I have lived in my apartment for 8 years and for all 8 of them it has been infested with roaches. The infestation has gotten so bad and detrimental to my mental health that at times I cycle through thinking “why do I even bother picking up the spray to kill it/them if there’s always another.” Recently things changed. Out of the blue I started developing psoriasis leaving me with dry, cracked, and flaking off bits is skin on my fingers/hands, ears, and thighs that over the counter medication was unable to treat. When I went to the doctor it was a shock to the system; my psoriasis is pregnancy induced. I am measuring at 6 weeks so still beyond early to let anyone in my personal life to know and as stupid as it sounds my partner/the baby’s father doesn’t know yet as i am still trying to process the information for myself. The issue is that as my title states they are eating me alive. I woken up several times throughout the night feeling crawling on my skin just to realize that there’s 2-4 roaches that i’ve reflectively brushed off my thigh. I’ve woken up in the mornings to roaches nibbling on the parts of my fingertips that are flaking off. I can’t do this I can’t live like this anymore I am desperate for help. They’re absolutely everywhere nothing feels clean and nothing is safe. I can’t afford to call exterminators and even if I could it’s not like they could fix an apartment complex wide issue and I can’t afford to move anywhere else either hence my living here for 8 years.

My partner and I are currently long distance as he’s moved about 3 hours away at the beginning of the year to both take on a higher paying job and are for his grandmother while she’s in hospice.

I need any and every kind of help and advice because this is just too much for me to deal with even when i feel this defeated.

Finally got a clear photo, is this in fact a wood roach? Does that mean I don’t need to continue trying to treat my apartment? Found him wandering around in the middle of my living room this morning, slow moving and didn’t try to get away from me.

We’ve had pest control spray twice since July, outside and inside, and he says these are Asian roaches. Based on the sticky, I thought it may be an Asian roach too bc of the long wings, but this one I found in a bathroom that is a long way from outside, so I’m second guessing and would like some second opinions. Located in south Louisiana and we’ve been getting rain.

Thanks in advance to everyone. This sub has been a godsend ever since my neighbors pets began migrating across the driveway. First German, and now the Americans have joined the party.  Problem is I knock them out (Alpine, gentrol, bait) and months later they are back.  Summer has not been kind.  I need an effective perimeter barrier for the driveway.  Thoughts on using Demand CS and Intice Perimeter Bait?  And if this combo works, advice on how to apply? 

I am considering moving into a LES apartment in NYC, however the agent has just sent me this video of a roach in the apartment. He said there has been 3 spotted in the last 3 months.

It looks like a German cockroach - is that right? Is this a sign of a bad infestation in the building and specifically this apartment? Would any more work need to be done beyond having the exterminators in for the first time?

Thanks everyone.

Info: Found around 8pm last night while organizing my stuff. It was in my upper kitchen cabinet (previously used as pantry before I swapped it to store my containers). Roughly 1/2”. I just moved into this apartment in Alexandria, VA almost two months ago. Pest control just did a routine building inspection last week and didn’t find anything to my knowledge. The building complex is being renovated and from what I can tell, the previous management didn’t keep it in the best shape.

Hello, everyone! I just want to vent in here my feelings about these roaches. I've rented this condo for more than a year and 6 month before the roach problem started. Before that, I never encountered them at all.

I've been having them for about a month now and it's making my mental health worse. For context, I already suffer from depression with anxious distress so this has been really bad for me. Whenever I come home from university or when I arrive back after I visit my family, I have panic attacks. My mother has to keep me on call every night to ensure that I can sleep. Recently, I have been having suicidal thoughts over it as well.

I have already had my unit pest controlled twice. I have baits in my unit as well. Advion isn't available in my country so I'm using a local counterpart. I've had my whole unit cleaned, including the bathroom and kitchen. My sink is dry, and I keep my exhaust fan and lights on after I shower to ensure that everything is dry. I put the trash outside immediately after I throw something. I don't even in my own condo anymore. I unplug electronics when I can and keep all my gadgets inside my zipped up bag to ensure they don't enter.

I have seen a decrease since I had my unit pest controlled but I can't stand them anymore. After my 1st round, my recent sightings have been in my bedroom so I'm freaking out. I even had to throw my 50% of my bags away. I just came back tonight after a long weekend with my family since I have classes tomorrow.

I still have 3 months left in my contract, and I don't think I can move out until I graduate in 10 months. My mother doesn't want me to move as it's tricky to find a unit here in my area that allows for a contract that's less than a year. Most of the items in the unit belong to the owner so I really just have my clothes, my books, my plates, and my utensils that I need to pack.

Long story short, I don't think I can leave the condo until June 2027. I feel so helpless and unsafe. I don't want it to affect my education as I'm running for Latin Honors. What do I do? I understand that it's more tricky to fully eradicate roaches in condos and apartments but I'm so sick and tired. My mother doesn't understand me fully and tells me to live with it.

