How to Get Rid of German Roaches?

German cockroaches are among the most common and the most disgusting household pests. If you encounter a german roach in your home, there’s no question about it: they’ve got to go. Getting rid of German cockroaches is harder than it may seem, however.

In this article, we’ll explain how to clear out a german roach infestation so that you won’t have to tolerate their skittering pestilence inside your home. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll know the best way to get rid of German roaches using a handful of different methods.

What Are German Roaches?

German roaches are familiar critters as a result of their beetle-like exterior, long antennae, and unrequited love of human establishments.

Wherever there is food to be scavenged and dark crevices to hide in, German roaches have a chance to become established. Anything from cheese to potato peels is fair game for a cockroach to munch on.

Roaches particularly love to eat sugars because sugary foods help them to grow the most rapidly.

German roaches live for the better part of a year unless they meet their untimely demise. Importantly, German cockroaches have a rapid reproductive cycle. Unless you kill all of the German roach eggs in your area, you can be sure to face a new crop of roaches every couple of months.

Find the Nest

If you want to kill German roaches, you’ll need to clear out their nest. You may not know where their nests are, however. If you can catch a live roach, there’s a good chance that it will help you figure out where the nest is.

Once you catch a live roach, release it near one of the floorboards where you found it. You will see the roach skitter away. Be sure to follow it and remember where it enters a crack in your wall.

Once you’ve identified where the roaches are entering and exiting your walls, you’ll have a lead on where their nest might be.

How To Kill German Roaches

There are numerous approaches to killing German roaches. Many people choose to smash cockroaches they encounter with a heavy object. Others allow their cats to batter errant roaches to death.

Neither of these methods is effective at stopping the German roach infestation permanently because they don’t deny the roaches their habitat, nor do they kill roaches that are young.

The most effective German roach killer is a standard roach bait. Most roach baits contain chemicals like fipronil, hydramethylnon, or indoxacarb. These chemicals are neurotoxins to cockroaches of all types.

They’re also dangerous to humans, so you should use caution when you deploy these poisons.

Roach bait doesn’t work like other poisons, however. While it may be possible to deliver a dose of poison to a single roach that kills it, killing individual cockroaches does little to kill the infestation because poison won’t be passed on to the roach eggs or newly hatched roach nymphs.

Instead, roach baits deliver insecticides that the roach can partially digest and excrete before dying. In the excretions of the poisoned roach, there’s still enough pesticide to kill another roach or two.

Then, when the roach nymphs or older roaches consume the excretions of their compatriot, they are subsequently poisoned.

Fight German Cockroaches With Bioaccumulation

After a few days of consuming poisoned excretions, the rest of the roach colony begins to excrete the poison too. As the level of pesticide bioaccumulates more and more within the roach colony, individual roaches that started eating the poison first will start to become sick and subsequently die.

Roaches tend to have low standards for food, so they often cannibalize their dead friends, consuming more poison in the process. As the level of pesticide in the roach colony reaches higher and higher levels, the roach colony begins to die at a faster pace until there are none remaining.

Importantly, the dead roaches remain as tantalizing food options for any newcomers.

How To Get Rid of German Cockroaches Forever

German cockroaches love areas that are:

• Dark
• Cramped relative to their size
• Populated with other cockroaches
• Nearby food sources
• Devoid of harmful-smelling chemicals
• Slightly damp
• Devoid of intermittent vibrations

This means that German cockroaches will flourish inside of your house’s walls and in the spaces underneath or behind your cabinets. Thankfully, you can use this information to guide your placement of roach bait traps.

Place your roach poison near cracks in your walls, nearby to where you think roaches are prone to travel. If you’ve seen a roach skitter to a break in the wall and disappear after being spotted, you should place a bait trap there.

Avoid placing bait traps in open areas, wet areas, or bright areas. German roaches dislike these places, and they are conservative enough to avoid making a run for food if they think they’re being set up.

Similarly, avoid going overboard with spraying insecticides around areas where you have not spotted any roaches.

Many roaches can smell insecticides, so they will be dissuaded from entering the areas where you sprayed — but you probably didn’t spray anywhere that they would want to go anyway.

German roaches live invisibly in your home’s inaccessible areas for the vast majority of their lives.

Seal The Cracks

If you want to get rid of German roaches forever, you’ll need to spend some time sealing the cracks in your walls and cabinets where the cockroaches love to nest after you deploy an effective roach bait poison and ensure that the roaches have had time to eat it.

Give the roach poison a couple of weeks to do its work. Then, once you haven’t seen any roaches wandering around your home for a while, it’s time to seal the roaches into their tomb. Epoxy or caulk will do the trick for the smallest cracks.

If you want, you can also use anti-roach foam injected directly into the areas where you have confirmed roach nests once existed. This will guarantee that no future roaches will establish themselves in the same spot.