What to Throw Away and What to Keep

The one that goes

All of the Cardboard

Corrugated cardboard is close to a perfect cockroach habitat. The flutes are exactly the tight double-sided contact space they want, it is dry, dark and undisturbed, and the glue is edible.

So cardboard goes, without deliberation: delivery boxes, the boxes appliances came in, the stack kept for recycling, storage boxes in a cupboard, egg boxes, pizza boxes. Take it out of the property rather than to another room, and do not stand it outside the back door either.

The same logic applies to paper bags, stacked newspaper and the corrugated liner in a pet crate. If it is cardboard and it has been near the problem, it is not worth keeping.

Food

Open Goes, Sealed Stays

Anything open, or in packaging cockroaches can get into, goes: opened cereal, sugar, flour, rice, pasta in a cardboard box, an open bag of pet food, anything with droppings on or in it.

Anything genuinely sealed in glass, metal or rigid plastic is fine. Wash the outside of the container, because the outside is where the contamination is, and put it back.

The freezer and the fridge contents are normally fine — but the fridge's motor compartment is a classic harbourage, so the appliance needs pulling out and treating even though what is inside it is untouched.

Things people throw away unnecessarily

What Can Be Saved

Cockroaches do not live in fabric the way bed bugs and moths do, so a great deal of what people expect to lose can be kept.

• Clothing and bedding — a normal hot wash is sufficient. No need to bin anything.
• Crockery, pans and utensils — a normal hot wash or a dishwasher cycle.
• Furniture — inspect and clean rather than discard. Check the underside, and the joints of anything with a hollow frame.
• Most appliances — a fridge or a microwave with a population in the housing can be treated and cleaned rather than replaced.
• Books — inspect the spines and the shelves, but the books themselves are usually fine.

The borderline

Second-Hand Appliances and Electronics

A second-hand appliance that arrived with the problem is the one genuinely difficult case. The motor housing of a fridge or a microwave is warm, tight and largely inaccessible, and it is where a population will be densest.

It can be treated, and usually should be tried. But if the item was cheap or free, came from an unknown source, and is the thing that brought cockroaches into the house, replacing it is often the cheaper decision once you count the repeat visits.

Small electronics — a kettle, a toaster, a radio — are worth opening up and checking if they are near the harbourage. Toaster crumb trays in particular are a small, warm, food-filled box, and they are checked far less often than they should be.

Short answers

Cockroach Questions

Going further

Cockroach Guides