The strong scent of cleaners like Pine-Sol or Fabuloso often repels cockroaches.
Fabuloso is great for mopping floors, cleaning showers, and eliminating cockroaches. Its active ingredients — like sodium chloride, lactic acid, and citric acid — coupled with its strong scent repel and kill roaches. Plus, you can use the disinfectant to remove food crumbs or odors attracting the critters.
Strong Smells
Cockroaches have a keen sense of smell and are attracted to objects that have a strong and distinct odor. Two of the biggest culprits for attracting cockroaches are garbage and compost.
One effective method is using equal parts vinegar and water to clean your countertops and floors. Roaches dislike the strong scent of vinegar so that it can act as a repellent. Another option is to sprinkle diatomaceous earth along the areas where you've seen roaches.
Mint. It has been said that cockroaches dislike the strong smell of mint, so using this scent in your home can be effective in keeping these pests away. Whether you grow mint plants or use mint-scented cleaning products, you can enjoy this fresh scent in your home while keeping cockroaches out of your home.
Citrus. Citrus is one of the scents cockroaches are most known to hate, notably lemon and orange. Keeping a dish of lemon juice on your kitchen counter can deter these pests, as well as placing lemon peels around the home to discourage cockroaches from coming out of hiding.
Fabuloso might seem like an odd choice, given it's a multi-purpose household cleaner. But its chemical components, like sodium chlorite, lactic acid, citric acid, and more, and strong smell make it an excellent choice for killing and removing cockroaches from your home.
There's a long-running joke that cockroaches could survive the apocalypse, as getting rid of unwanted roaches is difficult if you have an infestation. But if you want to kill them on contact, all you need to do is reach for your handy bottle of Pine-Sol! Considered a "contact insecticide," it kills them quickly.
Moisture — Roaches search for available water, and leaking sinks or appliances work well. They offer warmth too, turning them into the ideal harborage for roach nests. Food — Even if you clean your counters and floors thoroughly, roaches always find a food source.
Cockroaches are known to eat anything ranging from garbage left out to tiny crumbs left on countertops. We recommend using white vinegar to scrub all kitchen surfaces and supplies to clear out any trace of food. Doing so will keep your space clean and potentially keep these nasty bugs out of your environment.
Attractor #1: Food
What attracts cockroaches more than anything is food. Roaches need food to survive. Eliminating access to food can help eliminate a roach problem. Throw away any food that has been left out on the counter.
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.
Maintaining Cleanliness. One of the most effective ways to deter cockroaches is by maintaining a high level of cleanliness in your kitchen. Daily Cleaning: Wipe down counters, sweep floors, and clean up spills immediately. Regularly cleaning prevents the accumulation of crumbs and sticky residues that attract pests.
Create a fly and wasp repellent.
Pour equal parts water and Pine-Sol in a spray bottle to spritz on outdoor furniture, the deck, and indoor areas where flies are most likely to flock, such as kitchen countertops.
The strong scent of cleaners like Pine-Sol or Fabuloso often repels cockroaches.
Cockroaches are constantly on the hunt for food and water. If these resources become scarce in their current location, they will venture into new areas, including homes, to find sustenance. Even the smallest crumbs or leaks can attract these pests, letting Cockroaches suddenly appear.
Your Best Bet for Deterring Cockroaches is a Clean Home
Take that away from them and their days are numbered, as long as you maintain it. Cockroaches can live up to three months without food, so they hide in dark corners of a property while they wait to go hunting at night.
Peppermint oil is a top contender when it comes to repelling roaches. The intense minty aroma is refreshing to us but absolutely overwhelming to roaches. The reason peppermint is so effective lies in its menthol content, which irritates a roach's sensitive respiratory system, making it hard for them to stay around.
Out of the different varieties of vinegar, it is the white vinegar that is found extremely effective in repelling bugs like cockroaches. Vinegar on its own is not powerful enough to kill cockroaches, but if used in an undiluted form, its smell and taste may disinfect the place and keep insects away.
Soap and Water Spray
Getting rid of roaches with just soap and water can be effective. Simply place a few drops of soap into a spray bottle filled with warm water and shake it well. The roach might continue to run after being sprayed but will die after a minute or so.
Yes, Lysol does kill roaches! It does this by suffocating them. Roaches breathe through openings on their back called spiracles. The Lysol penetrates the spiracles, causing them to choke and die.
You can clean the toilet using this product by pouring a little into the bowl and scrubbing clean. But we don't recommend placing Fabuloso or any other all-purpose cleaner in the back of the toilet tank. Such cleaners can be corrosive and may degrade the rubber gasket and seal in your tank.