Cockroaches: Several of these fragrant plants will help discourage cockroaches from entering your home, including chrysanthemums, catnip, peppermint, and lavender. Fleas and bedbugs: These itchy insects hate lemongrass, lavender, citronella plants, catnip, and chrysanthemums.
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.
What smell keeps roaches away? Luckily for us, roaches tend to dislike smells that we enjoy, like – citrus, peppermint, garlic, and coffee. Eucalyptus and tea tree oil, as well as stronger disinfectants like vinegar and bleach are good at keeping roaches away too.
Lavender. Cockroaches hate the smell of lavender, and that is good news for you. If you love to grow lavender in your yard and garden, you are more than halfway to a roach-free home.
Roaches are repelled by ground coffee. In fact, putting some ground coffee down in the corners or windowsills of your kitchen can actually help keep them insects away.
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.
This citric fruit might do wonders for your health, but it certainly isn't a friend of the cockroach clan. 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.
The Natural Predators of Roaches
Toads and frogs. Lizards, such as leopard geckos, bearded dragons, monitor lizards, iguanas and even panther chameleons. Certain large species of beetles. Certain kinds of parasitoid wasps.
Rosemary is another herb that can be used to repel roaches simply by placing pieces of it around the house. All you need is to cut your fresh rosemary sprigs into 2-3 inch long pieces and once again put them wherever roaches are likely to go.
Hedge apples may help keep cockroaches out of your house. While the oil in the fruit isn't strong enough to actually kill the insects or keep them away from a very large area, the fruit provides a natural way to keep small areas cockroach-free and may help keep the roaches from entering your house.
Does Cinnamon repel cockroaches? No, cinnamon doesn't repel cockroaches. But there're are other essential oils or spices that can work against cockroaches. You can use bay leaves, garlic, and catnip to reduce some amount of cockroach activity in your home.
The idea behind this home remedy for cockroaches is that roaches cannot stand the scent of the essential oils released by crushed bay leaves. However, the scent produced by bay leaves is not powerful enough to repel cockroaches.
Cockroaches hate black pepper. Its spiciness drives them nuts.
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 myth that killing a cockroach will spread its eggs isn't true, but killing a cockroach with force can attract more. But that can be used to your advantage if it brings bugs out of hiding to be eliminated.
Baby roaches – in kitchens or bathrooms – are usually an indication of a German cockroach infestation. These roaches are commonly found in kitchen and bathroom areas because they offer a warm, humid environment with plenty of moisture and access to food.
Sugars. Cockroaches are primarily attracted to sugar. Sugar used for tea or baking should be sealed tightly, or cockroaches may get into the package. Soda and juice attract cockroaches, because of the high concentration of sugar in them; even a spilled sugary drink that has dried can be smelled.
Use a mixture of one tablespoon cayenne pepper powder, one crushed garlic clove, and one tablespoon of onion paste. Put it all in a spray bottle filled with water, let it sit for an hour before using, and then spray wherever you've seen cockroaches.
Not only is peppermint oil a natural cockroach repellent—it's also toxic to roaches (and for the record, to bed bugs, too). The same Auburn University study found that mint oil killed both German and American cockroaches when they came into contact with it for an extended period.
Fogging systems are great at killing roaches on contact, but foggers can actually push the majority of them further into their safer hiding places. Fogging or bombing roaches creates a long-term problem for you and your loved ones that will not go away.
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).
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.
Garlic has a pungent smell that cockroaches don't like. Method: Crush a clove of clove garlic and place around infested areas as deterrents.