Standing water attracts cockroaches. Seal crevices and holes around your drain pipes with caulk, plaster or cement. Seal crevices and holes around your drain pipes. You can use duct tape as a quick fix for cracks and crevices.
You could be attracting roaches to your bathroom if: There are leaking pipes and clogged sinks, standing water, and other maintenance issues.
Baking soda and white vinegar are popular, all-natural cleaning supplies. You can use them on several surfaces throughout your home, including in your sink drains, to kill cockroaches and eliminate lingering odors. Start with ¼ cup of baking soda. Pour it down the drain, then follow with ½ cup of vinegar.
Citronella
Citronella not only works great for repelling mosquitos but also cockroaches. While the candles don't work well against roaches, you can use citronella oil as a deterrent. You can mix it with water and use it as a spray or simply wipe down areas with the diluted mixture.
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.
Can Pouring Bleach Down Your Drain Kill Roaches? An old wive's tale is that bleach can be used to clean out your drain system and to kill roaches that may be living in your drains. Bleach does indeed kill roaches, but it isn't recommended as a drain system cleaner.
You can pour boiling water down the drain, use a vinegar-and-baking-soda mixture, or use a store-bought product to kill drain flies.
It's easy to spray in small nooks and crannies and won't leave any residue. Soapy Water: Surprisingly, dousing a cockroach in soapy water will suffocate and kill it. Filling a spray bottle with dish soap and water, shaking it, and spraying a roach from above will kill it quickly.
Cockroaches often hide under bathroom sinks, inside cabinets, and behind toilets and sinks; they might even find a way into wall voids.
If you spot one, odds are there are a few others lurking nearby, in dark corners or cracks and crevices and they could be fast on their way to a full blown infestation. Cockroaches are dangerous to humans – they carry bacteria on their bodies and their feet, contaminating any surfaces they come into contact with.
Though cockroaches may come up from the sink or shower drain, they cannot come up through your toilet because of the water, even though cockroaches can hold their breath for 40 minutes. Even the cockroaches who exclusively live in drains will only come out into your home if there is a source of food available.
All About Vinegar
Unfortunately, it doesn't actually kill these problem insects. It's more of a cleaning tool than anything else, and it won't actually help eliminate your roach problem. It can, however, help deter roaches and get rid of germs in the kitchen when used as a cleaning agent.
The best way to get rid of roaches fast is to sanitize your home, eliminate hiding spots and stagnant water, store food in airtight containers, and use glue strips, bait, boric acid, or liquid concentrates.
White vinegar is a known cockroach repellent. To use it, mix equal amounts of water and vinegar and sprinkle on the area where the cockroaches come out. This works just as well as boric acid. Hot water is probably the easiest solution on this list.
"It's going to release a chlorine gas. It doesn't matter what type of acid it is. Any type of acid will cause that to happen and vinegar could do that," Teets said. For those nasty sink clogs, try to avoid mixing different brand drain cleaners.
The Science: How Baking Soda & Vinegar Help Unclog Drains
When you combine these, a reaction happens where molecules get exchanged, creating carbon dioxide and water that bubbles through the clog, breaking it up to create loose material. And drainage pipes aren't pressurized like your typical water system.
Harsh chemical drain unclogging solutions can actually be abrasive enough to make your pipes leak after the clog is dissolved. Instead considering pouring a half bottle of white vinegar down your drain every three months to keep clogs from forming.
Pour 1/4 cup baking soda down the drain and follow it with 1/2 cup vinegar. The chemical reactions between these two ingredients should be enough to get rid of any waste in the drain. Wait for a couple of minutes and then pour boiling water down the drain.
Baby roaches – in kitchens or bathrooms – are usually an indication of a German cockroach infestation. These roaches are commonly found in kitchen and bathroom areas because they offer a warm, humid environment with plenty of moisture and access to food.
Some suggest crushing bay leaves and placing them in areas where they hide to repel them, Essential Oils - A general idea that cockroaches dislike the smell of essential oils such as peppermint, eucalyptus, lavender, and tea tree as they disrupt and musk their scent trails in food finding.
Many bugs hate citrus smells and cockroaches are no different. You can use lemon juice and put it in dishes to ward off those pests. You can also take lemon peels and place them around your home where you might think the cockroaches are hiding.
Eucalyptus essential oil has a fresh fragrance that, surprisingly, seems to confuse or alarm cockroaches. This stuff is strong and you'll only need to mix a few drops with water and spray it around the cockroaches' hotspots to repel them. Research has also shown that eucalyptus essential oil is toxic to roaches.