Having a cockroach in your home or apartment is enough to make you want to jump out of your skin. These skittering insects are known for being dirty and causing allergies. Proper identification is the first step in any pest management program, and the sounds a cockroach makes might just be the key to identifying these nocturnal pests.
So, do cockroaches make noise? Roaches can produce chirping and clicking noises, called stridulations. This is done similarly to crickets and grasshoppers, by scraping fibers on their body together to produce noise.
Below, I’ll discuss the 2 surprising noises that cockroaches make and offer a step-by-step guide on identifying and getting rid of a cockroach infestation. Let’s send these pests packing!
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Do cockroaches Make Noise? Identifying Roach Sounds
Almost all cockroaches are nocturnal, so it can be difficult to catch these many-legged pests in the act. However, the sounds they make might be a way to confirm you have roaches in your living space.
Once you’ve confirmed that roaches have taken up residence in your home, there are many ways to combat these adversaries using eco-friendly and pet-friendly pest control solutions. But more on that later!
For now, let’s go over the two noises that roaches make.
Cockroaches Can Chirp
One of the noises that cockroaches might make inside your home is a chirping noise. This noise will not be as loud as a bird chirp, but rather a very low chirp. Cockroaches use these noises to communicate with other cockroaches, such as when a predator or danger is nearby.
Look for small crevices that lead to dark places, and try to listen for chirping noises. Even if you can’t see the roaches, this chirping indicates that more than one roach is present. Well, even one roach is a problem, right? We’ll go over some eco-friendly pest control methods a little later!
Roaches Make Clicking Noises
Another noise that indicates the presence of roaches is clicking sounds. Just like chirping, this noise is made when cockroaches rub the fibers on their thorax against their body. As the fibers scrape, they produce clicking noises.
When roaches make clicking sounds, it usually means they are warning other roaches that danger is nearby. Sometimes, these clicking noises are also used by male roaches to attract females.
If you hear clicking noises at night that are coming from your kitchen, bathroom, or basement, the culprit may be roaches.
Here’s Why You Have Roaches
Cockroaches don’t care if you live in the best apartment in New York or a run-down building in California. If there’s food and moisture present, they will come. But why are some places more susceptible to cockroaches than others?
For a more in-depth look at why cockroaches are in your home, check out our article on the 6 reasons you have flying roaches in your house. For now, I’ll go over the main reasons why roaches make their way into your living space.
Cockroaches Love Food
Who else can relate? Roaches are attracted to food spilled on the floor or counters, which is why they’re a common problem in restaurants and hotels. High-traffic areas like apartment buildings, hotels, restaurants, and work offices will undoubtedly have crumbs and spills.
Cockroaches wait until nighttime to forage for food. If they find a crumb or spilled drink, it’s a veritable feast that keeps them fed for days.
Roaches Are Great Hitchhikers
Even if you have a spotless home or apartment building, you may still have roaches because they were accidentally brought inside on other items.
Packaging made of cardboard or paper has rough surfaces, making it easy for these skittering insects to climb on and into. Roaches also find their way into computers, cable boxes, modems, and routers because of the heat produced by these items.
Cockroaches Thrive in Damp Places
No matter how hard you try, your home is going to have damp areas. Whether it be the space under your kitchen or bathroom sink, the floor drain in the garage, or that tiny leak in your laundry room.
Roaches like the American and Oriental cockroach are attracted to dark, damp areas. They may move into your home through the floor drains and make themselves comfortable in tiny cracks in bathrooms and laundry rooms.
Remember, cockroaches aren’t a sign that your home is unclean or dirty. These invasive creatures are intrusive and difficult to get rid of once populations are established.
On the positive side, Pest Pointers has you covered with multiple ways to deter, repel, and eliminate these nuisances using pet-safe and eco-friendly pest control options, which we’ll discuss below!
Managing Cockroaches In Your Living Space: A Step-By-Step Process
A few different species of cockroaches are common in North America:
German Cockroach: The most common roach species found in homes and apartments. These pests are typically found in kitchens and bathrooms and are attracted to food spillage.
American Cockroach: These skittering pests are commonly found in drains and sewers. They are sometimes referred to as Palmetto Bugs or Water Bugs.
