stage is infiltration. From there, those few roaches reproduce rapidly, search the house for food, and spread to any dark, hidden places they can find.

The best time to have killed them would have been the moment they got in. But since that didn’t happen, the 2nd best time is right now.

Let’s get to it!

Part II: The Right Weapons for the Job

Explore your options, stock up your arsenal and start killing not only the cockroaches but the colony.

If you’ve been trying and failing to kill roaches for a while now, you might simply be using the wrong tools. It’s tough to know what works, especially when the advertising promise of “Quick-and-Easy!” has you looking at less effective products.

4 Important Don’ts of Cockroach-Killing Tools

Rule 1: Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t work. Question: how do you kill roaches with ultrasonic pest repellers? You don’t! Regardless of the marketing shtick, they just don’t work. The same goes for roach bombs and other products that blow smoke out of a can. They promise plenty, but the marketing is a bunch of guff.

Rule 2: Don’t mistake what’s handy for a solution. Sure, go ahead and hit that ugly brown roach with a blast of bug-killing spray. But don’t count on a can of spray to take down the other, possibly hundreds of roaches that may be seething behind your walls.

Rule 3: Don’t rely on a single technique or product. Are there some excellent products out there? You bet. But what exterminators know, and you’ll learn below, is that products work best in combination.

Rule 4: Don’t dive in without a plan. Before buying and using products, know exactly what you need and how you’re going to use them. Yes, you can defeat cockroaches, sometimes more easily than you think, but it’s unlikely to happen without a focused, systematic plan.

Weapon 1: A Notebook, Pen, and Piece of Chalk

You’re going to need a notebook of some kind, a pen or pencil, and a piece of chalk. Nothing fancy, and available at the dollar store.

Weapon 2: Vacuum Cleaner and Cleaning Supplies

We’ll get to the importance of vacuuming shortly but at this stage, make sure your vacuum is working properly, that it has brush and crevice attachments, and that you’re stocked up on bags.

You’ll also want a bucket filled with a gentle, non-smelly cleaner like dish soap (which won’t drive cockroaches into the walls), a mop, and a sponge or rag.

Weapon 3: Traps

The most popular roach traps are sticky glue traps—what professional exterminators call insect monitors. Professionals use these to track roach activity, measure the size of the infestation, locate its hot spots and kill some roaches along the way. Inexpensive and effective, they’re indispensable to this plan.

Pro tip: Squeamish? Roach motels are a sticky trap that partially obscures its victims. Great for killing roaches, but somewhat less so for cockroach monitoring.

Weapon 4: Gel Bait

Professional pest controllers love gel roach bait, and why? Because it works!

Gel bait spreads from one roach to another, killing multiple roaches per treatment with little work on your part, other than setting them down.

Many pros also use an IGR, or insect growth regulator in combination with gel bait. IGR’s prevent cockroaches from reproducing, attacking parts of the colony the bait might have missed.

Weapon 5: Insecticidal Dust

Roach-killing dusts break down the cockroaches’ exoskeletons, eventually killing them through dehydration.

CimeXa is one highly effective example used by many exterminators.

Other roach killer dusts include boric acid, borax and diatomaceous earth (DE).

Tip: You can apply gel baits alongside dusts, as long as they’re used behind appliances or in closed, still rooms. Also, insecticidal dusts vary widely in terms of safety for children and pets. You’ll learn the safest ones further below.

The Ultimate Roach-Killing Battle Plan

This step-by-step plan of attack works for most roach infestations. Below, we’ve included some alternatives for specific situations.

Let’s get to work!

Step 1. Inspect, clean, and lay down sticky traps

You just don’t realize what vile creatures cockroaches are until you begin looking for, and cleaning up, all the crap they leave behind.

They feast on things that would make you cringe: bits of garbage, forgotten spills and crumbs—even feces. They lay their eggs in or near that debris, and leave pheromone trails on floors and walls that tell other roaches where the food is. And that they’re available to mate.

Your job is to get rid of all of that.

