How To Get A Cockroach Out Of Hiding In 3 Easy Ways

Roaches are sneaky creatures. They hide in the unlikeliest places of your home.

They show up from nowhere only to fill you with disgust and give you creeps.

In this guide, you’ll find out how to get a cockroach out of hiding no matter where they’re in your home.

You’ll find out ingenious ways to prepare and lay traps in the strategic places of your home so that roaches can’t resist.

Plus, you’ll also learn how to catch cockroaches with these methods and eliminate them from your home.

So, if you think you’ve got cockroaches in your room (or home) and you can’t find them, then this post is all you need.

Keep reading.

Where Do Roaches Hide Inside Your Home During The Day?

Roaches are nocturnal bugs. They forage during the night and hide during the day.

So, it’s common to see them in places like your bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and in other areas of your home during the night.

To lure cockroaches out of hiding it’s critical to know their hiding places during the day.

Knowing their hiding places will help you to plan your attack against and roaches and eliminate them.

So, where do roaches hide during the day. There are six places in your home where roaches can hide.

Let’s find them out.

#1 – Inside The Cabinets

During the day cockroaches hide in dark places. And there’s no better place for them than the cabinets in your home and kitchen.

Roaches favor kitchen cabinets the most. Cockroaches get their food from your kitchen. And the kitchen cabinets in your kitchen and kitchen pantry with food are perfect places for them to hide.

Roaches will sneak inside the cupboards, shelves, bookshelves, and cabinets to hide and to feed on the food droppings that spill out while taking in and taking out the food jars.

Given a chance, cockroaches will also sneak inside the food storage containers in your food pantry.

That’s why cleaning your kitchen often and ensuring no food spill overs prevents both roach and pantry pest infestation in your kitchen.

#2 – In And Underneath Kitchen Appliances

Electronic kitchen appliances are the unlikeliest of places where roaches can hide during the day.

These appliances are favorite hiding places specifically for German roaches because they’re tiny and they prefer dry places.

So, they can sneak inside toasters, microwaves, ovens, and underneath countertop appliances.

Your kitchen countertop is where you undertake most of your recipe preparing tasks.

So, there are always food stains and food spillovers on the countertops if you don’t clean the surface well. That attracts many bugs on kitchen countertops including roaches.

The other species of roaches like the American roaches that prefer damp places can also sneak inside the fridge and dishwashers.

#3 – In The Drains And Pipes

Moisture and dampness are the essential elements that keep roaches alive.

And there’s no better dampness source in your home than drains and pipes underneath the sinks in bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, basement, and garage.

Also, roaches take shelter in the areas near leaking pipes and faucets.

Damp corners of your home with leaky pipes are cockroaches’ prime real estate. These are the places where roaches build their nests too.

It’s because the eggs and baby roaches get enough dampness to sustain themselves. The roach poop that the baby roaches eat also remains most.

Keeping the drains clean and unclogging them prevents roaches and bugs like drain flies from using them as a nesting place.

Also, fixing the leaking pipes reduces the dampness in your home. And less dampness in the home makes your home less attractive for roaches and bugs.

#4 – Soft Furnishings Like Couches

It’s not only bed bugs that can infest couches. Roaches can too.

Soft furniture like couches, accent chairs, and even your bed mattress are hiding places for cockroaches

Why?

Because they’re comfortable. If there dirty with food spill overs and food stains, then it’s a win-win for cockroaches.

Cockroaches will sneak inside the couches and mattress and hide. They can even lay eggs in these places.

If you’ve got a habit of eating on your bed, then the food crumbs that fall off will attract roaches and a slew of other bugs known as bed worms.

Keeping the soft furnishing clean deters bugs from taking shelter in them.

Also, using a steam cleaner to clean the soft furnishings is a great way to get rid of bugs hiding in them.

Steam cleaners produces heat. The heat kills the eggs and babies of roaches and bugs on these soft furnishings.

#5 – Cracks And Crevices On Walls, Furniture, And Floor

Cracks and fissures on furniture and walls are also hiding places for cockroaches.

Cockroaches will sneak inside the thinnest of gaps easily. They’re designed to crawl inside spaces that which are at least one-sixteenth of their width.

That’s why cockroaches can sneak inside walls and build their nests in walls.

Do you wonder where roaches come from inside your house? Most of the time from your yard.

Roaches in yard hide in the cracks of the walls, underneath the mulch beds, compost, and in the gaps between wood piles.

And inside your home they look for the same kind of hiding places. So, they sneak inside the cracks.

Add dampness to your walls, floors, and furniture then it’s a perfect cockroach haven.

