How to get rid of cockroaches at home

This is the most conscientious guide to killing cockroaches, a comprehensive solution to eliminate cockroaches. Many videos promote small remedies for killing cockroaches, the best folk ways to kill cockroaches, and the most thorough tips for eliminating cockroaches. All of them have no practical basis. There are no tips or remedies that can easily solve the cockroach problem. In this article you will know How to get rid of cockroaches at home.

Today I will give you a comprehensive solution that is the most effective and thorough way to get rid of cockroaches.

I was expecting a cockroach-free environment. But I brought the cockroaches from the old house with me. I tried all kinds of drugs, but I couldn’t completely solve the problem. In order to solve this problem, I searched all over the world for a solution, and finally used the comprehensive control solution you see. So far, I haven’t seen cockroaches in 4 years.

Let’s first figure out “Why can’t cockroaches be eliminated at home?”

First, get to know the family member “German cockroach” that has been with you for many years. It has two stripes behind its head and has amazing reproductive capacity. One egg case can bring you tens of thousands of cockroaches a year.

Cockroach glue bait can kill most cockroaches, but it cannot kill the egg cases . This is an important reason for recurrence. Another reason is that the female cockroaches carrying the egg cases have a reduced appetite and do not eat your glue bait. It may also be a new immigrant.

Also, if you repeatedly use the same active ingredient in a drug, cockroaches will develop resistance to it. You will find that after eating your glue bait, they are still alive and kicking. Some cockroaches may even develop a glucose aversion ^[3] and will not touch your sugar-based glue bait.

We need to recycle different ingredients of glue bait to avoid drug resistance . When choosing cockroach medicine, you should pay attention to its active ingredients : imidacloprid, dinotefuran (BASF), indoxacarb (Radar, Black Tornado ), flubendiamide (banned in China in 2021), and cis-cypermethrin used by BASF (banned by the EU, stocks must be cleared before 2022), and chlorpyrifos ( banned for vegetable pest control in China). Manufacturers will not tell you that a certain ingredient will cause drug resistance, they want you to repurchase repeatedly.

So when you watch videos that review cockroach medicines, they may be competing against the same ingredient. This kind of competition is at most to see which product’s glue bait is more attractive to cockroaches, but the efficacy and even the ingredients are the same.

Below, our cockroach control program is divided into four stages. Each stage has a different purpose and uses different products. Be patient, but as long as you follow my program, you will be able to completely eliminate cockroaches in your home.

The first step is to use chemical methods to quickly kill cockroaches

We still use the cockroach glue bait that most people have been using to quickly kill cockroaches. This is actually what most people are doing or have done. If you happen to have done this step recently, please jump directly to step 2.

The first step is to place cockroach glue bait. Most of the glue baits on the market are effective, such as those mentioned above. Here we need to emphasize again that if you have used active ingredient A before, please switch to active ingredient B this time to avoid drug resistance. For example, when switching from imidacloprid to dinotefuran, we are not talking about changing brands , but changing ingredients . Pay attention to the active ingredients, which are all labeled .

To effectively kill cockroaches, the first step is to find the source of cockroaches in the home and how cockroaches find their nests in the home.

German cockroaches are commonly found in wall cavities in kitchens and bathrooms and behind cabinets and appliances. Use a flashlight to check the refrigerator, oven, microwave, dishwasher, pipes under the sink, and any cracks and crevices.

Look for cockroach droppings. The little pepper-shaped ones left on countertops or in cabinets are their droppings, and this is where they hide, their habitat (they don’t nest).

Before any chemical treatment, it is important to clean your home first. Cockroaches need food, water, and hiding places to survive, so keeping your home clean is a key first step in controlling German cockroaches. Find their water source. Cockroaches need water, and even a trickle of water from a plumbing sink or toilet can provide them with water. Check and eliminate all possible water sources. Don’t leave even the slightest bit of food crumbs anywhere. Especially in the kitchen. Make sure your food storage containers are airtight. Store food in the refrigerator when possible, take out the trash frequently, and don’t leave trash in the house overnight.

The purpose of completing a thorough cleaning of the house is to give them nothing else to eat, increasing the chances of them eating the glue bait . Once you have done that, you can start using chemical methods. That is, use any of the glue baits mentioned above that have not been used before. Put a little bit of glue bait every 30cm to 45cm under the cabinets, behind the cabinets, under the sink and around the appliances, about the size of a soybean.

The second step is to use insect growth regulators to disrupt the cockroach development process and cockroach reproduction.

After the first stage is completed, most cockroaches are usually killed, but the cockroaches are still not extinct. After they die, the eggs in the egg case will still hatch. Some female cockroaches carrying the egg case have a reduced appetite and do not eat the bait. After 28 days of hatching, the cockroach egg case will become a nymph. The nymph needs to shed its skin 6 to 7 times to grow up. Each time it sheds its skin, it will grow one age. The last time it sheds its skin, it will grow wings. The nymph stage takes 40-125 days. After becoming an adult, it can reproduce offspring one week later.