You’re going to go through your home room-by-room, cleaning up all the gunk roaches have left behind and suctioning up living roaches. When you finish with each problem area, you’re going to place a sticky trap there, jot down the location in your notebook, and leave a mark nearby with a piece of chalk (so you can easily find the trap later).

So grab your vacuum cleaner, nozzle attachments, mop, sponge and bucket, and head into the kitchen, where you’ll begin by pulling the refrigerator away from the wall.

Any roaches dash out from underneath? Vacuum the little buggers up. Any on the walls, in the corner, on the refrigerator’s coils or around the motor area? Don’t let them get away.

Vacuum up every roach you see, and then suction up the debris—the loose powdery granules, cockroach bodies, egg casings, and body parts. Use your crevice tool to get deep into cracks and gaps, and your brush tool to dislodge and suction up some of the stuck-on muck.

After you’ve vacuumed up everything you can, mop and scrub the area, removing every speck, stain, and pheromone-laced smear you find. Use a magic eraser or a plastic putty knife for stuck-on spots, and being nasty stuff, change your bucket water often.

When you’re done, take one of your sticky traps and place it in the problem area, preferably against a wall, then record its location in your notebook and leave a mark nearby with chalk. It will help you find it later.

Work in this way through the corners, undersides, backsides, and recesses of your kitchen, vacuuming up gunk, suctioning up roaches, cleaning off surfaces, and finally, laying down sticky traps. Where you don’t find signs of roaches, but do find any kind of dirt or mess, clean those areas, too. And then mop the entire floor.

Move on to the bathroom in the same way. Then other rooms.

And on a side note, this work is hard, but for many people, feels good. You may not have realized how cockroaches made you stop enjoying your home. Well, now you’re taking it back.

Once you’re finished, empty the vacuum into a sturdy garbage bag, seal it, and if there’s any chance your pets or outdoor critters could get into it, pop it in the freezer overnight. It will kill the bugs inside.

Also be aware that you may be faced with escapees whenever you turn the vacuum off. How do you kill cockroaches before they make their move? There’s no easy way to do it, really. Instead, try plugging the vacuum’s nozzle with a rag between sessions.

At the end of the day, give yourself a pat on the back. The next steps are a piece of cake.

Step 2. Identify your targets

Unless you have lots and lots of roaches, you won’t need to check your traps for a couple of days. When you do, you’ll learn some vital information about how and where to treat your roach problem.

Collectively, the traps will tell you what type of cockroach you’re dealing with (see below for a few ways to adapt the plan to certain species). They’ll also tell you how bad the infestation is—or whether you have an infestation at all.

Individually, they’ll tell you where the cockroach hot spots are, and that’s important because those are the areas you’ll want to focus on in the next two steps:

Step 3. Attack with gel bait and an IGR

Having found the areas you’ll hit hardest (with sticky traps), open a tube of gel cockroach bait such as Alpine or Advion and apply pea-sized drops all-around your target rooms, 2–3 feet apart.

You can place these drops on the floor, in crevices, under furniture and anywhere you think roaches will want to walk. If you’d prefer, put the drops on index cards or tissues so you don’t have to wipe off any excess once it’s eaten.

Only use tiny amounts so the roaches don’t avoid it. Keep using sticky traps to measure the effects of the bait. If you’re still monitoring with sticky traps (and you should be), you should notice fewer roaches in the traps within 1–2 weeks if it’s working well.

A round of IGR is optional, but it will help you to accomplish even more. IGR is used much like gel bait, but works differently and doesn’t need to be eaten to work. Besides helping to reduce roach populations on their own, some IGR’s are formulated with a feeding stimulant that encourages roaches to eat more bait, resulting in a more widespread kill.

Tip: As a cleaner and even simpler alternative, you can purchase bait stations, which hide the poison inside a plastic container but still let roaches crawl inside.

Step 4. Dust and trap

Dusts can kill plenty of roaches on their own but they’re also great alongside gel bait. Combining and rotating techniques and products is a great way to prevent avoidance—when cockroaches get used to a trap or bait and stop falling for it.