Cracks develop on the damp surfaces. In these cracks, roaches can comfortably hide.

That’s why it’s essential to always seal the gaps and cracks on the walls with a quality sealant so that roaches and bugs can’t hide in these places.

#6 – In The Clothes You Keep Dresser Drawers, Wardrobe, And Closet

Yes, cockroaches hide in clothes that you keep in dresser drawers, wardrobes, and closets.

Dresser drawers are even hiding places for bed bugs.

So, why do roaches hide in clothes?

Other than damp places with ample food supply, roaches prefer to hide in places that has abundant supply of cellulose.

So, cardboard boxes, old books, and clothes in dresser drawers are also ideal hiding places for cockroaches.

Fabric, especially linen and cotton, and paper, contain cellulose which roaches eat.

The darkness in the dresser drawers plus the clothes’ ability to block the roach smell makes clothes in drawers an ideal hiding place for roaches.

In the bedroom cockroaches can hide in the dresser drawers, underneath carpets and rugs, between books and magazines, and even inside your wardrobe.

If you’ve got an adjoining bathroom in your bedroom, then things can’t get any better for roaches.

The dampness in the bathroom and the clothes in the drawers will make their lives better than perfect.

Signs Of Cockroaches Hiding In Your Home

Now that you know exactly where roaches hide, it’s time to confirm their presence.

You won’t be seeing these hiding cockroaches often, especially during the day.

But if you know what the signs of roaches are, then you’ll be sure there are hiding cockroaches in your home.

Apart from physical sightings of roaches, there are three signs of hiding cockroaches –

1. Roach poop and smear marks
2. Cockroach nests
3. Cockroach smell

Let’s have a look at each of them.

Roach Poop And Smear Marks

Roaches are indiscriminate poopers. They’ll discard anywhere, even on your food.

But the most probable places where roaches poop are near their hiding places.

So, damp places like bathroom, basement, and especially kitchen, are the places where you’re most likely to find roach poop.

Roach poop and roach smear marks are the same. The only difference is that poop is dry and the roach smear marks are liquified roach poop.

If roaches are feeding on dry wastes, then their poop will be dry. This is pretty common with German roaches because they prefer to hide in dry areas and consume food dry crumbs and dry wastes.

However, roaches like American roaches and Oriental roaches that inhabit filthy wet places like drains, sewers, and catch basins, consume wet wastes.

So, their poop is in the form of wet smear marks on the walls, floors, and near the places where they hide.

Cockroach Nests

Cockroach nests can be hard to find. But the best part is that roach nest in places where they hide.

Any tight corners, gaps, and cracks in your kitchen, bathroom, basement, garage, and laundry room, are places for roaches to make nests.

Why? Because these places have enough moisture and food supply for roaches to survive. 

Roach nests aren’t like nests of birds.

Roach nests are like a pile of broken roach wings, baby roaches, roach egg cases, dead roaches, and roach feces all together in one place. 

Cockroach Smell

From their secretion glands, roaches secrete pheromones. It’s a chemical substance that insects discharge from the glands to communicate or attract a mate. 

When these pheromones mix with the dampness and filth, it smells oily and musty. 

That musty odor is typical when the roach infestation is high. When the infestation level is low, you might not get that smell.

If there are too many roaches hiding in one particular area of your home then you’ll get that pungent musty odor.

The smell can also come from roach nests. It’s because many roaches and their babies live there together.

How To Lure Cockroaches Out Of Hiding – 3 Easy Ways

You’ve come a long way till now. You’ve learned where do roaches hide and what are the signs of cockroaches.

These two pieces of information are extremely useful to lure roaches out of their hiding places.

Now all that you need to know is what to use and how to use things that draws out the hiding cockroaches.

Let’s find out.

#1 – Use Sticky Roach Traps With Food

What do roaches want? Food. And from where they get most of the food? Your kitchen.

So, use this to your own advantage.

Take a sticky roach trap and put it in a bowl.

Add some food like a small piece of meat or some sweet stuff like chocolate on the roach bait in the bowl.

Keep the bowl near one of the hiding places of roaches.

To cover all the hiding places, you’ll need multiple bowls with sticky roach trap and food.

The smell of the food will draw the roaches out. The roaches will enter the bowl to feed on the food that you’ve kept on the roach trap.

The roaches will stick with the trap.

Keep the bowls during the evening and let them be there overnight.

The next morning you’ll see roaches stuck with the roach trap. Dispose of these roaches outside of your home and property.

Using roach trap with food in a bowl is a proven way to lure roaches out and catch them.

