Why do I only find dead cockroaches in my house? Roaches inhabit forests, caves, and bushes when in the wild. They feast on and eliminate organic waste. These insects also inhabit and move through unhygienic locations and many of them prefer inhabiting the warm temperature in our houses, including bathroom pipes. It’s not only awry to imagine that cockroaches live in your home, they carry around bacteria and drop them everywhere as they tread on cupboards with dishes, food, and surfaces.
Although it’s common to find one or two dead cockroaches, finding a large swell in the number of dead roaches in your house and rarely – if ever – seeing any live cockroaches in your home could be a red flag. Most times, finding so many dead roaches in your house implies that you have a significant infestation. But that could also imply that some predators like lizards or fire ants are killing them. Regardless of the situation, further professional probing and actions are necessary to eliminate these bugs from your house.
Reasons dead cockroaches are in your home in the first place
Roaches prefer dark and safe environments in a home. Vanderbilt University’s news research even describes cockroaches an “morons in the morning and geniuses in the evening”.
In your home or workspace, that implies that roaches will shelter in cracks and wall crevices. They can live in worn-out drawers and are often found behind your fridge, particularly if you have pieces of food debris and crumbs there.
It’s notoriously challenging to kill these evasive bugs. Their exoskeleton is flexible, which makes them able to squeeze through little gaps and run the equivalent of 50 body lengths per second. And when you find a roach that doesn’t leave, it could survive pressure akin to 900 times its weight, sometimes even stepping on them won’t kill them.
Roaches will usually enter a home searching for a place to nest, live, eat, and drink. They live on organic matter, which could include leftover foods, but even the most meticulous housekeepers won’t always avoid an infestation. However, you can reduce the chances of an infestation by cleaning away used dishes immediately, cleaning all appliances, and wiping down units and worktops. You want to focus on perishable foods in the store, fruit bowls, and leftover pet food in open bowls and bags overnight.
Simultaneously, search for signs of roaches. Common signs include little droppings akin to that of a mouse, shed roach skins, and egg sacks shaped like little purses. Though rarely, you may find a roach when you switch on the lights at night and catch them unawares.
Why do I only find dead cockroaches in my house?
If you do see a large number of dead roaches, there are several possible causes:
1. Mice or rats’ presence
Mice and rats don’t particularly love eating roaches, but both will feed on them if they’re hungry enough. See our detailed publication explaining the situation behind rats feeding on cockroaches. Although a rat infestation might eliminate a roach infestation, it only replaces another problem to surmount. In fact, roaches are simply an additional food source for mice.
2. Lizards or geckos
Pet owners who raise lizards know that cockroaches make a good protein source for their pets. If you don’t raise lizards as pets, but have some house lizards and geckos inhabiting your property, they could feed on the roaches, though with mice, lizards, and rats in the house, there’s not likely to be too many left.
3. Fire ants
Fire ants feed on other animals, and will attack any insect in sight of their perceived territory. They will feed on roaches and could leave the dead body or wing parts behind.
4. Roach is playing dead
Roaches have some excellent self-protective mechanisms to assist them in evading capture. One such mechanism is feigning death, so the dead cockroach you find might be alive but only biding its time to get away. It’s unlikely, though, that you’ll find multiple roaches playing dead simultaneously.
5. Cockroach infestation
Sadly, the most common reason you have many dead roaches in your house is that you have a significant roach infestation that has worsened. More roaches mean more contests for food and water, which eventually kills more of them. if you find a remarkable increase in the number of roaches in the home, it’s likely the time to hire a professional disposal service.
6. Your roach bait is working
If you recently applied baits to get rid of roaches, you will find dead roaches around. Baits with delayed toxins do not kill cockroaches immediately—they typically give the roach time to return to their hideouts where they contaminate their nest and intoxicate their neighbors to death. Here is a detailed publication we’ve explained how you can tell when your bait for roaches is working.
How to get rid of the cockroaches
There are some methods you can use to help get rid of cockroaches if they have nested in your home:
a. Use baking soda
Baking soda helps in a nearly endless list of domestic remedies, including eliminating roaches. It leads to quite an awful end. When roaches feed on baking soda, it creates gases in their stomach which make them explode.
You want to make the baking soda more attractive, however, which you can achieve by rubbing it into fruit or onions and then putting the laced organic material in a shallow container so cleanup is easier. Remember to keep onions away from dogs and cats, as they’re harmful to pets.
b. Apply citrus
Another readily available cure you may already have is citrus. Humans love lemon and orange, but roaches don’t. include lemon juice in your cleaning solutions before mopping the floor or cleaning your worktops. The smell puts away cockroaches so you might not have to deal with the challenge again.
c. Remove roaches with boric acid
Boric acid is healthy for dogs and humans, but not for roaches. Apart from sticking to their legs, it kills them fast by stopping the activities of their digestive and nervous systems. One way to make your trap is to place a food source inside a shallow bowl and place a layer of boric acid around it.
d. Use borax
Sodium tetraborate includes the same base compounds you’ll find in boric acid and you might find it by the common name, Borax. The cleaning product makes cockroaches dehydrate and quickly kills them. You may have to search for their carcasses later.
e. Peppermint essential oils
Peppermint essential oil and citrus work alike. Roaches don’t like the smell and would avoid it. Place it around entry points and cracks in addition to other techniques to eliminate roaches from the house.
f. Get glue strips
You can purchase glue strips from DIY stores and other stores. Those particularly made to trap and kill cockroaches are coated in a substance with an attractive smell and immediately after the cockroaches’ feet touch the strip, it traps them. You’ll have to monitor the strips and regularly change them.
g. Bait stations
Bait stations or bait tubes are another class of commercial solutions that work properly. As their names suggest, these solutions have a bait that attracts cockroaches. They also contain poisonous substances that kill roaches if they get in the tube and eat the poison. If you have kids, though, be careful when using bait stations.
FAQs
Do dead roaches attract other roaches?
Dead roaches are likely to attract others. That’s because roaches emit oleic acid after dying. This chemical has a moldy smell that repels other roaches. Other insects usually stay away from the scent. As soon as time passes and the carcass starts decomposing, it emits an acidic odor that lingers. That will attract decomposer bugs, like roaches themselves, to clean up the carcass. Live roaches can readily smell this odor even when far away and will search for the dead roach.
Are dead cockroaches a good sign?
Finding dead roaches in the home is often a red flag. While it might give a sense of relief, it’s a warning. Dead roaches often mean there is much more hiding in the house. Unless you take the necessary actions to eliminate them, you may end up with a bigger challenge. Roaches reproduce very fast. Immediately they nest in the house, roaches won’t only feed on almost anything but also spread disease. Roaches can spread foodborne pathogens like staphylococcus aureus and they spend most of their lifetime in filthy places, like drains, sewers, and trash cans.
Conclusion
Roaches are uninviting and can be unhygienic, transmitting bacteria and causing illness. It’s also challenging to locate, catch, and get rid of these insects. Finding an increasing number of roaches in the home shouldn’t come across as a positive sign either. That could mean they’re dying, but it also probably means there’s a significant infestation that might require you to employ professionals to stop cockroaches in your home.
Read Also: Cockroaches in Dishwasher!