To kill roaches with CimeXa, boric acid or another finely powdered insecticide, use a duster to lightly coat surfaces under and around appliances, in cabinets, behind toilets, under sinks and even inside wall cavities.

If you’re using dust alongside Advion or a similar gel bait, you can apply it to a notecard or napkin and bait in the center so roaches have to step through the dust before reaching the bait.

Safety tip: Keep in mind that while these powders are relatively safe, they can be irritants or, in the case of boric acid, make you sick if you ingest it. So make sure not to coat surfaces like countertops or anywhere you might eat off of.

Step 5. Begin monitoring

As the weeks go by, you should notice fewer and fewer roaches. Then, depending on where you live (in some climates, you’ll never be completely roach-free), possibly no more roaches at all.

This is when you switch your battle plan over to monitoring.

With monitoring, you’ll ease up on the aggressive elimination tactics you’ve been using, and instead just make sure there are functioning sticky traps laid down.

You’ll check your sticky traps from time to time to check for any significant increase in roaches (catching a few from time-to-time is normal), but other than that, you’ll pretty much return to the way you lived before there was a problem.

And by the way, congratulations on a job well done. Let’s look at some special situations.

How to Kill Roaches of Different Types

Killing German Cockroaches

German cockroaches are among the worst types of cockroaches.

Yet, research has shown that they can be defeated with a strategy that begins with gel bait. Even in severely infested apartments, gel bait took down German roaches in just days.

If you’re seeing more than a few of these bugs, be aggressive. Combine gel bait, dusts and glue traps for all-around cockroach-killing action.

Replace baits as soon as they’re empty. Change traps as soon as they’re full.

Add an IGR to prevent even more baby German roaches from starting the infestation over just when you thought you had it under control.

It’s a game of perseverance against these super-resilient pests but the battle plan works against them well.

For a complete, step-by-step guide to “How to Get Rid of German Roaches” click here.

Killing American Roaches

American cockroaches often live outdoors but they get by just fine indoors, too. Eliminating them takes a combination of roach-killing weapons and a strategic defense.

For these bugs, you’re going to need a bigger sticky trap, and if you use them, a larger bait station. American roaches grow up to 2 inches long so smaller traps and devices will fill too quickly or have openings too small to let them in.

Consider adding a perimeter spray to your arsenal, too. And while you’re out there, you should check for any gaps or openings you think the bugs might be getting in from, and seal those up. Since these pests come from outside, a strong line of defense will help prevent future invaders.

Read our Roach-Free Recipe for even more tips: Getting Rid of American Cockroaches Like a Pro

How to Kill Roaches with a Pet-Safe Strategy

Pet owners have important concerns about roach-killing products. So, how do you kill cockroaches in a way that won’t harm your pets? By using the same battle plan, but taking care to select products that have either very low toxicity—or none.

Most roach control products are safe for pets, but some you may want to avoid. Whatever you choose, carefully read and follow the label for warnings and instructions. You’ll not only protect yourself, your family, and your pets, but do a better job.

Pet-safe baits

For gel baits, it’s not that the products are poisonous (the amount of poisons applied in these products are very small), but that an animal could potentially chew up or gulp down a gel baits’ plastic housing (if it’s that type), potentially causing a blockage.

Regardless of the bait you choose, baits should be placed in areas that are inaccessible to pets and children. Proper placement is one of the best things you can do to keep your household safe.

Pet-safe insecticidal dusts

For insecticidal dusts, the concerns are a little more serious:

Diatomaceous Earth: Pets could gobble up food-grade diatomaceous earth and not have a problem, but you don’t want them eating the non-food-grade DE you use for your pool—and you don’t want them (or you and your family) inhaling either kind, because DE can be damaging to the lungs.

Borax and Boric Acid: You definitely don’t want your pets eating any homemade baits you made with borax or boric acid since both are toxic enough to hurt them.