In order to prevent new cockroaches from hatching, we need to use insect growth regulators. This product is rarely used in our country, but this step is very important in foreign IPM (integrated pest management) programs.

Insect growth regulators (IGRs) are a type of specific insecticide . They do not kill cockroaches directly when used, nor do they need to be eaten by cockroaches. Instead, they hinder or interfere with the normal development of cockroaches during their development period, causing the nymphs or eggs to stop developing, reduce their vitality, die, and eventually become extinct. They do not pose a threat to adult cockroaches, but can cause female adult cockroaches to become sterilized. Since IGRs do not kill adult cockroaches directly, and due to their working principle, they are slow to produce effects, generally taking about a month, so they are difficult to promote, especially in evaluation videos where they fail miserably. However, IGRs are very important in comprehensive control plans and have always been the main force in cockroach control abroad.

Place IGRs near computers in cabinets and drawers where you know there is cockroach activity and out of the reach of children and pets.

This will kill the larvae that have not hatched in the first step. The effective period of IGR is generally 90 days, so it needs to be replaced regularly. You need to be patient and insist on changing it 2 to 3 times. Currently, no resistance of cockroaches to IGR has been found .

I couldn’t find IGR in China before. I bought it from Amazon when I first used it. If you have the conditions, you can also buy this one directly:

There is currently only one IGR product sold in China, and its main ingredient is S-methoprene , which is the same as the active ingredient in foreign countries in the above picture and is safe for mammals. [Cannot post the link], post the picture instead:

Well, this step will effectively kill the remaining cockroaches in the first stage and block the development of cockroaches and cockroach eggs and finally kill them.

The third step is to destroy the cockroach habitat and prevent foreign cockroaches and those that slip through the net.

After completing the first two steps, you should wait about a week before moving on to the third step. There will still be some fish that slip through the net in the first two steps. In addition, you may bring back cockroaches from outside at any time, or the cockroaches from your neighbor’s house may visit your house and settle down to rebuild the population, so we need to prevent recurrence through long-term preventive measures. Of course, you have to clean your home regularly.

Use silicone sealant to seal any cracks and crevices that could harbor cockroaches.

What we need to do next is to destroy the environment where cockroaches live, kill the cockroaches that may survive the above two steps, and lay mines for new cockroaches that may invade in the future. We need a permanent solution, so we cannot use chemicals, even if they are of low toxicity, they are toxic after all.

Pay attention, this step is critical . If you don’t do it, all your efforts will be wasted.

This step is called retention in professional cockroach killing. There are two ways to retain:

First, we use washed food-grade diatomaceous earth  to complete the third step. This is a physical method to kill cockroaches. Diatomaceous earth is composed of ancient diatom skeletons, 90% of which is silicon dioxide. These diatom skeletons appear to have many sharp edges and spikes under a microscope. There is a layer of wax on the exoskeleton of cockroaches. Once diatomaceous earth is apply to cockroaches, the diatoms will pierce this membrane and absorb the wax and moisture on the exoskeleton, causing the cockroaches to lose moisture and die of dehydration. This process usually takes 24 to 72 hours. Its effect is relatively slow, but it is absolutely safe and can be use permanently.

The processing technology of diatomite is divide into calcination and washing. We must use wash food-grade freshwater diatomite here, because the amorphous silica of calcin diatomite will be transform into crystalline silica during the calcination process, resulting in the change of physical properties and failure to achieve insecticidal effect. The particle diameter of washed food-grade freshwater diatomite is very small, about 14 microns, and very small particles are more likely to attach to cockroaches.

Why is diatomaceous earth safe? Diatomaceous earth is use in medicine, feed, facial mask, toothpaste, food and other aspects. For example, adding a little diatomaceous earth to pet feed can help kill worms in the stomachs of cats and dogs. For families with babies and pregnant women who are not confident in using chemical methods to kill cockroaches, they can also use diatomaceous earth directly.

How to use: Use a powder spray bottle to spray the places where cockroaches like to hide (I call this action “laying mines”). Cockroaches like to stay in places with water and heat sources . Just spray a thin layer of water sources (under the sink) and heat sources (under the microwave, under the stove, under the refrigerator), inside the cabinets, wall gaps, socket gaps, even behind the photo frames, under the furniture, and inside the sofa. There is usually a layer of cloth under the sofa. Poke a small hole on it, spray some diatomaceous earth in it, and then fill it up.

If there is a ceiling, open the ceiling, apply diatomaceous earth in every corner, and spray a layer of diatomaceous earth under the bed.

If your home is a villa, you can spray diatomaceous earth all around the villa. Also spray diatomaceous earth in places that may be connect to neighbors. For example, you can put a carpet at the door and spray diatomaceous earth on the carpet to prevent cockroaches from visiting.

