🪳 Getting Rid of Cockroaches
Comprehensive Guide to Safe, Least Toxic Cockroach Control Methods
🚨 Critical Health Risks
🫁 Respiratory Issues
Large indoor cockroach populations are one of the leading causes of allergies, asthma and other bronchial disorders in humans.
🦠 Disease Transmission
Cockroaches carry disease organisms, such as the swift and deadly Sarcocystosis disease, and bacteria on their bodies and in their fecal material.
🏠 Environmental Indicator
The presence of cockroach populations indicates that food, moisture and harborage resources are present and available.
🏠 Quick Home Solutions
🧂 Baking Soda Trap
Baking Soda is a safe insect repellent to keep ants, cockroaches and other insects from your kitchen cabinets.
- • Place jar lids filled with water (for insects to drink)
- • Sprinkle baking soda nearby (for them to eat)
- • Place on cabinet bottoms and under sinks
- • Chemical reaction kills insects safely
⚗️ TSP Mixture
Recipe:
- • 1 oz TSP (trisodium phosphate)
- • 6 oz borax*
- • 4 oz sugar
- • 8 oz flour
⚠️ CAUTION: Be VERY cautious with Borax [sodium borate] - can cause serious health problems, including death. Toxic to pets, especially cats.
🐦 Bird Cage Protection
To keep cockroaches off cages and bird food:
Wrap a strip of double sticky back tape around the bottom of the cage legs.
🔬 Scientific Background
Until recently, efforts to suppress cockroach populations have relied almost exclusively on repeated applications of synthetic pesticides. Surveys show that more than 1/3 of all pesticides used in the U.S. are applied in urban environments, with most applied in homes.
❌ Problems with Chemical Approach:
- • Multi-chemical resistance in German cockroaches
- • Increased public concern about pesticide exposure
- • Health risks in living environments
✅ Need for New Approach:
- • Holistic management strategies
- • Less toxic control methods
- • Reduced pesticide dependency
🪳 The Principal Cockroach Pest Species
Cockroaches - Know Your Enemy
🎯 Identification Is Critical
In order to deal with any particular infestation it is important that the cockroach pest be properly identified so that most appropriate and least toxic control methods can be applied.
Florida Facts: 41 cockroach species present, only about 6 are considered pests with very distinct behavior and habitat preferences.
🇩🇪 German Cockroach (Blattella germanica)
The predominant pest cockroach species in Florida (and the world)
📏 Physical Description
- • Small: adults less than 0.75" (1.5 cm)
- • Gold in color
- • 2 dark longitudinal bands on pronotum
- • Nymphs: smaller, wingless, dark brown
🏠 Behavior & Habitat
- • Primarily indoor pests
- • Strict moisture requirements
- • Found in kitchen and bathroom areas
- • Live about 6 months
👶 Reproduction
- • Female produces 4-8 egg cases
- • Carries eggs for 3-4 weeks
- • Average 28 nymphs per case
- • Most prolific and difficult to control
🌴 Peridomestic Cockroaches ("Palmetto Bugs")
Species Include:
📐 Characteristics
- • Much larger than German cockroaches
- • 1.5-1.75" (3-4 cm) in length
- • Reddish brown to black color
- • Can live up to 2 years as adults
- • Produce 20-80 egg cases lifetime
- • 15-20 nymphs per case
🌳 Outdoor Breeding Sites
- • Sewers and palm trees
- • Tree holes and fire wood
- • Water meters and well pumps
- • Mulch and flower beds
- • Enter homes for food, water, warmth
- • May establish indoor breeding populations
🛡️ Cockroach Prevention: Exclusion and Sanitation
Long term prevention of cockroach infestation is the best means of ensuring a cockroach free environment. This is accomplished through exclusion (preventing entry) and sanitation (eliminating resources).
🚪 Exclusion - Prevent Cockroach Entry
🔧 Seal Building Gaps
- • Seal gaps around plumbing connections
- • Caulk around wall outlets and switch plates
- • Prevents migration between units
🪟 Doors & Windows
- • Keep doors and windows closed/screened
- • Caulk cracks and gaps
- • Prevents outdoor invasions
🚿 Drain Maintenance
- • Run water in spare bathrooms regularly
- • Keep drain traps filled
- • Prevents entry through dry drains
🏠 Roof Protection
Install fiberglass window screen over roof vent pipes to prevent cockroaches from migrating up from sewer connections.
