While you may find it cathartic to drown a crawling cockroach in spray, it's not really the best long-term solution to ridding your home of these hardy pests. Most store-bought cockroach sprays are designed to kill individual cockroaches as you see them.
They can also be pesticides mixed with water and applied with a type of air compressed sprayer such as a garden sprayer. While sprays can be effective in treating the visible members of a roach infestation, they are not recommended.
To help keep these trouble areas roach free, spray them weekly for basic prevention and every 3-4 days if you're currently experiencing a heavy roach problem. If after two weeks, you're not seeing the results you want, simply adjust to a more frequent spraying schedule. Don't forget to spray and seal entry points.
You may see roaches for a week or two for slow-acting treatments until they eventually taper out. Because of their high tolerance to pesticides, products could take a few days to impact the pests. Just take some time and avoid panicking if you see any remaining roaches still living in your home.
Safety: Roach killers often contain harmful chemicals. So if you have kids or pets, baits, traps and dusting powders that go into voids and cracks are safer than sprays. They're also a better choice for those suffering from respiratory problems because they don't leave airborne residue.
Boric acid: Used correctly, boric acid is one of the most effective roach killers.
Restrict Water Sources
Roaches affected by pest control treatment will be in dire need of water for survival. This means that as they migrate, they will gravitate toward any safe water source they can find, including showers, bathtubs, sinks, etc.
It's also common to see more roaches even. This is because your pest company has sprayed their normal hiding places with pesticides, making them inhospitable to the roaches. As a result, the roaches will scramble to find new hiding spots and die off because they've already been exposed to the pesticides.
Since many insects are most active in the morning and at dusk, these times offer the best situation for pesticide application.
If 100 roaches are sprayed with a chemical, it may kill 95 of them. The remaining five are resistant to the pesticide, and they may pass that resistant gene on to their off spring. So over time, the species may develop a tolerance.
Bug sprays, especially when overused, can cause side effects. These sprays are not only harmful to the bugs you don't like, but can also be harmful to humans and your pets, and busy bees, so use with caution.
Roach Repellents
Peppermint oil, cedarwood oil, and cypress oil are essential oils that effectively keep cockroaches at bay. Additionally, these insects hate the smell of crushed bay leaves and steer clear of coffee grounds. If you want to try a natural way to kill them, combine powdered sugar and boric acid.
You could also apply an insecticide dust inside the wall void, light switch plates and electrical outlets. If the roaches are in your large appliances, baiting is going to help. You do want to switch up the bait if they are no longer accepting the ones you have used previously.
Boric acid is a powerful natural home remedy for getting rid of roaches overnight. Mix equal amounts of boric acid, flour, and sugar until it becomes a dough-like consistency. Place small pieces where the roaches can feed on them.
Even if you've never seen an adult cockroach in your home, there may come a time in which you're going to see a baby cockroach. While they don't seem as dangerous as an adult cockroach, they may be a sign of a bigger problem coming in the future.
If you leave the spray and let it dry, it will keep killing cockroaches with residual action for up to 2 weeks as long as the bugs come in contact with it.
In that scenario, you can buy what are called desiccant dusts—like diatomaceous earth, a non-toxic substance you can find on Amazon—and that will dehydrate the eggs, thereby killing them.
Don't be afraid to spray in your cabinets and pantry, your bathroom and other areas where you don't want to find roaches. Tip: If you're also using baits to kill cockroaches, don't spray peppermint oil on the baits.
Home remedies like diatomaceous earth, baking soda, boric acid, citrus, essential oils, and borax can be effective ways to get rid of roaches. If you want to take a more aggressive approach to eliminate roaches, glue traps, bait stations, and liquid roach deterrent concentrates are all excellent options.