Easy Ways to Get Rid of Roaches (2024 Homeowner’s Guide)

Few pests can be quite as intimidating as a roach infestation. While getting rid of roaches can be a challenge, knowing some common DIY roach remedies can help you catch a budding cockroach problem before it begins. At Today's Homeowner, our team understands that no one wants to endlessly fight roaches without a plan — which is why we’ve created a quick and easy guide to getting rid of cockroaches for good.

We’ll also help connect you with a few trustworthy pest control companies operating across the country who can help if you’re dealing with an overwhelming infestation.

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What Are Cockroaches?

In the United States, there are several species of cockroaches you can encounter. German cockroaches, American cockroaches, brown-banded cockroaches, oriental cockroaches, and smokybrown cockroaches are the most common species of cockroaches you’ll see in the United States. The most common ones that cause home infestations are German cockroaches, followed by American cockroaches.

American cockroaches are the largest cockroach species, and although they do have wings, they prefer to scuttle around on the ground and up walls. German cockroaches also have wings, but they prefer to walk as well. These are the pests most likely to wreak havoc in your home if you’re a property owner living in the continental U.S. All species of cockroach have been known to leave fecal staining where they nest, and if you have enough of them, you’re likely to notice a musky, fetid odor.

Cockroaches thrive in humid, damp, warm environments. This includes kitchen cabinets, anywhere there are leaky pipes, fermenting food sources like dirty dishes or garbage cans, and standing water. You might also see cockroaches near the baseboards of areas where water spills frequently (like in your bathroom or garage).

Lifespans differ across different roach species, but on average, a single cockroach lives to about one year. German cockroaches live up to three months. That lifespan, coupled with their prolific reproduction rate, leaves no surprise why roaches are such pests once they start inhabiting your home. They can squeeze their bodies through tight crevices, and they can and will eat pretty much anything, including book leather, when food sources are scarce.

Cockroaches can run up to three miles per hour, and they have even been known to bite humans if they can’t find another suitable food source. They carry diseases and breed filth, especially through their feces. This is why cockroaches are not only so antagonistic to professional exterminators, but why it is imperative to get rid of your roach problem as soon as possible.

More Information On Roaches

What Are the Best Ways to Get Rid of Cockroaches?

If you’re seeing cockroaches in your home, don’t panic. Test out these DIY roach control methods to eliminate these annoying pests on your property.

1. Boric Acid
2. Diatomaceous Earth
3. Baking Soda
4. Glue Traps
5. Essential Oils
6. Insect Growth Regulators
7. Poison

1. Boric Acid

Far and away the best home remedy to exterminate these diabolical pests is to use boric acid. You can purchase a bottle of this white powdery substance from pretty much anywhere — supermarkets, discount stores, hardware stores, and even dollar stores. You shouldn’t pay more than a few dollars for a container of boric acid, making it both an effective and affordable way to get rid of roaches.

Sprinkle the white powder where you’ve noticed roaches appearing in your home. This can include entryways, cabinet doors, cracks in the wall, near loose caulk and trim, and under any sinks. Spread the powder so that it’s visible, but you don’t need much of it.

Over the next few days, you will start to see lifeless roach carcasses throughout the infected areas. Surprisingly, cockroaches like to be clean, and if any substance sticks to their exoskeleton, they will wipe it off with their appendages and then eat it. Boric acid is toxic, so they soon die once they lick the powder off their bodies, and you’ll enjoy a roach-free home.

2. Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth works in a different way than boric acid because the cockroaches do not consume it. However, contact with diatomaceous earth will scratch their carapaces and make dents and cuts in them, which eventually causes the roaches to dry out and die. Diatomaceous earth is relatively harmless to humans but contains razor-sharp particles of substances like silica and iron oxide that are fatal to roaches.

Diatomaceous earth is sometimes used in potted plants and gardens to prevent pests from overtaking the plants; it is abrasive and an effective deterrent if used correctly. Diatoms are the leftover hard bodies of microscopic organisms that live in bodies of water. Their remains are added to soil in order to be an effective pest control device.

