Distilled vinegar does not kill or repel roaches, making it completely ineffective. Distilled vinegar will help keep your kitchen clean, giving cockroaches less to snack on. However, roaches can live for months at a time without any food at all, and they will eat almost anything to survive.
White vinegar is often recommended as a natural way to get rid of roaches. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually kill these problem insects.
As cockroaches hate the smell of vinegar, this will help keep them away. Also a major perk is that vinegar is a cleaning agent which will help keep your kitchen clean. However, if you find the smell of vinegar offensive, you will not like this method very much as the smell will linger for a while.
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.
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.
If cockroaches get enough borax on the outside of their bodies, it actually damages their exoskeletons. This causes them to rapidly dehydrate and die; a thick coating of borax will certainly get rid of roaches overnight.
Cockroaches have a strong sense of smell. Using natural scents works best to deter roaches. Plants such as eucalyptus, lavender, and mint are smells roaches hate.
The short answer is yes; the scent of vinegar can help to keep cockroaches away. However, it is helpful to note that this is not a guaranteed solution, and you may still see cockroaches in your home even if you use vinegar. Therefore, we believe it's a great repellent but not an effective roach killer.
But it's important to choose the right ones! So what smell do roaches hate? Oregano, rosemary, mint, eucalyptus, lemongrass and catnip are great herby options.
Lemon. The idea behind this DIY roach control option is to clean your home using a solution of water and lemon juice, as cockroaches cannot stand the scent of lemon.
Just take some hot water, mix 1 portion of white vinegar and stir well, wipe slabs and clean around the cook tops with this solution and pour this solution in the kitchen drains in the night, this will disinfect the pipes and drains and would keep cockroaches from climbing up into the kitchen.
Windex is toxic to most pests, especially spiders. Spraying window cleaner directly onto small insects like ants or mosquitoes will kill them within a few moments. For cockroaches, window cleaner can make them temporarily unconscious so that you can squash them.
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.
Mix equal parts baking soda and sugar in a small dish and apply it to kitchen cabinets, baseboards, crevices, water sources, and other places roaches like to hide.
This one's a myth. Salt doesn't kill cockroaches. However, epsom salt (a.k.a. magnesium sulfate) is toxic to roaches. Use it just like baking soda.
The answer is yes. Windex can kill cockroaches, but only if you twist the nozzle to stream mode and spray it directly, full-strength on a single insect for at least a minute. We give it a 3/10 on our effectiveness scale.
It's a fact that cockroaches are afraid of humans and other mammals or animals that are bigger than them. They see us as predators and that fear triggers their instinct to scatter away. However, they dislike strong and distinctive scents such as citrus, peppermint, lavender and vinegar.
Lemon and lemongrass essential oils specifically will drive any cockroach away due to their strong scent of limonene, which smells like nothing else on earth! Add a couple of drops of citrus or peppermint essential oil to a few cotton balls, and lay them around where the roaches in your home congregate.
Create a soapy water solution that you can spray with a bottle. It will only take about 2 – 3 sprays to kill any roaches, as the soapy solution will cover their breathing pores and suffocate them.
Mix equal parts water and dish soap in a spray bottle and spray it directly onto the cockroach. The soap will suffocate the insect, killing it instantly. However, it's important to note that soapy water is only effective when applied directly to the insect and may not be as effective as other methods.
Method: Take equal parts of baking soda and a pinch of sugar in a shallow bowl, then place it near to the cockroach-infested areas or in where roaches are usually roaming at your house. The sugar attracts the cockroaches while baking soda will kill them.
Sprinkle the diatomaceous earth around areas where roaches travel and frequent. The sharp particles of diatomaceous earth damage the waxy, protective exoskeleton of the roach, causing it to dehydrate and die, typically within 48 hours of contact.
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.