Roaches commonly found in N. America

American Roaches

Oriental Roaches

German Roaches

Brown Banded Roaches

Slimy. Disgusting. Ugly. Creepy. Cockroaches!

No one wants ‘em. Yet they’ve persisted for more than 350 million years despite man’s attempts to get rid of them. Without control, one pair of German roaches can expand to more than 2 million in less than a year.

Roaches are found in every part of the U.S. They like nearly any area humans like - especially where food, moisture and warmth are abundant. Cockroaches prefer darkness and crawl into amazingly small crevices as small as the thickness of a dime! An adult cockroach can live for a month without food as long as water or moisture is present.

Roaches carry and spread diseases. It’s not unusual for bacteriologists to find salmonella bacteria (which causes food poisoning in humans) on the bodies of cockroaches. Additionally, cockroaches are believed to spread viruses and their presence can cause allergic reactions for many people, especially asthmatic children.

What can you do if you find cockroaches in your living environment? The most important method of cockroach prevention and control is sanitation. Even a few crumbs that slip down beside a stove, for example, can serve as a gourmet dinner for several cockroaches for some time. The next thing you can do is call the Critter Ridders for advice on a complete control program. If it doesn't fit within your budget at this time then go to our do it yourself roach page and we have just what you need to solve your problems.

Cockroach Trivia

The fastest recorded speed measured for the American cockroach is nearly 2.0 miles per hour, or nearly 75 centimeters per second! In the absolute sense, this is a much slower speed than many vertebrates are able to attain. In relation to body size, however, it is remarkably fast. If speed were increased proportionally, an American cockroach the size of a lion could run about 50 miles per hour.

Cockroach excrement and body parts are major allergens in house dust.

The German cockroach is not really German. In fact, the Germans call it the Prussian cockroach. It is thought to have originated in Southern Asia.

Most cock roaches are unlike the majority of insects in that their exoskeleton is coated not with a waxy layer but a greasy one. Among other things, this characteristic enables cockroaches to slide into narrow cracks and crevices where even the human foot cannot reach them.

The Madagascar hissing cockroach has become a popular pest on some parts of the U.S.

Cockroaches are known assassins of their roommate, the bedbug.

In some parts of the world, roaches are profitably raised for chicken feed.

Among all the attributes of the city of Dallas, Texas, is the Cockroach Hall of Fame.

The world’s largest roach (which lives in South America) is four inches long with a seven-inch wingspan.

A cockroach that has just shed its skeleton is white with black eyes. After eight hours, it has regained its regular coloring. Cockroaches spend 75% of their time just resting.

There are 4,000 species of cockroaches worldwide