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. It's more of a cleaning tool than anything else, and it won't actually help eliminate your roach problem.
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.
The best way to keep cockroaches away permanently is to make the home less inviting. Make sure to keep the home clean, clean up food messes, take out trash at the end of the day, seal any cracks or gaps around windows, doors and the foundation, and fix any issue that might lead to high moisture content within the home.
Boric acid Some people find this to be the best option to kill roaches. Boric acid can work too, the only downside is that sometimes roaches will go away as soon as they smell boric acid.
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.
For best results, combine equal parts borax and white table sugar. Dust the mixture any place you've seen roach activity. When the roaches consume the borax, it will dehydrate them and kill them rapidly.
And it's not just artificial light that cockroaches dislike. They're not fond of natural light either. Because of this, you're unlikely to see them during the daytime. If you do notice one during the day, it may be because the roach got crowded out of its home or was forced out of hiding due to a lack of food.
If you are however living in a house with children or pets, vinegar will be the safer option to getting rid of cockroaches. All you will need to do is mix vinegar with water in a 70:30 ratio and spray it around your kitchen area. As cockroaches hate the smell of vinegar, this will help keep them away.
Dusts – A few insecticides used for cockroach control are applied as dusts or powders. Most familiar to householders are boric acid and diatomaceous earth. For controlling cockroaches, boric acid tends to be more effective. Roaches succumb to boric acid after crawling over treated surfaces.
Lemon contains limonene, which does in fact repel cockroaches.
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.
In addition to being a great cleaning agent, vinegar is effective in deterring many types of pests. Ants despise the smell of vinegar, and vinegar will wipe out the scent trails they leave around the house to navigate.
Soap and Water
Just like the fabric softener solution, mixing soap with water can kill roaches on contact.
Cockroaches seek places where they can find ample food. Food crumbs, spills, leftovers, and pet food are the most common food sources. Kitchen trash and grease on stovetops and countertops can be inviting for roaches, and they may also get into stored food items.
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.
Cockroach Bites
They have been recorded to eat human flesh of both the living and the dead, although they are more likely to take a bite of fingernails, eyelashes, feet and hands. The bites may cause irritation, lesions and swelling. Some have suffered from minor wound infections.
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.
The most common do-it-yourself (DIY) cockroach spray is a mixture of three parts fabric softener and two parts water. While it might come as a surprise, this mixture will kill cockroaches.
Cockroaches are blessed with an amazing sense of smell. This is what they use when seeking food and mate but at the same time, this is also their weakness. A cockroach's sense of smell can be used to get rid of them. There are smells they can not stand so we can use this to shoo them away from our homes.
Of all the colors of lights out there, red light repels the highest number of cockroaches. These pests are usually picky about the color of the light and are most sensitive to red light, which they will try to get away from it as fast as they can.
The World Health Organization also advises against crushing them, for reasons of hygiene. According to the body, which classes cockroaches as “unhygienic scavengers in human settlements”, squashing them can spread bacteria into the environment that can lead to asthma, allergies and illnesses.
Some people use citronella candles and lit these at home. For those who have citronella oil, they soak cotton balls or towels with it. For those who prefer to use this product as a spray, they have citronella sprays which makes it easy for them to spray and fill the house with the substance's smell.