There are ways to mitigate small roach invasions, but infestations should be handled by exterminators.
Close up any openings to a home and maintain a vegetation-free zone to keep roaches out.
Avoid foggers and instead kill roaches with diatomaceous earth, boric acid, or gel-based baits.
Here are a few important roach resources to secure:
Food: Roaches need food to survive, and if it’s available in your home, they’ll try to stick around. Wipe or vacuum up any crumbs on floors, tables, and counters. Don’t leave food unsealed in your pantry. To ensure it’s out of reach of pests, store open pantry foods in airtight containers. Roaches also eat substances we don’t consider food, such as hair, soap, and toothpaste. Try to keep your home clean and store away any potential items that roaches may try to feast on.
Leaks: Water is another resource that supports roach life inside of your home. If you have any leaky pipes or areas where water pools or drips, such as underneath sinks or in basements, roaches are likely to congregate there. To drive away roaches, fix any leaky pipes and replace leaky faucets. Repair any other places where outside water can enter your home, such as a leaky window or roof. If your basement is moist, try using a dehumidifer or sump pump.
Hiding spots: During the day, cockroaches often hide in dark areas. Stacks of cardboard boxes, newspaper, and other clutter can make perfect hiding spots for roaches. Break down the boxes and recycle them instead of harboring a potential roach hideout in your home.
Points of entry: Close up points as many points of entry as possible. This could include affixing a door sweep to cover the crack between the bottom of a door and the ground, or sealing up any holes in the foundation of a house.
Outdoor foliage: Hodges also says to maintain clean gutters, and to keep a vegetation-free zone with your landscaping by eliminating any foliage hanging over a house and not adding mulch when it’s not necessary.
Collect and dispose of roaches with glue strips
Glue strips are one of the safest and most effective solutions for killing roaches, says Hodges.
Glue strips are sheets or tubes covered in a sticky substance and they can quickly catch cockroaches within 24 or 48 hours. While Hodges says these won’t work for large infestations, they can help with monitoring the severity of a roach situation and indicate the severity of an issue.
Bait and kill with boric acid
Boric acid is a stomach poison that roaches don’t have any resistance to. A roach must consume the boric acid for it to work.
However, it does come with a few caveats, as both Cross and Hodges point out. First off, Hodges explains it’s a slow-acting agent and takes a while to actually kill roaches. On top of that, Hodges states people often panic and use more than necessary.
“The rule that we use when applying any type of a dust insecticide is that if you can see it, you’ve put out too much,” Hodges says. “If the roach sees that big old pile [of boric acid], they’re just going to walk around.”
To attract roaches to the boric acid, mix it with equal parts sugar and water. Put the mixture in an open jar and place it where you’ve seen roaches. After roaches consume the mixture, they’ll eventually die.
Hodges also encourages people to exercise caution, as boric acid can be toxic in large doses according to the National Pesticide Information Center, and to make sure they’re following the instructions on the label when it comes to application.
Sprinkle some diatomaceous earth
Diatomaceous earth works as a scratching agent or abrasive meant to get spread out on a surface that insects will then run across. The diatomaceous earth will then damage or stick to the exoskeleton, causing them to dry out.
Similar to boric acid, this option is slow working and oftentimes is applied by people in overly large quantities or incorrectly.
According to Hodges, using too much can sometimes cause itchy or sore throats with homeowners, and Cross also points out that overapplication can render diatomaceous earth ineffective since the roaches will see it and just crawl around it.
Add baking soda to your arsenal
Baking soda is another common household substance that you can add to your pest-fighting arsenal.
Mix baking soda and sugar to bait the roaches. When they eat the baking soda and consume water, it will cause their insides to bloat and expand, which kills them.
However, baking soda alone is not as effective as boric acid. But you can combine them.
A 2013 study found that pellets made from a combination of three parts boric acid and one part baking soda were effective at killing roaches, with an average death time of 5 hours after ingestion.
Try an insect growth regulator
If you have domestic roaches, such as the German cockroach, or if you think roaches are reproducing in your home, purchase an insect growth regulator product, such as a spray formulated with Pyriproxifen. These products focus on roaches at the egg and nymph stage, often rendering them unable to reproduce or mature into adults, and thus reducing the population.
Insect growth regulators are best used in tandem with products that kill adult roaches, since they often do not work on fully grown roaches and can take several months to have any noticeable effect.