There are also poisonous roach sticky roach traps available. These roach traps contain fipronil, indoxycarb, dinotefuron, abamectin, and hydramethylnon that are lethal to roaches.

#2 – Spread A Mixture Of Onion And Boric Dust

A mixture of onion and boric acid attracts roaches. But it’s lethal for them.

And it’s one of ways to get roaches out of hiding and killing them.

Take one onion and finely chop it. Add some water, flour, and boric dust to make a fine paste of the mixture. Boric dust is readily available in pharmacies. 

Spread this paste in the areas where cockroaches hide. Or you can keep the paste on a piece of paper near their places of hiding. 

The roaches will come out of hiding to eat the paste.

You can either squish the roaches or let them get back to their hiding places.

Boric acid is a slow roach killer. The roaches will die in their hiding places.

Another alternative for boric acid is borax. You can use borax in the same way as you used boric acid.

Boric acid comes in handy to kill many damaging pests like termites.

#3 – Keep Roach Baits

If you don’t want to get into the DIY stuff of luring roaches out of hiding, then you can use a roach bait.

There are many roach baits that you’ll find. The sticky ones are the most common.

But to draw out roaches hiding in your home, it’s critical to use the right roach bait.

And for that, the hot shot ultra-liquid roach is the best.

It’s a liquid bait that contains the smell of food that roaches can’t resist.

Keep the bait near places where roaches hide. The smell will draw the roaches out and they’ll feed on the bait.

Being liquid, some of the bait will also stick with their bodies. The roaches will carry the bait sticking on their bodies to their nests. The baby roaches and other roaches, who have a habit of cleaning each other often, will feed on the bait too.

The end result?

The roaches that consumed the bait will die. Plus, the bait will also kill the roaches in the nest.

Best Roach Killers For Roaches Hiding In The Home

If you’ve got roaches hiding in your home, it’s essential that you keep roach killers handy.

Presence of roaches, no matter how many or less, is a clear indication of roach infestation.

Using the right roach killer is both a preventive step to eliminate infestation and to kill roaches hiding in your home.

On top of being safe and easy-to-use, the roach killer should also penetrate the tight hiding places of cockroaches and eliminate them and their nests.

So, keep all these in mind, you should go for Advion pest control gel.

Advion pest control gel is the most effective and easy-to-use roach killers in market. And it comes with syringes.

All you’ve to do is fill the syringes with the gel and use it the gaps and cracks where the roaches hide.

You can use the gel in all the hiding places of roaches and on the wet surfaces in bathroom and basement.

It works like magic in the tight corners like underneath sinks or in the crevices of furniture and walls where fogger sprays don’t reach.

This gel is also perfect for use in places like kitchen and bedroom where you’d think twice to use a roach killer insecticide spray.

You’ll see a 90-95% reduction in roaches within a week of using it.

What Smells Keep Cockroaches Away?

Smells of white vinegar, cinnamon, peppermint oil, and eucalyptus oil keep roaches away. These are effective roach repellers.

The smell of cedar balls also keeps roaches away. Many homeowners keep cedar balls in places like kitchen cabinets and closets to ward off roaches. 

Cedar balls repel not only roaches but also fabric pests like cloth moths.

Another trick to keep roaches away is to mix equal portions of white vinegar and water. And spray it on the places where roaches hide.

Roaches cannot tolerate the severe acidic smell of white vinegar, and they’ll move out from their hiding places. 

When it comes to using the smells of essential oils to keep roaches away, it’s an easy task too!

All you’ve to do is mix 3-5 drops of any one of cinnamon, peppermint, or eucalyptus essential oils with half a gallon of water. 

To add more punch to it, add a few drops of Dawn dishwashing soap. 

Rinse the mixture well and pour it on a spray bottle. 

It’s a proven fact that sprays made out of peppermint, cinnamon, and eucalyptus have insecticidal properties that repel pests and bugs. And roaches are no exception. 

The smell from these sprays are too strong for them to handle. On spraying them in the hiding places can drive the roaches out of hiding.

But there’s one key point to remember. Essential oils, white vinegar, and cinnamon do not kill roaches or bugs. They repel roaches.

Conclusion

There are three ways to lure cockroaches out of hiding –

1. Using sticky traps with food
2. Spreading a mixture of onion and boric acid
3. Using roach baits

Roaches hiding in your home leave behind signs. This guide also reveals the signs of roaches in your home and the most common places where they can hide.

You’ve also found out what smells roaches hate, which helps you to get the roaches out, and what to use as a roach killer for the hiding roaches.

So, if you suspect there are roaches hiding in your home then use this guide as a manual. You’ll see results fast.