You bought a house but can’t afford $40 a month? That’s so reasonable.

I professionally managed many buildings… A big part of that was pest control.

Let me just cut through all the things that we try that don’t work and just tell you what works :

Edit

Food preparation - for all food storage areas, hot or cold, appliance or not, move everything out and deep clean. All food must be stored in sealed containers. Emotionally prepare yourself to make some sacrifices in convenience, and you’re going to have to get rid of food that you can’t sequester, such as large amounts of potatoes, etc. Go get coffee cans, whatever you can find at the thrift store, and get your food sealed away. Giant “Rubbermaid” sealed bin containers if you have to. To state it bluntly, you are going to need to live this way, very strictly, until a few hatch cycles have completed, and the worst of the problem is mitigated.

Area preparation - Make your home hospital clean and get rid of all garbage, loose food, or anything that would be an attractant. Get degreaser, and do the tops and interiors of all cabinets, clean the accumulated grease under your range hood, you know what I’m talking about figure it out. Move everything at least a foot away from the perimeter of the home. You may not skip any areas such as closets or crawl spaces, you need to do the work and be meticulous.

General Application - Heavily dilute it with water according to the instructions. Wear a proper filtration mask. Use a pressurized sprayer and spray in about a 4 cm wide band. Generally it’s applied around the perimeter of the home at the baseboards. All areas must be clean and dust free prior to application. It is accepted to be safe for humans and pets once dried. They state 4 hours as dry time but realistically it’s 40 minutes, depending on the humidity of your region.

Kitchen Under Sink / Dishwasher Application - Remove everything from under the sink, wash, spray the floor perimeter and just around the plumbing cut outs on the back wall. Remove dishwasher kick plate, unlock the wheels, disconnect water in/outs, pull dishwasher out, clean behind thoroughly, spray edges of the whole enclosure. Inspect underside of the dishwasher for leaks. Apply powdered borax liberally on floor, before pushing it back and hooking everything back up.

moreedit: The reason it is so important in the above areas is because there’s unfinished wood edges, there is typically only unfinished subfloor under the dishwasher (no tiles, hardwood, vinyl). These areas have moisture and wood, and that’s a lovely habitat. They will use the dishwasher food trap as well as plumbing leaks/condensation as a moisture and food source. Not always, but most of the time ‘home base’ is one of those places.

More Kitchen Application - Pull out oven and fridge, wash the appliance exteriors, the walls, cabinets, and floors, then spray floor perimeter. Remove oven drawer, thoroughly wash in washtub, thoroughly clean accumulated debris from bottom of oven rails. Clean interior of oven. Clean fridge freezer interior and exterior. You are safe to push the appliances back once the spraying is done, since nothing will touch those areas you don’t need to worry much about drying

Although many times, conditions that attract roaches in the first place are beyond our control, my experience shows most of the time we unwittingly invite the problem by neglecting certain ways of living. In my own life, I live in an overall cockroach-infested building, but there are exactly zero cockroaches in my place, because I keep it clean and there’s nothing here for them to eat - no reason for them to be here. If there’s any stragglers that make it up from the grease filled kitchen ventilation of my downstairs neighbor, they’re quickly murdered by the borax strategically placed at points of potential ingress.

moreedit: Never use the consumer-grade “roach killer” sprays. Despite the marketing boasts, it just drives the colony to spread around the environment. And another tip - various methods of compressed air lets you blow powdered borax under your dishwasher and into other difficult areas.

No offense, but if I had a roach problem this bad I would find a way to afford $40 a month for an exterminator even if I had to cut back to bare utilities only. Maybe even no electricity and cold showers until they were gone.

There are a few around my desk because I often eat here, I get that bit.

Stop that. If you’re feeding them then you undermine the entire effort. Stop it.

From what i remember from the documentary Joes Apartment i think you have to befriend them.

As the other comment said you need to find their source of food and clean that, this is something that worked for me without using any chemicals. Btw they eat paper too.

Gentrol point source. It mutates the males so that they’re sterile. It take one generation and then you’ll see them born with crinkled wings. Don’t kill the gross mutated ones. 8 weeks and you’ll notice significantly less. Its also pet safe and okay to be in areas near food. Restaurants use this as their go to. Its just a puck you stick in areas that are the worst.