Man-made Insecticidal Dusts: You may be surprised to learn that the least toxic insecticidal dusts are the man-made ones. CimeXa, for example, an amorphous silica gel is even allowed as a food additive.

Even so, CimeXa can irritate your eyes. And like all dusts, shouldn’t be inhaled, used around food or anything that comes into contact with food, and kept away from kids and pets.

Pet-safe sticky traps

Sticky traps don’t contain any poison and their insect attractants won’t cause your pets any harm. A dog could swallow one down however, and face the same problem a bait housing could pose. And any pet could get one stuck to its fur. That’s not going to kill them, but could be wouldn’t be too much fun.

Prevention Tips: Sanitation and Exclusion

Even with a pack or two of sticky traps lining your walls and corners, roach problems may flare up. You can certainly repeat the battle should you need to or (far better), simply prevent them from happening again.

There are two additional weapons you can use to do that: sanitation and exclusion, and both work by depriving roaches of certain things they need. Here’s how they work:

You already did some of that when you cleaned up food sources and pheromone trails. Now you’re going to do it as a way of life.

Sanitation

Sanitation as a pest control method is about depriving roaches of the 2 things they need most to survive: food and water. Take those away and roaches either die or leave.

You already took some sanitation steps in “How to Kill Cockroaches Step 1.” Now you’ll put some simple sanitation practices into place ongoing.

Food sources

Roach-proof your trash area by using garbage cans with tight-fitting lids, and regularly wiping them down. Keep the floor and walls around them clean, and throw bags away frequently to cut down on (to roaches) attractive smells.

Invest in a set of glass or plastic containers with tight-fitting lids, and keep all your dry foods and ingredients inside. Keep the outer surfaces clean and free of any smears of food that could continue to be a food source, and resist the temptation to store food in plastic bags. Roaches can chew right through them.

Crumbs and spills are a major food source for cockroaches, and while there’s no way to completely avoid them, there are some handy tricks to reduce them.

Create a new family rule: all eating is done in the kitchen and/or dining room, limiting the crumbs roaches are able to find throughout your house. If you have pets, keep their bowls in the kitchen as well—pet food is also roach food!

You’ll also want to have a rigorous vacuuming and wipe-up routine, possibly more than other people. A single crumb is a meal for a cockroach, and to this point they’ve somehow been getting them.

Water sources

Water sources attract roaches, and the variety of them you probably have in your home may surprise you. Those cockroaches in your drains? They probably didn’t paddle up through the sewers. They probably found your drains looking for water, and figured they were a moist, cozy place to stay.

So buy a cover for your drains to keep roaches out of them, fix leaky faucets, and make a habit of mopping up even the tiniest of drips and puddles. Grab your flashlight and poke around your under-sink areas looking for leaks and even condensation.

Keep a towel by the shower or tub to soak up water at the base, and when showering, turn on the bathroom fan to reduce humidity faster. Pour out the water under your dish drainer when you’re done with it, and turn it on its side to let the last of the water drip out.

Exclusion

Cockroaches make it inside in a number of ways.

Indoor roaches will hide in grocery bags, in thrift store finds, and hand-me-downs. They’ll also crawl in through your walls if you’re lucky enough to live in an infested apartment building.

Outdoor roaches will crawl in through cracks and gaps in your home’s exterior. They’ll sometimes be carried in with firewood.

To keep roaches out, you’ll need to think through how the last batch must have made their way in, then take action to seal their entry points. That may mean inspecting groceries or your kids’ backpacks before they come through the door. Or investing in a supply of caulk and wire mesh to seal cracks and crevices around the house.

How to Know When to Call the Pros

There might come a time when the best course of action isn’t to continue your nightly assault but to hold back and wait for reinforcements.

When the weapons just don’t seem to be working, when the traps aren’t showing signs of success, when there are just too many of them… it’s time to call in the pros.

A professional exterminator has the tools and knowledge to get rid of roaches, even when they’re a seemingly insurmountable force. That’s a valuable ally to have.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’re up against a resilient enemy but, now, you know exactly how to kill cockroaches and stop them from bouncing back.