For roaches, you can thinly spread out diatomaceous earth in your home where you’ve seen roach activity. It must be applied thinly, though, because if there’s too much (as with boric acid), roaches will notice it and run around it. The goal is to get them to skitter through the diatomaceous earth, which you can achieve if you spread out only a thin, barely visible layer of powder.

3. Baking Soda

If you’re looking for a creative and easy way to exterminate roaches in your home, you can also add baking soda to your pest control repertoire. Baking soda doesn’t really work on its own — you must mix baking soda with sugar, and you can use equal parts of each substance when creating your mixture. Once the roaches eat the sugary baking soda and then drink water, their stomachs will expand and pop, killing the roach quickly.

You can also buy pellets that are three parts boric acid and one part baking soda. These have been proven effective within a few hours of the roach consuming them because the toxicity of the boric acid and the bloating effects of wet baking soda combine. You can find these tablets at home improvement stores and gardening centers.

4. Glue Traps

Glue traps are some of the best cockroach traps and are great for a small population of roaches in your home. For a large-scale infestation, gel bait traps or sticky glue traps aren’t as effective. If you’re looking to gauge the severity of your roach problem, glue traps are an excellent way to see how much roach traffic you’re getting in your home through your most popular entry points.

You can open and set up these roach traps in front of cabinet doors, on countertops, under sinks, and anywhere else in your home you see or suspect a cockroach problem. Within a day or two, those traps should have caught the culprits. You can use the number of roaches on each trap to determine where you should focus your pest control efforts if you notice you have more pests than you originally thought.

5. Essential Oils

If you’re looking for a more natural DIY roach repellent, you should know that roaches absolutely hate the smell of citrus. You can make a mixture of water and essential oils to spray all around your home to repel the little pests from coming back inside.

Again, this is a home remedy that works best for minimal cockroach control, not a full-blown infestation. Orange, grapefruit, kaffir lime, lemon, and tangerine work great in this essential oil spray repellant.

Roaches also loathe oregano and rosemary — you can make an Italian-themed repellant spray with these essential oils as well if you prefer the scent of herbs to citrus fruits.

6. Insect Growth Regulators

Insect growth regulators are sprays filled with insecticide you can use in your home. They focus on killing cockroaches in the larval or nymph stages and even make eggs nonviable. Because insect growth regulators cut cockroach infestations off at the source, they can be effective when combined with products or techniques that kill adult roaches. It may take a few weeks for you to see the effects of the insect growth regulator, and you will need to employ one or more of the above methods to eradicate adult cockroaches as well for a complete fix.

7. Poison

Sometimes when dealing with cockroaches, you have to know when to pull out the big guns. Ant and cockroach pesticides, roach motels, and roach-killing bait are all effective chemicals you can use to wipe out the roaches in your home. The reason why poison is toward the bottom of our list is because if you have pets or small children, this may not be the first method you want to go with. However, when it comes to roach infestations that simply won’t go away, poisons and pesticides may be the only answer.

Raid kills roaches on contact, and the others use enticing bait to get the roaches to consume the poison within. Roach motels trap the roaches inside; roach-killing bait acts more slowly because once a roach is covered in poison, it will return to the nest, poisoning others. This may be the way to go if the aforementioned techniques did not quite eradicate the roaches.

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What Are Signs That You Have a Roach Infestation?

How can you determine if you have a cockroach infestation? Here are some signs to be on the lookout for if you think you might have these uninvited guests in your home.

