The most common places for a roach nest in the house are in kitchens or bathrooms, particularly behind refrigerators, in cracks and crevices, and under furniture. Roaches prefer a warm, humid environment, so these places should be considered first, especially if they are close to a food source and water supply.
To find out where the cockroaches are nesting, you can use lights to get a general idea. Flipping the lights on and off in a dark room and observing where the creatures run will let you know where the nest location is. You can use a flashlight or your phone flashlight to look under furniture and other areas of clutter.
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.
As mentioned above, roaches tend to deposit their eggs in crevices and other protected areas. So, for example, if you have boxes of old clothes, you may have an attractive deposit point for cockroach eggs. Additionally, roaches tend to like nesting in places that are more likely to absorb the strong odor they emit.
Droppings. Resembling anything from tiny pepper specks to miniature pellets, a large amount of feces is a clear indicator of a cockroach infestation. Foul odors. Some roach species are known to emit a musty, unpleasant odor that lingers and gets more pungent with a bigger infestation.
Cockroach eggs look like small tan, brown or black capsules shaped something like a pill or a purse. German and American cockroach eggs are approximately 1/3-inch (8 mm) long, while those of the Oriental and SmokyBrown cockroaches are slightly longer, reaching lengths of almost ½ inch (12 mm).
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.
Mix equal amounts of boric acid, flour, and sugar to make a dough. Set balls of dough around the home where cockroaches can feed on it. The flour and sugar will attract the roaches while the boric acid will kill them.
Daytime Dens
Because cockroaches dislike light, they disappear during the daytime to dark places, including the undersides of appliances like stoves and refrigerators, underneath sinks or other installations, near plumbing, inside light switches and behind wall paneling or doorjambs.
Borax is a readily-available laundry product that's excellent for killing roaches. For best results, combine equal parts borax and white table sugar. Dust the mixture any place you've seen roach activity. When the roaches consume the borax, it will dehydrate them and kill them rapidly.
Cockroach nest smell is the most ignored sign of roach infestation because many people don't know what's the smell like. The smell is oily, strong, intense, and greasy. Roaches emit odor, a stench, from their glands. They use that smell to communicate with other roaches.
Do wall outlets lead to more prominent space for roaches to live? Cockroaches are generally attracted to close and tight and dark places, where their shells and body can touch each other. They can live in any electrical outlet because they need heat, water, and food, and they get all these inside an outlet.
Most of the time, when someone “suddenly” sees a cockroach, it's not quite as sudden as it seems. In other words, they've probably been in the home for a while, and you seeing them is more related to luck than anything else. Maybe you moved whatever they've been hiding under for the last several weeks.
The bedroom is full of dead skin and hair that many people often overlook. Underneath dressers and inside closets are popular hiding spots for roaches, as it offers shelter and food – as long as you don't clean those places.
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.
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.
While the presence of one cockroach in your home can be enough to send you into a panic, one roach doesn't necessarily mean you have a full blown infestation. Roaches are social pests, however, and reproduce quickly.
The average cockroach lifespan is about twenty to thirty weeks given that the roach has ready access to food and water. The first stage in the life of cockroach females and males alike is the egg stage. Eggs are produced in what are called egg capsules.
Roach droppings look like specks of pepper, coffee grounds, or dark grains of rice. The size of the feces is directly related to the size of the cockroach. Bigger insects produce larger droppings.
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.
If your home has 5 or fewer cockroaches, it can be identified as a light infestation. If it is between 10 to 25 roaches, it can be a moderate one. But if it exceeds 25, it can now be classified as a heavy infestation. You should know that the few roaches you see at home are not the only ones you have to deal with.
Cockroaches rarely eat electrical wires. They don't provide any nutrients or energy they need to survive. Cockroaches consume organic matter, so you don't need to worry about cockroaches biting through electrical wires. However, cockroaches corrode wires with their secretions and waste matter.