So grab your weapons of choice, start planning your attack and take down cockroaches once and for all!

Good luck!

Written by Andrew Martin. Reviewed by James Miksanek, PhD.

Disclaimer: This page is strictly for informational use. When using insecticides, keep in mind—the label is the law. Insecticides should be applied correctly and safely when needed, and according to the laws of your state or country.

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Sources

1. 2019 State of the Cockroach Control Market (2019) Zoecon/Central Life Sciences.
2. Nagro, Anne (2019) Rethinking German Cockroach Control. PCT Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.pctonline.com/article/rethinking-german-cockroach-control/
3. Murphy, Rachel (2019) Insider. Retrieved from https://www.insider.com/how-to-kill-a-cockroach–2018–3

There are few calls more urgent in the exterminator’s world, than from people who’ve discovered a nest of German roaches. The bugs are nasty, smelly, unhealthy to have around, and ruin literally everything they touch.

Though not the easiest bug to get rid of, you don’t have to live with German roaches anymore. And you won’t need an exterminator if you learn to take care of them yourself.

Today you’ll learn how to get rid of German roaches in 3 simple proven steps, with techniques and tools that anyone can use.

Ready to take back what’s yours? Let’s go.

The German Roach Rap Sheet

First the bad news—

German cockroaches are notoriously difficult to control.

They breed and spread with dizzying speed, survive on very little, and don’t give up without a fight. They’ll infest your home winter or summer, destroy everything they touch, and so long as they’re fat and happy, will never… ever… leave.

Bombs won’t kill them all, sprays only scratch the surface, and as you’re trying to figure out a solution, all those tiny roaches are multiplying and getting worse.

But there is some good news, and it has to do with what’s proven to work before. The plan below isn’t the only solution, but it’s best way to get rid of German roaches that we know.

Here’s how to get rid of German cockroaches forever, step-by-step:

Step 1: Create a Battle Plan by Identifying German Cockroach “Hot Spots”

Let’s talk about battle plans and how you create one for German roaches.

Professional exterminators don’t go into a home and start spraying right away. They create a strategy based on information, and predictably, because it almost always does, the solution falls into place.

The core of that plan is a piece of detective work known as an inspection, which informs everything they do next. And while that might seem an obvious first step, few non-professionals do it, usually to their loss.

The inspection accomplishes a number of things, two of which are essential if you want to get rid of German roaches yourself:

• It provides a picture of how bad the overall problem is, and –
• It shows you where the roaches are most active.

If you do it right, the inspection tells you not only whether you can handle the problem yourself (if you discover that your home is literally seething with roaches, you may want to pass on the DIY), but precisely where to focus your efforts.

So an inspection is the first step in this plan, and there are two ways you can choose to do it:

By going room-by-room, and recording the signs of cockroaches that you find, or by combining those same observations with the evidence gained from sticky traps, which provide more accurate information.

Here’s how to do either kind:

Option #1. Do a visual inspection

Beside being absolutely free, a visual inspection has the advantage of being something you can do right now to put a solution into action. Like certain other problems, roaches don’t wait around as we take time to make a decision. With every day that passes, the problem gets worse. So the sooner you begin, the better.

To do a proper inspection, you’ll need a strong flashlight, a hand mirror, a step stool for high-up places, and a towel or knee pad to comfortably kneel on. You’ll also want a notepad and pen to jot down your observations, along with a piece of chalk to mark areas directly.

Being German roaches, you’ll want to start in the kitchen.

Begin your inspection in the kitchen

With plenty of food, warmth, water, and dark spaces to be found, the kitchen is a German roach’s favorite spot. You’ll find them everywhere in the kitchen, where they prefer crevices and tight places they can hide. A good place to begin is the refrigerator area, which German cockroaches love.