🔍 Inspection Protocols
- • Scan all grocery items before storing
- • Inspect children's book bags and lunch pails
- • Check areas after guests depart
🧽 Sanitation - Eliminate Cockroach Resources
🍞 Elimination of Food Resources
⏰ Survival Timeline
German cockroaches can remain alive for approximately 2 weeks with no food or water and for 42 days if only water is available. They can survive on tiny amounts like crumbs, grease, or food residue.
🗑️ Trash Management
- • Empty trash containers frequently
- • Keep containers clean inside and out
- • Use plastic bags with twist ties
- • Remove filled containers immediately
- • Use tight-fitting outdoor lids
🍽️ Kitchen Hygiene
- • Wash dishes immediately after meals
- • Empty sink strainers frequently
- • Run garbage disposal regularly
- • Clean appliances inside and out
- • Clean underneath and behind appliances
📦 Food Storage
- • Store pet food in resealable containers
- • Don't leave pet food out constantly
- • Reseal all opened food products
- • Use plastic snap-lid containers
- • Regular sweeping/vacuuming
💧 Elimination of Moisture Resources
💦 Critical Factor
The single most important factor in determining cockroach survival is availability of water. German cockroaches live less than two weeks when there is no supply of free water even if food is abundant.
🔧 Plumbing Maintenance
- • Tighten loose pipes
- • Patch plumbing leaks
- • Replace worn washers
- • Check outdoor spigots
- • Fix sprinkler drips
🧽 Drying Practices
- • Dry sinks after dish washing
- • Dry bathtubs after bathing
- • Wipe refrigerator condensation
- • Use collection pans under appliances
- • Insulate condensation-prone pipes
🐕 Pet & Plant Care
- • Empty pet water dishes at night
- • Use tight-fitting aquarium lids
- • Don't over-water indoor plants
- • Rinse and invert cups/glasses
- • Eliminate outdoor water collection
🏠 Elimination of Harborage Resources
🕳️ Cockroach Preferences
Cockroaches avoid open, well-lit areas with frequent air movement. They prefer dark, warm cracks and crevices. Adult cockroaches can fit into cracks only 1.6 mm wide (about 1/16 of an inch).
🏠 Indoor Harborage Elimination
- • Seal cracks and crevices with caulking
- • Remove clutter (boxes, bags, clothing, toys)
- • Eliminate useless debris
- • Keep kitchen and bathroom uncluttered
- • Focus on areas under sinks and appliances
🌳 Outdoor Harborage Elimination
- • Remove debris and trash around house
- • Stack firewood far from house
- • Fill tree holes with cement
- • Keep shrubbery well-trimmed
- • Remove dead palm branches and debris
🌿 Least Toxic Cockroach Management Strategies
After exclusion and sanitation measures have been taken, the next step is treatment strategy. The most effective cockroach management strategies rarely eliminate pesticides altogether but try to reduce the need for pesticide treatments by employing other less toxic methods.
Note: Ultrasonic devices are frequently advertised but extensive research shows they neither kill nor repel cockroaches.
🎯 Cockroach Baiting
🏠 Indoor Baiting
Cockroach baits consist of a toxicant mixed with a food source, often with attractants or feeding stimulants.
Application Methods:
- • Bait stations (popular, safe around children/pets)
- • Gel formulations for crack injection
- • Dust baits for crevices
- • Paste applications
🌳 Outdoor Baiting
Used primarily for peridomestic cockroach control around structures.
Challenges:
- • Spreadable granular baits lose effectiveness in rain
- • Difficult placement in palm trees, tree holes
- • Outdoor breeding populations continue
- • Weather resistance limitations
🧬 Insect Growth Regulators (IGRs)
🔬 How IGRs Work
IGRs disrupt normal growth and development of insects. They have very low toxicity to mammals because they act by disrupting hormonal processes specific to insects.