Oriental Cockroach: Like the American roach, these are usually associated with drains, sewers, and basements. They’re also commonly found near dumpsters.
Brownbanded Cockroach: Similar in size to the German roach, the Brownbanded Cockroach prefers high, dry places and is associated with being found in bedrooms, living rooms, and offices.
Wood Cockroach: These outdoor pests aren’t likely to infest your home, but they are attracted to lights at night and may accidentally find their way indoors.
Identifying the species of cockroach can be helpful for pest management. It narrows down where infestations are most likely taking place, and where best to use your pest control methods.
Step 1: Identify
The first step in getting rid of cockroaches is to identify where infestations are taking place. One of the best ways to do this is by utilizing traps. Leafthumb’s Cockroach Traps come in a 20-pack, giving you the ability to place them in various areas around your home.
Place the traps in areas where you’ve seen cockroach activity. Look for small black specs that indicate roach feces, as these are often high-traffic areas where roaches congregate or have found food.
Sticky traps have a dual purpose:
Identify: Firstly, roach traps help you identify where high-traffic roach activity areas are so that you can focus your pest management practices in these spaces. They will also give you a clue as to whether or not the roaches are reproducing. If you find roaches at different life stages within your trap, you likely have an active infestation that is growing.
Location: Cockroach traps also help you figure out where infestations are taking place. Place the traps in vulnerable areas like the kitchen, spaces beneath sinks, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and other dark, damp spaces. Wherever you catch the most roaches is probably the source of the infestation.
Once you’ve identified the severity of the infestation (reproducing vs. not) and the location, you can start utilizing effective pest control practices.
Step 2: Eliminate Attractants
Many things attract cockroaches to your home, apartment, or office building. The main attractants are usually food, shelter, dampness, and darkness. By eliminating these attractants, roaches will no longer feel welcome in your home and will likely skitter off to another location.
Here’s how to eliminate cockroach attractants in your home:
Food: Perform a comprehensive cleaning of your kitchen and bathrooms. Try to wipe down the counters each evening, sweep and mop the floors as often as manageable, and clean up any kitchen spills immediately. Never leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight. Check out our in-depth article on how to keep roaches out of your kitchen for further guidance.
Shelter: Roaches take shelter in small cracks and crevices that lead to dark, damp places. Fill any cracks with caulking like Gorilla Waterproof Caulk & Seal Silicone Sealant. Additionally, if you have any cardboard boxes or stacks of paper lying around, be sure to remove them or stack them off the ground.
Dampness: Fix any leaking pipes immediately. Try using a dehumidifier in damp rooms like basements and laundry rooms. Wipe down the sink each evening so there is no water sitting in the sink overnight.
Darkness: While it’s impossible to eliminate all dark spaces in your home, sealing cracks and plugging any holes leading to tight spaces will help eliminate safe spaces for roaches. Cockroaches especially like moving between apartments via utility and water lines. Check beneath your sinks and plug any openings where these hoses come through or exit into the wall. Use caulking, foam sealant, or steel wool to seal the openings.
The goal here is to make your home, apartment, or office building as uninhabitable as possible for cockroaches. If roaches don’t feel safe or can’t find food, they can’t survive.
Step 3: Use Repellents
As gross as cockroaches are, there are things that even these lowly insects dislike, and that’s saying something, seeing as they’ll skitter through sewer pipes!
Below are a few recommendations for eco-friendly and pet-friendly roach repellents that you can use in your home. Remember, it’s important to remove all attractants first. Repellents aren’t effective if roaches continue to find food or safe places to live in your home.
Lavender: This strong-smelling plant has amazing roach-repelling effects. You can buy lavender sachets or make a homemade spray using essential oils. Check out our guide on the 9 simple ways to repel cockroaches with lavender for more information.
Cloves: Another strong-selling herb that will overwhelm a cockroach’s sense of smell, making it difficult for them to locate food or communicate with other roaches. Read about how to use cloves to repel roaches here!
Black Pepper: Pepperine is the main ingredient in black pepper that will repel roaches. It’s also what makes us sneeze if we breathe in black pepper by accident. Read our guide on how to use black pepper to keep roaches away to learn how to use this powerful scent deterrent.