You don’t want to be shy with the refrigerator. With a little careful tugging, they’re usually easily moved. Pull the refrigerator a short distance away from the wall and look behind and underneath it—on the floor, the wall, and every surface of the refrigerator itself. Examine the coils and the motor area, the refrigerator’s adjustable feet, and the sealing strip along the door.

Now what do you see?

Any bits of shell, cockroach droppings, tiny corpses, or living cockroaches themselves?

Jot down the location in your notebook, along with a brief description of how much cockroach activity you see. If you found significant activity, mark the nearby floor or wall with a little bit of chalk. You’ll be returning to that spot later (and the chalk will help you find it).

Move on to the stove, pulling it away from the wall if that’s safe to do. Examine the sides and back of the stove, as well as the flooring underneath it. Examine the wall and cabinet surfaces next to and behind it.

Lift the stove top and peer underneath it. Examine the burners and drip pans. Remove the clock face if possible, and examine the internal mechanics or electronics. Examine the inside of the oven, the inside of the broiler, and any voids underneath it. Look under the oven itself with your flashlight as best you can.

Jot down your description, place a little mark of chalk where you find cockroach activity, and move on to the dishwasher, examining it in the same way. Pay special attention to the gaskets which sometimes fail and let cockroaches in.

Now that you’ve got the hang of it, move on to every other area of your kitchen, including your sink and under-sink areas, your cabinets, drawers, and shelves. Look underneath dish mats and drying racks, under pet food bowls, and underneath, around, and inside trash cans.

Look behind pictures and wall calendars, behind and inside wall clocks, under bubbles and gaps in the wallpaper, inside ceiling light fixtures and, being cautious, inside electrical outlets (you’ll need a screwdriver to remove the face plates).

Jot down your descriptions in your notebook and mark what you need to with chalk. If you think you might have missed a spot, scan the room in sections—up high, eye-level, and down low.

Then move on to other rooms

You’ll inspect other rooms in exactly the same way, beginning with rooms that offer the easiest access to food, warmth, and water. German cockroaches like bathrooms for those reasons, so take your inspection there next, paying special attention to dark, moist, hidden areas, like the holes where pipes enter the wall, and under-sink cabinets.

Move on to bedrooms, closets, and other areas of your home, repeating the same process—pulling objects away from the walls when practical and safe, examining the areas behind them, jotting down observations in your notebook, and marking any problem areas that you find.

Option #2. Couple a visual inspection with sticky traps

Where a visual inspection can be a game-changer in a plan to get rid of German cockroaches, sticky traps take things to the next level. Professional exterminators don’t usually call these devices sticky traps, but insect monitors, which is a better description of how they’re used.

Here’s why you may want to use them:

First, they actually do kill roaches, typically within just hours of laying them down. They don’t wipe out cockroach populations the way the products in Step 2 below do, but help to reduce them, especially at the beginning.

Second and more importantly, sticky traps take the guesswork out of your inspection. Rather than having to rely on signs of activity that may have happened months ago, you’ll know where all the hot spots are right now, along with where the worst infestation lies.

To use sticky traps (or monitors) in this phase of the plan, you’ll do the same inspection you did above, but lay down sticky traps at the same time you jot down your observations.

You’ll mark each trap with its location, mark the area nearby with chalk, and gather up all your traps in a couple of days. Then you’ll count the cockroaches in the trap, jot down the ares with the highest activity in your notebook, and know exactly where to hit in Step 2.

—The cost for sticky traps? About a dollar each. Less in bulk and multi-packs.

Read on: Roach-Free Recipe: How to Find Cockroaches

Step 2: Eliminate German Roaches with a Multi-pronged Attack

Okay, now that you’ve found areas of high activity, it’s time to get to work.

You’ll be targeting the high-activity areas revealed by your inspection, and hitting them with several different tools: a vacuum cleaner, cockroach baits, insecticidal dust, and for a final wallop (in an optional last step) a dose of Insect Growth Regulator (IGR).

Why not just one product? Because German cockroaches are difficult to completely eradicate and can come back if you don’t strike them hard. The best exterminators do this. You’ll be glad you did it, too.