• Droppings: The first sign you will likely notice of a cockroach infestation is their droppings. In fact, you will probably see this black dusting of droppings before seeing an actual roach, as most of their activity occurs during the night.
• Smears or smudges: Because cockroaches like to hang out in damp or wet spaces when they emerge from their nests, they often leave brownish smudges from squeezing wetly through small spaces. These smears and smudges are telltale signs that you have roaches in your home.
• Shed skin: When cockroaches are maturing from nymphs to adults, they shed their skin more than five times a day. Chances are you will see these remnants close to where they’re nesting.
• Dead cockroaches: It is likely that wherever you see dead cockroaches, live ones aren’t far behind. Pay attention to any area where you see multiple dead cockroaches or areas where roaches tend to die frequently in order to target your treatments most effectively.
• Eggs: Female roaches are typically good at tucking their eggs away for safekeeping until they hatch, but you still may spot these little cockroach bundles in your home if you have a major roach problem. Cockroach eggs are actually bundled together in black or brown capsules, and these capsules are normally a half-inch long or smaller. They can be ridged or smooth, depending on the species of roach.

How Can You Prevent Roaches Before Your House Becomes Infested?

While there are plenty of methods you can use to get roaches out of your home, there are measures you can take to prevent roaches from infesting your property in the first place. The key is to make your abode as unappealing to cockroaches as possible. Use the following tips and tricks to prevent roaches from making a home inside of your house.

• Seal cracks: If there is any peeling caulk or loose trim in your home, these are potential entryways for roaches. You can re-caulk these areas, and you can also place roach traps in corners and around these areas, just in case. Make sure your basement is watertight and all your window seals are fresh and functional.
• Eliminate all potential attractants: This tip is mostly for your kitchen. Any open pet food, old cardboard boxes, crumbs on countertops, or even crumbs and food particles in toasters are roach bait. All these things attract roaches, especially sweet, starchy morsels and meat. Make sure your trash cans are disinfected, covered, and emptied regularly. Tightly seal any and all food containers, and get rid of rotten produce before it attracts roaches.
• Get rid of water sources: This includes dripping faucets, standing water anywhere, leaky pipes, clogged drains, and anywhere roaches can find a drink. Some water in your house can’t be avoided, but getting rid of all superfluous water sources, especially those located in hot and humid areas of your home, will help prevent roach infestations.
• Rinse out recycling: Don’t simply toss empty cans or bottles into the recycling bin. It helps to minimize the possibility of attracting unwanted visitors if you rinse the food and drink remnants from inside these containers. Roaches are attracted to any kind of food source, so cleaning out any garbage can be a key step to keeping them at bay.
• Declutter: If you have lots of cardboard boxes, wooden pallets, or other piles of debris, still useful or not, roaches may see these as perfect areas to nest. Cockroach droppings contain messages to other cockroaches through pheromones whether a place is a good place to live or not, and if you have large piles of debris lying around, this is like a cockroach playground.

Should You Hire a Professional Exterminator for Roaches

As many homeowners know, roaches can be a particularly tough pest to fully eradicate. If you’ve read through our entire guide on how to get rid of cockroaches and you’re still having problems, it might be time to call in the professionals. Professional pest control services have access to commercial-grade insecticides and pesticides, which kill cockroaches more effectively when compared to DIY methods. Professionals versed in roach control can also effectively lay bait stations in areas where roaches tend to gather or enter your home, which helps clear pests out of your property faster.

You might know that you need professional assistance getting rid of cockroaches but are afraid of the cost. If this is the situation you’re finding yourself in, know that professional pest removal might be more affordable than you think. For example, depending on where you live and the size of your property, you could pay as little as $50 per cockroach treatment from a nationwide pest control company like Terminix. Even if you aren’t sure if you need professional assistance getting rid of the roaches in your home, you shouldn’t hesitate to claim a free quote from our recommended providers below. Your quote will be available just a short time after submitting your personal information, it’s totally free, and you won’t need to commit to a service package just because you’ve claimed a quote.

Our Pick

4.6

Over 90 years of experience

Nationwide service area

Free retreatments if pests return

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Limited Time:

Get $50 OFF Pest Control Plan

Best Service Selection

4.7

Treats 20 types of pests

Offers instant online quotes

30-day money-back guarantee

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Limited Time:

$50 Off First Service (GET50)