Mint: One of the most powerful pest repellents out there is mint! Its strong scent may smell nice to us humans, but for critters like cockroaches, it’s much too powerful.
What about bleach? Does bleach kill roaches? Bleach is a common DIY pest control solution listed for cockroaches, but we don’t recommend using it because of how caustic it is. Bleach must be watered down significantly to use in a spray, and even then, you must physically see the cockroach to spray it with the solution. If anything, bleach can be used as a repellent, not a way to eliminate roaches.
There are plenty of other repellents out there that use harsh chemicals or toxic baits, but we prefer a more natural approach! You can read more about the scents that roaches hate here for inspiration!
Step 4: Seal Entry Points
Getting rid of a cockroach infestation is not enough to keep them from coming back. You’ll need to identify how the cockroaches got inside your home and eliminate those entry points.
Here are some common areas where roaches enter the home. Seal and repair these entry points as quickly as possible to prevent further infestations.
Drains: American and Oriental roaches may invade your home through your drainage system. According to the University of California, cockroaches can fit through a space 1/16th of an inch! Make sure the covers over your drains are not large enough to let these pesky insects sneak inside.
Door sweeps: Use door sweeps to seal the space beneath doors so that cockroaches can’t squeeze their way inside.
Utility and water lines: Electrical and water lines must get into your home somehow. Look for where these wires and lines enter your home and seal any openings around them with caulking or a foam sealant.
Remove plants close to the building: Trim any shrubs or plants that are close to your home to increase air circulation and improve lighting. Remove any vines growing on walls, as roaches use these as runways into your home.
Gravel perimeter: Consider adding gravel around your home that is 6-12 inches wide. This dries out the area directly against your home, making it less hospitable for roaches.
Trash cans: Avoid placing your trash cans directly against your home or near any doors or openings. Roaches may congregate around trash cans and dumpsters, easily making the leap from garbage to home.
Sealing entry points is one of the most critical steps in preventing future roach infestations. A sealed house is a pest-free house!
Step 5: Monitor
Steps 1 through 4 will help you remove and eliminate any cockroaches in your home and keep them from coming back. The next step in your roach-repelling guidebook is to monitor with sticky traps again.
Place them in areas where you previously noted cockroach activity and see if the populations have been reduced since your last placement of traps.
You may not notice an immediate reduction, but if you keep up with the practices recommended above, over time, you should see a remarkable decrease in roach populations. Hopefully, your traps will eventually be empty!
Step 6: Call in the Professionals
If you’ve completed all the steps above and are still noticing a large population of roaches in your home, it may be time to reach out to a pest control specialist to deal with your cockroach problem.
Some roach infestations are just too complex and difficult to handle on your own. This is especially true for those living in apartment buildings or large office buildings.
If you’re wondering, ‘Do cockroaches make noise?’ the answer is yes!These icky insects make two distinct noises: chirping and clicking. Their noises are used to communicate with other roaches, indicating danger or attracting females.
Finding roaches in your home is never fun, but remember, there are plenty of ways to deal with a roach infestation on your own, such as using scent deterrents, habitat modification, and eliminating attractants. Sealing entry points will prevent future infestations.
When DIY pest control doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to call in the professionals. Happy repelling!
Robyn is your friendly neighborhood writer, editor, and published author - boasting many years of experience in pest control, from which she magically weaves words into the captivating and engaging posts as we know them. When not tucked behind her laptop screen, she can be found embracing nature in the most thrilling ways possible. Rock climbing? Yes, please! Hiking? Absolutely! Traveling the U.S. with her husband, their lovable three-legged dog, and two mischievous cats? That’s her everyday reality. They live, love, and work in their cozy campervan, letting the road take them where it will, and finding inspiration in every sunrise, mountain peak, and wildlife sighting they encounter. Check out my Profile.
Pest Pointers was started in a cozy corner of Upstate New York, known for its expansive pastures, dense woods, and abundant wildlife pests. We are dedicated to providing YOU with solutions and insights into managing common pest issues. Starting out on over 50 acres of land and a freshwater bass pond with abundant pests, we combine firsthand experience with dedicated advice to help you tackle even the toughest of critters!
