r/GermanRoaches

Found a baby roach in kitchen and bathroom for a total of two a few weeks ago. Treated area with Alpine. Found a baby crawling on stove and 5 dead ones under sink yesterday.
New condo to us. Was completely empty when we moved in all new furniture. (Fl)
Never have seen adult.
We did a more thorough job spraying today. Moving appliances away from walls.
Next things to do or look for…

It started in march, I was seeing a lot of them daily. It slowly stopped completely in the kitchen after I sealed around the pipes.

They moved to the bathroom in June. I can’t seal anything in the bathroom due to how the sink and shower are placed. Then a family of big black spiders moved in and I think they ate most them tbh as I stopped seeing any by the end of June but I was seeing the spiders.

Then I did not see any at all until around 3 days ago, and I’ve found nymphs of different sizes in all rooms, I’d say a total of 7 within the last days.

Yes it’s an apartment, I’m aware they can travel between units but I want to prevent/stop them from infesting mine again.

I can’t use any of the products from the pinned post since I live in Europe and nothing besides advion is available. And the advion dries out within a few days plus I’ve never seen one eat it, they completely ignore it.

I don’t leave food or trash unsealed, I don’t leave dirty dishes after I eat, I use vents and leave windows open to avoid humidity. All cardboard has been thrown out already, and I’ve decluttered and cleaned any cabinet or furniture already. Whatever I own and don’t use has been sealed in airtight moving plastic boxes.

I’ve tried to use traps before but they didn’t catch even one, only the spiders. Placed them around appliances, behind furniture etc.

I used another bait (I think it was called magnum gel) which knocked out the population from the kitchen back in spring but now there aren’t enough to eat it and make a difference.

I feel like nothing works. I understand I will never permanently stop seeing any at all, but I don’t want them to make my house their home.

So any product, treatment recommendations would be greatly appreciated, especially from someone that has dealt with them in the EU since we don’t have access to most US products.

Pics in comments!

I originally posted this a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/GermanRoaches/s/wBCV90r0Ky

But I have some significant updates.

My apartment complex has said this is a problem spread out over a 3 mile radius, and more than half the units have requested pest control. They were not able to get to my unit today so I have to wait until next Tuesday. I don't know how I'm going to make it.

But, most importantly, my complex claims these are Asian roaches, not German, and I'm not sure that's accurate.

They claim the Asian ones are attracted to light. But I noticed significantly increased activity when my power went out the other night. Keeping all of the lights on, everywhere, seems to decrease sightings. Then again, I had a lot of candles and a flashlight in my room when the power went out, and that was the only time I've seen them in my room.

I have noticed them primarily in my kitchen and near the doors. I'm too scared to open under my sink because I suspect that's where they're hiding. But I haven't - so far - noticed any in my pantry or trash or on my countertops.

I've seen them almost exclusively on the floor, with the exception that I've seen two in my kitchen sink, one on my bedroom doorframe that I think crawled through there because I had a towel under the door, and one that was on the floor that seemed to jump or fly about 8 inches up the wall then continued to climb.

With these behavior descriptions are you able to discern the likelihood of German vs Asian? I can try to get photos from my traps. I'll be honest I immediately squish every one of them I see crawling around.

Lived in this house for about a year. Lived in is a little extreme. All my stuff is here and I sleep here, I’m rarely actually here. Work is insane lol. Anyways, got to cooking for the first time in a long time and discovered I have a nest of these little pests. My roommate moved out a few months ago and I never really went in their room because why would I. Well I went and looked in their room and good lord. It’s a disaster. Trash and everything messy. That’s why there’s an infestation I suppose. I can’t find the spray everyone is talking about here (Texas) what else works to get rid of these? I’m going to work on cleaning that disaster but in the meantime what can I do?

I am moving from a rental that we found out had previous bad roach infestation. It was treated and the landlord thought they were all gone before re-renting. However, we ended up seeing one and were able to finagle out of our lease after a month and a half of living there.

I should’ve followed my gut because I was going to move things to a storage unit, but we put out baits and pest control came once while we were there to spray and hadn’t seen any. We’ve got most of our stuff into the new apartment over the last few days and I put Hot Shot Ultra Liquid baits near all of the things we moved in (9 baits in total in a little over 900 sq ft) to hopefully nip any hitchhikers in the bud. However, last night a roach was in the hallway in our new place. I wish I had gotten a picture to ID but I did not. We shone a light on it to see it better and it barely moved forward, making disposing of it easy. I put in a maintenance ticket with the new place to see if pest control could come out. Waiting to hear back.

A few questions:

1. How concerned should I be that I am about to start an infestation where I just moved? I’ve only seen the one. We have not started unpacking but I tried to look around the boxes and haven’t found roach corpses.

2. Is going ahead and starting an Alpine WSG treatment regiment overboard or should I wait to see what pest control does?

3. I have not moved big furniture, such as beds, couch, washer, dryer, and some bookcases. What would be the best approach to making sure I’m not bringing more over with them?

4. Any tips, guidance, or reassurance not in the sticky is also greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!