So let’s start with a technique and tool you already know quite well: the vacuum cleaner.

1. Suction up visible German Roaches with a vacuum cleaner

How do you get rid of German roaches with a vacuum cleaner? By surprise, mostly. And by going after more than just the bugs themselves—namely, parts of their habitat. You cant get rid of German roaches entirely with a vacuum cleaner, but it’s an excellent way to start.

Using the location information in your notebook, visit the first hot spot on your list and vacuum up everything you see. You’re going to want to suction up everything that’s not clean—crumbs, debris, debris, body parts, cockroach eggs, and every panicking, scrambling roach that dashes by your feet.

Many people find this job more than a little satisfying, not just because it’s slightly murderous, but because it feels good to physically reclaim your home.

Use your vacuum cleaner’s attachments to your advantage, especially the brush and crevice tools (that you can use to scrape surfaces and poke deeply into cracks). If the mood strikes you, you can grab a bucket and do some scrubbing too, but don’t use any harsh or smelly chemicals right now. Dish soap and water would be about right.

When you’re done vacuuming and possibly cleaning, remove the bags from your vacuum cleaner, gather up any rags you used, and carefully dispose of them in a tightly sealed plastic bag. If there’s any chance a critter could discover and rip into it, pop the bag into the freezer for a few hours. The cold will kill any living cockroaches inside.

2. Poison German roaches with gel bait

Vacuuming didn’t only get rid of dead and living roaches, egg cases, and a bunch of disgusting gunk. It reduced the food supply for the colony, making products like cockroach gel bait more effective.

Gel baits—another favorite of professional exterminators—are formulations of attractant and pesticide that deliver a lethal poison when eaten. Roaches don’t die right away, but over time, typically when they return to the nest, bringing the poison with them to further spread.

The tiny amount of poison in the gel isn’t enough to harm you, your family, or your pets, but a single syringe or station of bait can often be enough to wipe out an entire German cockroach colony.

To use gel baits, you’ll return again to your home’s cockroach hot spots, then squeeze modest, pea-sized drops into any cracks and crevices that you find nearby. Within a few days you’ll notice dead or dying roaches. Within a couple of weeks, you’ll have wiped out scores or hundreds more.

It’s possible to eliminate the entire colony with gel bait, but a second product, insecticidal dust, will kill roaches that the gel bait may have missed.

—The cost for gel bait? About $30 to treat your entire house.

Read on: Choosing and Using Gel Bait for Roaches

3. Kill German roaches with insecticidal dust

Roaches depend on their hard, protective exoskeletons to shield their tissues and retain moisture. When their exoskeletons become damaged, they dehydrate and quickly die.

Insecticidal dusts take advantage of this vulnerability by causing damage to their exoskeletons, poisoning them through ingestion as they try to groom it off, or poisoning them via absorption through the exoskeleton itself. Dusts provide an excellent complement to gel bait because the products attack German roaches in different ways.

To use insecticidal dust, you’ll “puff” the product with a “hand duster” into voids you haven’t “baited”—inside cracks and crevices, gaps between moldings, long window sills, and behind electrical face plates and fixtures.

Too much dust will scare them off, but a fine layer will kill cockroaches extremely well. You’ll want to puff it deeply into cracks where it can coat multiple surfaces. Inside walls a single application of dust can work for years.

Insecticidal dusts can be purchased in “natural” products like diatomaceous earth, borax and boric acid, and in even safer, more effective man-made formulations like CimeXa.

By the end of this stage you may have killed your last German cockroach, but a last product, insect growth regulator (IGR), will keep an infestation from coming back.

—The cost of insecticidal dust? About $25 for an inexpensive hand duster and a bottle of CimeXa.

4. Stop German roaches from reproducing with insect growth regulator

German roaches’ biggest advantage is their ability to quickly reproduce. A single German cockroach female can produce over 400 nymphs in her lifetime, and your home can become infested with German roaches within just a matter of months.

