What Kills Cockroaches

Cockroaches love to invade our homes because they have plenty of places for cockroaches to hide. Roaches are accustomed to seeking out very tight places to hide from predators such as birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Since most of their natural predators do not hang out in our homes and businesses, getting roaches out of our environment will require the use of other tools to kill them.

Not all cockroaches are the same, have the same habits, or like the same living conditions. Glue boards placed in areas where roaches are suspected to be trafficking will not only provide a sample that can be identified, but can also be used to monitor ongoing population. The best part about glue boards is that when a roach gets stuck on them, that is the end of the road for that cockroach.

There are several types of bait available for killing roaches. They may come in a gel or paste form, a powder or dust that can be shot back into their feeding or living areas, or granules. Some baits can be placed directly into cracks and crevices, and others come in ready to use bait stations. In some situations, it can be helpful to use something like a straw as a convenient and customizable bait station to fit into small places.

Insecticides that kill roaches are available over the counter and in commercial grade concentrates in the forms of dusts, wettable powders, liquid concentrates, ready to use sprays, aerosols, and foggers. Selecting the best option will depend on the type of area you are treating as well as the type of cockroach present. Not all sprays labeled for cockroaches will kill them. Some are insect growth regulators which do not kill the population directly, but limit the growth and development of the adolescents to prevent further reproductive activity.

The best way to kill a cockroach is to change the environment to where a roach cannot survive there. Removing food is a sure way to make the population die off. In addition to starving them out, you can also adjust temperatures to make the environment uninhabitable. Each roach has their preferred ranges of temperatures and humidity levels, so identifying the roach and appropriately changing these values will at a minimum improve the effectiveness of other killing efforts. There are also heat treatments available for raising the temperature in a space to the death point for roaches to wipe out a population in one day.