Cockroaches: Common Questions

How Do Roaches Enter a Home?
Cockroaches might ride into a home in a grocery bag or even in clothing. In an attached home or apartment, pipes and holes in adjoining walls, floors and ceilings provide speedy walkways and portals for these stealthy, nocturnal travelers. Roaches can swim into a home through sewer pipes. One cockroach moved through 385 yards (almost four football fields) of sewer pipe in Tyler, Texas.

One cockroach in a home needs to have mated only once to produce many egg capsules with 16-40 offspring in each. And, some cockroaches don't even need to mate to produce offspring. One cockroach can quickly turn into a full-blown infestation.

Can Roaches Harm People?
Cockroaches can carry pathogens that cause asthma, allergies, abscesses, boils, bubonic plague, diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, intestinal infections, leprosy, lesions, typhoid fever, urinary tract infections and more.

Of all domestic insects, roaches are most likely to carry bacteria that cause human food poisoning. Bacteria such as Streptococcus, coliform, salmonella, staphylococcus and clostridium may travel from a cockroach in a kitchen to food and people.

Some people have an allergy to cockroach oils and break out in hives when exposed directly or through contaminated food.

In homes with heavy infestations, cockroaches actually may feed on sleeping people by nibbling at sores, eyelashes, eyebrows and finger - and toenails.

What's that Smell?
Cockroach odor, known as "attar of roaches," may not be life-threatening but is the unpleasant combination of cockroach excrement, scent gland fluid and regurgitated food. This musty odor varies with each cockroach species.

Are these Pellets Cockroach Droppings?
Roaches plaster their fecal matter to wood or cardboard. When the fecal matter does not stick, people often find their droppings.

Do Cockroaches Only Come Out at Night?
Roaches have evolved to have negative phototropism, meaning they seek darkness and avoid light. By being active in the dark, cockroaches have a greater chance of surviving human efforts and those of other predators.

What Type of Cockroach is Found in the Home?
The German cockroach infiltrates the most homes and is responsible for 70% of all U.S. roach problems. One female German cockroach can produce 200,000 roaches in one year. They are highly adaptable to all environments and quickly become immune to pesticides.

Can Roaches be Starved Out of the Home?
Starving cockroaches out of a home is impossible. Roaches do not require much food, and even a sliver of grease makes a delightful cockroach meal. Also, cockroaches can live for some time without food or water. The German cockroach, for example, can go without food or water for two weeks. And roaches will eat almost anything including paper, cigarettes, beer, dog food, fruit, and each other.

Be sure to visit the EPA's web site for kids that talks about roaches and includes activities, tips, games, and more.