Insect growth regulators (IGR) interfere with that cycle by stopping roaches from reproducing. Used alongside baits and insecticidal dusts, IGR’s offer a kind of insurance policy that attack the cockroach life cycle and keep them from springing back.

Like baits, dusts, and vacuuming, you’ll apply IGR only where it’s needed most. Unlike baits and dusts which must be eaten or touched, IGR’s (which are also eaten in certain formulations) have the ability to travel through the air as a vapor, settling on their shells where it’s absorbed.

If you decide to use one, an IGR can help to “seal the deal,” and since they also stimulate roach’s appetite, they can make gel baits more effective.

—The cost for a dose of IGR? $15- $30.

Step 3: Keep German Roaches from Coming Back

Congratulations!

You’ve met the enemy head-on, and with just a handful of tools, won a major battle.

In this final step, you’ll make sure you don’t have to face an infestation again. You’ll make it harder for German cockroaches to discover your home, and harder to survive should they get in.

Keeping German roaches out

Here’s an important question to ask yourself: How did German roaches manage to get inside your home in the first place? Do you know?

If you live in an apartment they might have made their way through your neighbor’s walls (see below), but there’s another way they do it, too. They hitchhike. German roaches are expert hitchhikers that climb into things you might not expect, and end up in new territory like your home.

They might have hitchhiked into your home through:

• Second-hand bargains. Love them? German cockroaches love them too! And will happily travel back with you from thrift shops, yard sales, and in boxes of free stuff sitting by the road.
• A visit to a roach-infested home. Unrecognized infestations are no joke. A quick visit to an ailing aunt may be all it takes to bring back a tiny stowaway inside your purse or pant cuff.
• Groceries. It’s only a short hop from an infested grocery store to your home. Grocery bags are notoriously easy for German cockroaches to crawl into, and they’ll end up not only in your home, but your car as well.

Your first task if you want to keep German roaches from coming back is to consider how they might have gotten in originally, and to figure out a way to keep them from doing it again.

Making your home inhospitable to German roaches

The next task is to make your home a barren, awful place for German roaches. The sort of place that when they pay a visit, they’ll turn around and run. You can do that by depriving them of the two things they can’t live without—food and water.

Do a second inspection of your home if you need to—beginning with kitchens and bathrooms—to find the water sources that have been keeping the colony alive. These could be leaky pipes or faucets, drips from window sills or air conditioners, pools of water that collect around the sink or bathtub, or areas of condensation.

Fix what needs fixing, and begin mopping up moisture where it occurs.

Next, start eliminating food sources by storing pantry items and cooking ingredients in hard, airtight containers. If you have pets, don’t leave their food out overnight. Use a trash can with a lid and change the bag frequently.

Finally, focus on your cleaning habits, which make a big difference in what roaches find to eat. Wash the dishes and rinse the garbage disposal every night. Clean it with baking soda and vinegar every few weeks, too. Make it a habit to sweep and vacuum the floors at least every 2–3 days, removing every crumb that could provide a roach a meal.

Read on: How to Keep Roaches Away for Good

Conclusion

A serious pest deserves a serious pest control plan. Using the one here, you’ll know how to get rid of German roaches, and keep them away for good. Now all you need to do is start.

You’ve got this!

Frequently Asked Questions

Written by Andrew Martin. Reviewed by Rae Osborn, PhD.

Disclaimer: This page is strictly for informational use. When using insecticides, keep in mind—the label is the law. Insecticides should be applied correctly and safely when needed, and according to the laws of your state or country.

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Sources

1. Ogg, Barb et al. (2006) Cockroach Control Manual. University of Nebraska Extension. Retrieved from https://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/roach/cockroach%20manual.pdf
2. How to Get Rid of German Cockroaches. Ortho. Retrieved from https://www.ortho.com/en-us/library/bugs/how-get-rid-german-cockroaches
3. Nagro, Anne (2019) Rethinking German Cockroach Control. Pest Control Technology Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.pctonline.com/article/rethinking-german-cockroach-control/