Note that you don’t need to apply too much diatomaceous earth, just a thin layer. When you are sure that you haven’t seen cockroaches for more than half a year, you can spread more diatomaceous earth in the hiding places that cockroaches particularly like, so that new cockroaches will step on the landmines and die before they can rebuild their population. If you are worry, you can cover all these places with diatomaceous earth again every 6 months. Although diatomaceous earth is non-toxic, you should avoid inhaling it. It is best to wear a mask when spraying.

These diatomaceous earths do not need to be clean, so these mines will remain permanently under the cabinets, behind the cabinets, and under the sink where cockroaches like to hide.

There is only one wash food-grade diatomaceous earth product. Most of the others are calcin and processed for filtration or soil improvement. I can’t put a link, so I put a picture.

Second method: Boric acid powder can also be use , the use method is the same as diatomaceous earth. Boric acid powder is somewhat toxic, keep pets and children away from it. Cockroaches will die after crawling through the place where boric acid is. Tiny powder particles will adhere to the insects, and cockroaches will comb these powders from their legs and antennae and then swallow them. As long as your boric acid is keep dry, the effectiveness of boric acid can be maintain almost indefinitely.

Boric acid is usually available as a powder, and only a thin layer is need, not too thick. Cockroaches tend to avoid large amounts of these powders, just as we avoid snow piles. The easiest way to apply a small amount of powder is to use a duster. Key areas for dealing with German cockroaches include cracks around cabinet edges and corners, the wall/floor junction behind refrigerators, stoves and dishwashers; and openings into walls from pipes such as sinks. Another potential hiding place for German cockroaches is the gaps under kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

This area can be treate by spraying the powder into existing cracks at the top of the baseboards. Spraying into areas behind dishwashers, stoves, etc. may require the removal of the front panel. Never spray boric acid on countertops or other exposed surfaces, especially those used for food preparation. Wipe away traces of powder with a damp cloth. Never inject boric acid into electronic devices because boric acid may corrode electronic devices.

Also, don’t use the tips on the Internet that mention mixing homemade glue bait with mashed potatoes, unless you think your homemade glue bait is more attractive to cockroaches than the ones you buy.

Step 4: Prevent cockroaches from repopulating

Many people are asking: My home is very clean, where do cockroaches come from? This is a good question. To prevent cockroaches, we must first understand how cockroaches breed and what causes cockroaches in our home.

The most likely reasons are these:

1. The most common way cockroaches slip in through door cracks. Nowadays, doors generally have a door sweeper (I don’t know if it’s call this name, if you know, please tell me in the comments). When the door is close, the door sweeper will automatically open and close the gap under the door to prevent cockroaches from slipping in. At the same time, leave medicine at the door or sprinkle diatomaceous earth (diatomaceous earth) on the door mat to prevent cockroaches from slipping in as soon as they come in, and die before they have time to reproduce.
2. The express parcels have to go through storage, transportation, and delivery to reach your home. Cockroaches or eggs may be bring to your home at each stage. It is best to remove the outer packaging outside before taking it home. For large express parcels, you should pay more attention to whether there are insect eggs when unpacking.
3. Supermarkets and wet markets are more difficult to eradicate cockroaches in places like these than in your home. They are likely to crawl into your shopping bags and rebuild their population in your home.
4. When you travel and stay in a hotel, the hotel’s cockroaches may crawl into your suitcase and hitchhike to invade your home.
5. When moving, some friends found that there were too many cockroaches in their homes and thought about moving to another place. Unless you throw away all the previous furniture and belongings, it is generally difficult to avoid them moving with you. This is how my new home was attack.

Okay, now we have completed the whole process. There is no most efficient and thorough medicine or method to eliminate cockroaches. This is a comprehensive management process.

Let’s review.

• The first step is to use universal cockroach killing gel bait to quickly kill most cockroaches;
• The second step is to use IGR to kill the escaped eggs and block reproduction;
• The third step is to use diatomaceous earth to destroy the environment in which cockroaches live and kill the ones that escape the net;
• Step 4: Prevent foreign cockroaches from invading;

If you follow this comprehensive plan step by step, I can guarantee that you will truly and completely eliminate cockroaches from your home.

Finally, let’s talk about some misunderstandings about killing cockroaches

• Sticky board-type cockroach killers are mainly use to detect the size of the cockroach population, and they cannot completely suppress the cockroach population.
• Avoid using aerosol sprays or nebulizers because there is a high possibility of inhalation during use. Nebulization will also cause drug residues to spread throughout the home environment. In addition, it is difficult for sprays to reach gaps and hidden areas, and they will return quickly. In addition, stay away from open flames when using sprays. 
• Avoid using repellents to drive away cockroaches. Some people are still looking for “what are cockroaches afraid of? They will run away as soon as they smell the smell”. Don’t do that. Cockroaches will be drive from the kitchen to the bedroom, which will be a disaster. You could have concentrated on killing them in the kitchen, but now you have successfully extended the battle line.
• Regarding tips, some say that Fengyoujing is effective in killing cockroaches, some say that the best way to kill cockroaches is baking soda, and some say that garlic is effective, and so on. I believe that anyone who can patiently read this article will not believe these tips.