Is It Bad To Have Cockroaches In Your House?

Cockroaches can freak out many people. Cockroaches can climb, swim and get inside your house from small entrances. They are difficult to kill, and their number grows very fast.

But, Is it bad to have cockroaches in your house? It’s not bad to have cockroaches for the house itself, but a cockroach is dangerous for the people living in the house. Cockroaches can spread various kinds of diseases, and people who are scared of cockroaches can have a panic attack. A lot of people are afraid of cockroaches.

Continue reading to know why they are bad.

Are Cockroaches Bad Sign?

Now if you believe in the superstition that having cockroach in your house means that your home is cursed or something scary might happen, then don’t worry because nothing terrible will happen.

However, having a cockroach infestation within a house can be problematic. There can be many problems if there are many cockroaches in your house. 

Firstly they can spread many diseases. Cockroaches contain bacteria, that can spread diseases. Secondly, cockroaches can spread allergy and thirdly many people are scared of cockroaches and seeing them can create a panic attack. 

Just a few of them may not be a problem. That’s a common phenomenon in most houses but seeing them frequently and in numbers is a problem.

Cockroaches are adaptable, and they can adapt to any climate, so they are spread all across the world except Antarctica. 

If you see few cockroaches, then it is not a big problem but still, get rid of them as they can grow in numbers very fast and can also spread diseases.

Why Cockroaches Can Be Dangerous

Cockroaches live in dirty places, and they are omnivorous. They can eat all kinds of food. So, none of your food is safe. If a cockroach somehow gets to your food and you end up consuming it, then it can become problematic. 

Cockroaches are difficult to spot, and they like to stay in dark and damp places. So, the drains in your house can be their favourite place, and they will attack your food when you are sleeping. 

Cockroaches are active 4 hours after everything gets dark. So when you turn off your lights, cockroaches can get to your foods if that uncovered and that is something that you don’t want.

How To Stop A Cockroach From Getting To Your Food

Here are some of the ways that you can follow to keep cockroaches away from your food.

1. Keep Your Foods Covered: Keep all your edible foods covered so that cockroaches can’t reach them. It includes fruits, vegetable, sweets and everything that you don’t want cockroach to touch. As mentioned earlier cockroach are omnivorous, and they can try to take a bite on every food items. 
2. Throw Away Rotten Foods: Cockroaches are also attracted to rotten foods, so throw away any rotten food inside your house. Even overripe foods can also attract cockroaches, some of these fruits emit a fermented smell, and that can attract cockroaches.
3. Check Your Refrigerator: Sometimes, a cockroach can also enter a refrigerator. So, if your refrigerator is full to food, make sure to check whether there is any cockroach or not. They can even die inside the refrigerator and contaminate your food.
4. Keep Your Drains Clean: Cockroach loves to live inside drains and inside the pipes line. So, make sure to clean all the pipeline in your kitchen, especially the basin pipeline. You can use chemicals to clean them, or you can simply spray a cockroach killer inside the pipes and drains, and that will kill cockroaches. If you have a high infestation, then cockroaches can definitely live inside those pipelines.

Allergy From Cockroaches

Some people are allergic to cockroaches. Somebody who has asthma can feel severely allergic if there are cockroaches around your house. 

Cockroach produces a specific protein which comes out through their excretion and saliva. This excreted protein gets mixed up with dust and starts spreading all across the house and creates allergy.

Do Cockroaches Only Infest Dirty Homes?

Many people think cockroaches only infest a dirty house, but that is incorrect. Cockroaches eat all kinds of food. Faeces, fruits, vegetables, everything and so they can get inside a house looking for food. 

Their ability to fly also gives them specific advantages when they are trying to enter any house. Once inside a house, cockroach starts looking for food and a place to hide. 

After that, they start increasing their numbers. Cockroaches can also enter through crack and crevices within a house.

So keeping your home clean is not enough; you have to close cracks and crevices in your house. 

If there is an infestation in nearby houses, then there are high chances that cockroach can get inside your house if they get the opportunity.

In the beginning, there will only be a few cockroaches that will try to enter a new house. So, if you see them, just get rid of them.

You may need to do this frequently as these cockroaches will keep on coming if someone doesn’t remove the infestation from nearby houses.

Nymph Are Problematic

Nymph or baby cockroaches are problematic. Nymph is small and inexperienced. They can hide in places where elder cockroach won’t dare to hide. Since they are naive and curious, they will move around your house while you are asleep. 

Methods that work for cockroaches may not work for them. You need to take extra care so that nymph doesn’t get to your food. They can come out in numbers and can roam around the house. 

If you keep your food covered then make sure there are no gaps as these nymphs can get inside it very quickly. Even a small gap is more than enough to give entry to these nymphs.

Here is a small trick that you can use to keep nymph and cockroaches away from food. Use boric powder and make a circle and keep the food inside the circle. Make the circle big so that the food can fit inside the circle correctly.

You’ll see the effects immediately. Nymphs and Cockroaches won’t be able to cross that circle, and your food will be safe.

Cockroach Lay Eggs in Dark And Moist Places

Since cockroach lives in dark and moist places, so they also like to lay eggs in those locations. 

If you have heavy infestation inside your house, then make sure to check those moist and dark places in your house, and you can find the eggs. 

They lay a large number of eggs. Since a predator does not attack these eggs, so young cockroaches are born, and their number increases rapidly. 

Only by finding those spots, you can decrease the infestation to a great extent.

Cockroaches Can Be Everywhere

Cockroaches are more active at night, especially when you are sleeping. A curious cockroach can climb up on sofa, bed and has reported getting inside people ears. 

So getting rid of cockroaches is very important. You don’t want to see a cockroach on your bed when you wake up from sleep, that will freak many people, or you don’t want to see cockroach near your coffee mug or in your closet. 

If you see these happening, know that the infestation is high. 

These are the signs. When the infestation is low, you won’t see cockroaches easily. Once in a few days, you’ll see cockroaches near your bathroom or a drain. As the infestation increases, they can you will see them everywhere.

My Experience

I went to my relative’s house one day when I was a kid and stayed there for about two weeks. I watched cockroaches coming out of a drain every single day. 

Not just one multiple cockroaches came of that drain. No matter what we did, the cockroaches were not going away. 

So one day I accidentally came across a covered drain that went through the house. I decided to open the cover, and when I did that, I saw a vast number of cockroaches there. I was shocked; I never imagined that I would see so many cockroaches. 

I immediately closed the cover and informed it to my parents. They also took a close look and used Gamaxin powder for a few days and then the infestation decreased. 

These cockroaches were coming inside the drain because the main drain was not clean. They cleaned the drain after this incident. After that, when I opened the cover, I saw there are only two cockroaches. 

So if you have the same system as my relative house, i.e. a covered drains run through your house or if you have nearby drains then use Gamaxin powder to get rid of the infestation. It won’t cost you too much, but you’ll get rid of cockroaches.