Vinegar has a strong scent that roaches are not fond of. However, it's not the best cockroach deterrent. If used alone, roaches may ignore the smell of vinegar. If you mix vinegar with essential oils, you can boost the strength of your repellent spray.
White vinegar is a known cockroach repellent. To use it, mix equal amounts of water and vinegar and sprinkle on the area where the cockroaches come out. This works just as well as boric acid.
Roach Repellents
Peppermint oil, cedarwood oil, and cypress oil are essential oils that effectively keep cockroaches at bay. Additionally, these insects hate the smell of crushed bay leaves and steer clear of coffee grounds. If you want to try a natural way to kill them, combine powdered sugar and boric acid.
Fruit flies and aphids find the smell of vinegar irresistible. If fruit flies or aphids are a nuisance in your home, yard or outdoor buildings, half fill a small bowl with apple cider vinegar and cover it over tightly with plastic wrap.
Household bleach is commonly used as a cleaning agent and gives off a strong smell that cockroaches hate.
Raid Ant & Roach Killer Insecticide Spray was found to be one of the most effective at killing cockroaches. A can is helpful for the times when you spot a roach in your home and you don't want to get too close. A roach spray should kill the bug almost instantly.
In the wild, these include: Amphibians like toads and frogs. Small mammals such as mice and shrews. Beetles, spiders, and other insects or arachnids.
Cockroaches are most likely to be active about four hours after dark and enter a period of immobility just afterwards. This immobility period is similar to what humans would call “sleeping.”
Not only is peppermint oil a natural cockroach repellent—it's also toxic to roaches (and for the record, to bed bugs, too).
The best essential oils to repel roaches are peppermint oil, oregano oil and catnip oil. Essential Oils for Killing Roaches. The best essential oils to get rid of roaches are rosemary oil, cedar oil and eucalyptus oil.
Boric acid: Used correctly, boric acid is one of the most effective roach killers. It's odorless, has low toxicity to pets, and since it isn't repellent to roaches, they will not seek to avoid it, crawling through it repeatedly until it kills them.
Moisture. Roaches need moisture to survive and this search for water will bring them into even the cleanest of homes. Leaky pipes and faucets are one of the most common attractants for cockroaches and is one of the main reasons you often see them in bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms.
Baking soda and sugar
You can try this method to eliminate the producers of the eggs. In a small container (or a bottle), make a mixture of equal parts baking soda and sugar. Sprinkle it at places where you've seen cockroaches. This is one of the easiest roach killers.
Add some food like a small piece of meat or some sweet stuff like chocolate on the roach bait in the bowl. Keep the bowl near one of the hiding places of roaches. To cover all the hiding places, you'll need multiple bowls with sticky roach trap and food. The smell of the food will draw the roaches out.
Salt Can Repel Roaches To A Degree
Salt can repel roaches. According to a fairly dated study on salt and insects, the condiment has ammonium nitrate and ammonium chloride that can ward off these pesky bugs. While there are harsher methods that can be more effective, salt can do in a pinch (slight pun intended).
Roaches won't leave a vacant home unless the food supply completely runs out. As roaches will feed on nymphs or dead and dying roaches, they're unlikely to starve. What's more likely than a roach colony leaving a home is that they will widen their food search, using your vacated home as a base for warmth and shelter.
Finding a cockroach nest means finding several (or several dozen) cockroaches and, probably, a few dead ones. You'll also see plenty of roach droppings and old egg cases lying around. Cockroach droppings are tiny and look like coffee grounds or black pepper. Droppings start to collect in areas with high activity.
Roaches are resilient and extremely hard to get rid of once they have established themselves in your home. As long as the temperature indoors is above 50 degrees, roaches can remain active year-round, although they are more prevalent in the spring and summer months.
While Americans are mostly dormant when it's cold and rainy, summer is roach season and the critters can appear in droves. While it's sound practice all year long, in the summer it is particularly important to keep your kitchen clean, store food in airtight containers, and take out the trash on a regular basis.
The smell of lemons repels cockroaches to a great extent, keeping them away from areas that reek of the fruit. Hence, it is advisable to mop floors with water that has a few lemon drops in it.
It's a fact that cockroaches are afraid of humans and other mammals or animals that are bigger than them. They see us as predators and that fear triggers their instinct to scatter away. However, they dislike strong and distinctive scents such as citrus, peppermint, lavender and vinegar.
For kitchen deterrents, cockroaches dislike the smell of cinnamon, bay leaves, garlic, peppermint, and coffee grounds. If you want a strong-smelling disinfectant, choose vinegar or bleach. The best scent-based deterrents are essential oils, such as eucalyptus or tea tree oil.
Citrus. You may love the smell of fresh citrus, but cockroaches hate the scent. That means you can use citrus scented cleaners in your kitchen and bathroom to chase any lingering roaches away. You can also keep a few citrus peels around your home in strategic places.
While lavender oil is a natural repellent against insects, including flies and fleas, it is not usually effective against roaches. Citrus oil, peppermint oil and bay leaves repel roaches naturally. You can combine lavender oil with them to create an all-around insect repellent for your home.