👶 Juvenile Hormone Analogues (JHAs)
- • Interfere with cockroach nymph development
- • Create sterile "adultoids" with twisted wings
- • Population decline over 4-9 months
- • Often combined with insecticides for faster results
- • Available in sprays or point source dispensers
🦗 Chitin Synthesis Inhibitors (CSI)
- • Cause abnormal molting, death during process
- • Adult cockroaches form abnormal egg cases
- • Interfere with hatching process
- • Currently in development
- • Not yet commercially available
🧂 Inorganic Dusts
🪨 Silica Gel
Finely ground sand or glass that adheres to and absorbs protective waxes on cockroach cuticle, resulting in death from dehydration.
Applied with squeeze-bulb duster into cracks and crevices
⚗️ Boric Acid
Stomach poison picked up by cockroaches walking across dusted areas. Adheres to cuticle; when cockroach grooms itself, it ingests the boric acid and dies.
Apply under sinks, stoves, behind refrigerators, along baseboards
🪤 Traps
📎 Sticky Traps
🏠 Indoor Placement:
- • Near garbage areas
- • Under sinks and in cabinets
- • Under and behind refrigerator
- • In bathrooms
Note: Not recommended outdoors - captures non-target animals and not weather resistant
🫙 Baited Jar Traps
🛠️ Construction:
- • Use any jar with rounded inside lip
- • Coat inner lip with Vaseline
- • Bait with bread soaked in beer
- • Wrap outside with paper towel
- • Cover outdoor jars with aluminum foil
Advantages: Safe for non-target organisms, weather resistant, reusable
🦎 Biological Controls
🌿 Natural Enemies
Natural controls play an important role in managing cockroach populations. It is very important that these populations of natural enemies be maintained to help keep cockroach populations in check.
🐝 Oothecal Parasitoids
🥚 Egg Case Parasites
Parasitic wasps are important natural enemies of cockroaches. The wasps parasitize cockroach egg cases (ootheca) and can have significant negative impact on outdoor cockroach populations.
Natural Effectiveness: 60-70% of all cockroach egg cases are parasitized without human interference
⚙️ How Parasitoids Work
- • Very tiny wasps (1-5 mm) that don't sting humans
- • Live in outdoor harborages with cockroaches
- • Female stings oothecae, lays eggs inside
- • Wasp offspring eat cockroach embryos
- • Adults emerge and mate immediately
⚠️ Protection Warning
Wasp parasitoids are extremely susceptible to pyrethroid insecticides. Insecticide applications may not kill all cockroaches but will eliminate parasitoids.
Best Practice: Use baits around infested areas to preserve beneficial wasps
📋 Summary
🎯 Key Points
- • German cockroaches are the most important indoor pest
- • Peridomestic cockroaches live outdoors but invade structures
- • Correct identification is crucial for effective treatment
- • Population assessment through inspection and monitoring
- • Combination of treatments recommended
🌿 Least Toxic Options
- • Bait products (indoor and outdoor)
- • Insect growth regulators (IGRs)
- • Inorganic dusts (silica gel, boric acid)
- • Traps (sticky and baited jar types)
- • Natural biological controls
Important: Protect oothecal parasitoids from insecticide applications, particularly pyrethroids. Use baits instead to maintain natural biological control systems.
📚 Footnotes
1. This document is ENY-258, one of a series of the Entomology and Nematology Department, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First published: April 1993. Revised: March 2003. Please visit the EDIS Website at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.
2. D. M. Miller, graduate research assistant and P. G. Koehler, professor/extension entomologist, Entomology and Nematology Department, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, 32611. The use of specific trade names in this publication does not constitute endorsement of these products in preference to others containing the same active ingredients. Mention of a proprietary product does not constitute a guarantee or warranty of the product by the authors or the publisher.
📄 Copyright Information
The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Larry Arrington, Dean.
This document is copyrighted by the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) for the people of the State of Florida. UF/IFAS retains all rights under all conventions, but permits free reproduction by all agents and offices of the Cooperative Extension Service and the people of the State of Florida. Permission is granted to others to use these materials in part or in full for educational purposes, provided that full credit is given to the UF/IFAS, citing the publication, its source, and date of publication.
Related information available: Mosquito Control methods for eliminating outdoor water sources that benefit multiple pest species.