Fumigation after envelope repair.

You need to, or preferably a pro, need to go around and seal up every possible incursion point and then gas the fuckers.

There is no solution but the final solution. Traps and poisons are like addressing a leaking roof with a pot to catch the water falling on the floor. God help you if you are on piers or block foundation, your fight will be Sisyphean.

First, as an Aussie while I would welcome you to our hairy friends they are actually not doing too great at the moment, so hands off, mine!

That said, cockroach population is almost entirely a matter of the neighbourhood you are in, not the house you are in. If you have a neighbour who’s house is suitable for roaches they will live and breed there and then reinfest your home.

That leads to two main options. Move somewhere without the issue or make your house the most hostile possible place for them.

I don’t know what options you could try that have not already been tried, but I will list a few I have seen work. Roach motels work well. Flypaper under the fridge works well. Some chemical treatments work well.

That said, being diligent and keeping the food for them to a minimum may be the best adjunct. By this I mean making sure food is eaten, dishes are done, surfaces are wiped, and nothing left behind as soon as possible after making meals. Emptying the rubbish bin daily, maybe even switching to a much smaller bench top one so you can have smaller bags. Adding a seal to your rubbish bins in the form of some rubber or silicone around where the lid fits, though this differs depending on your local waste management systems.

Have you tried diatomaceous earth (wp:Diatomaceous earth#Pest control) and sealing everything?

There are some mini black plastic baits for them (with poison), they eat and go back to their lair, dying and infecting everyone. Every 3 months I replace mine, never had cockroaches after I’ve put them everywhere in my apartment, even living on top of a restaurant.

Edit: It’s similar to this I think

There’s a food source somewhere. Assuming they’re not getting food from your kitchen (you’re not finding them in the pantry), there must be something else nearby. What’s around? Anything you can get rid of? Old cardboard boxes? Dead plants/yard waste? Pet food?

How old is the house? Does it have wallpaper? If you are unlucky they might be eating wallpaper glue or something like that. Also have you made sure there isn’t a sewage leak under the house?

We live in a rural area near woods. Big thing for our area is that you have to treat the outside too. You bomb for roaches, they leave for a week, then come right back in when it rains. Boric acid all over the inside where you can, especially behind appliances, and the diatomaceous earth around the house. It doesn’t have to be food grade unless you have chickens or something outside that will get into it, and the non food grade is much cheaper.

My dad swore by borax and I can attest to it this summer.

You can find it with the laundry detergents.

We sprinkle it on the ground and it covers everything like a scene from Scarface lol.

But what I’ve heard happens is that the roaches get it on their legs and it begins killing them as they have further contact with the powder.

I’ve heard this isn’t toxic to humans or pets, and I’ve not had issues myself or my cat or any of the other animals we’ve had over the years doing this.

I have had really bad roaches and earwigs at my house. I got fed up with it this year and threw down some of this all over the ground outside and inside. I did this at the beginning of summer when they start getting crazy.

I won’t say I’ve not seen any at all, but the numbers have gone down by 98%, easily, on both of these nasty insects.

There’s a place under a berry bush I have that seemed to harbor them and I made sure to sprinkle down a lot around the edges of that plant. About 5 inches away from the base, but still close enough and in a circle around it. I have seen some but much much less than in previous years there and my berry bush is doing fine and not reacting badly to the borax.

Roach motels when the situation becomes unmanageable.

From what you’re describing, the roaches are probably laying eggs and living inside rotted wood or old furniture.

I’m not a fan of fumigation since it is expensive, rarely works anywhere near 100%, and uses toxic chemicals, so it makes your house dirty and then the roaches are back in a couple weeks.

Buy a large pack of these glue traps with packaged bait, bait the traps as you need them, and put one trap in the area of each room you see the most roaches, somewhere dark, under furniture or out of sight.

You don’t need more than one trap per room, roaches are plenty mobile. Check them daily in the beginning, replace them when they are one layer full of roaches trapped in the adhesive.

You will have a whole bunch of live roaches you can feed to your chameleon and you will notice the roach infestation going down rather drastically. They catch young and old roaches with equal effect.

Very simple traps, and I’ve always found them to work very well.

I recommend buying the highest rated variety of baited glue traps with the highest amount of people who have bought it before.