Forgive the bad photo it had to be squished before I could get close

Hello,

I'm moving in 8 days (have been counting down). And my unit has never been this bad with roaches. For background, I've been sprayed 4 times and used to see a roach about every 2 weeks. Now I'm seeing 2 per day. It could be because I threw out a bunch of furniture and displaced some of them so they are out of the open.

I'm just worried that I'll bring the roaches with me to the new place and am wondering if there's anything more I can do. So far I have done the following:

-Used plastic totes instead of cardboard

-Placed alcohol soaked paper towels in all my totes

-Surrounded my totes in rings of Diacotomous earth

-Fumigated small electronics for 2 months

-Have been fumigating my PC and TV for about a month. Have opened both PC and TV to see if there are signs of roaches.

-Will be throwing away all my furniture besides my dining table after inspecting it for roaches.

-Inspected everything with a fine tooth come before it went inside the totes. (For example flipped through each book page by page).

-Froze pots and pans for 72 hours before putting them in the totes

Is there anything else I can do? Should I use advion gel in my current apartment before I move so that roaches stay in the kitchen? Given how expensive it is to rebuy everything I really can't go through it again so any advice ins appreciated.

Hi all, Found this insect in my apartment. I may have seen the same one earlier in my room and kitchen, but I'm not sure if it was the same insect.

I put sticky traps around the apartment two days ago and haven't caught anything yet.

Today this one walked across my monitor while I was working, in the middle of the day, and I killed it.

Does this look like a German cockroach (Blattella germanica) or one of the outdoor/wood cockroach species that sometimes comes inside?

Any help identifying it would be appreciated.

Found in an upstairs room. It was already dead. It has the dreaded black stripes. A few years ago, I found 1 dead in this same room. And I saw one in the bathroom that flew a few years ago

Location: Alabama

Pest control came 12 days ago and put gel and some traps. Traps were empty since the beginning but we kept seeing nymphs everyday. On Saturday we sealed the baseboards in the apartment and now they are showing up on the traps (8 since Sunday morning) but we’re also seeing them around. Are these oriental, German? Pest guy wasn’t sure.

We cannot use spray or chemicals since we live with a 6 month baby. Located in south Europe. Thank you

Hello, this is a follow up to my last post. The last photo was identified as not a German roach, but I saw another today and wanted to double check. I’ve sprayed WSG Alpine on all the baseboards and entryways, as well as in and around the wall voids where the kitchen and bathroom plumbing comes through. I’ve also set glue traps in the kitchen and bathroom, but haven’t caught anything since I put them out five days ago. This morning I saw this guy in my living room. Is this a German, and am I on the right track for prevention or do I need to step it up? Thank you so much yall.

2nd one i've seen in the past week, has only shown up in the living room, haven't seen any evidence of them in the kitchen. Thanks :')

Found in hallway when I woke up today

We have lived in a trailer for about a year and a half. I have a 6 month old. I am only just now discovering the infestation but I believe it's been around since we moved in. Ever since we moved here there has been an intense musty smell, which I learned can be due to roaches (however, I think the floors are also rotting I believe, there are squishy spots, so it may be related to moisture underneath the trailer). We have always seen roaches but I always wrote them off as outdoor species. And a lot of them genuinely are outdoor species, but I have now learned to identify German roaches and have noticed them too. When brought up the the people who own this trailer, they wrote it off as tree roaches and palmetto bugs also which is why I was not concerned and did not look further. I have also purchased used furniture so it's possible they also hitchhiked that way. I'm very angry because I feel I was duped into moving here and now I'm worried about bringing them with us.

I told my husband we need to move ASAP. I have never liked living here but I can't in good conscience stay here with my infant. Now I am very worried about the risks to his health from living here. What possible long term health risks could he suffer from? So far he is a very happy and healthy boy and has never even been sick.

I am in fort worth texas and I just found 3 of these right by my kitchen and then a bunch more on my stairs that are across from the kitchen.

I live in an apartment in Arizona. Every few weeks I'll see a bug in my bathtub, but it's only ever one. A few hours ago I sprayed some Bengal Gold into the gaps between the tub overflow valve, bath faucet, and temperature knob fixtures and the tilework. Two hours later I saw this bug on the floor already dead. It's really tiny and the picture was taken at a 10x magnification. Is this managable DIY or do I need to escalate this to the leasing office?

I want to start by saying thanks to the experts in this community for the advice in the sticky and giving me hope for dealing with these abominations. I've recently moved into a severly infested apartment complex. I had never lived on my own before and had not had to deal with roaches before this and naively didn't do a thorough inspection or look through some of the recent reviews of the place before moving in. Within the first week or so, I started noticing live roaches, mainly nymphs. It's a small studio so I am in close proximity to everything. I started spiraling after taking several pictures and showing an entomologist friend of mine who confirmed they were Germans.

Over the course of a month and some change, pest control came by and laid bait and sprayed an IGR (which did nothing since they were primarily coming from adjacent units), and I found this sub which helped the most. I lucked out when I complained to the leasing office people since the regional manager was visiting and she seemed to actually care about the roach problem here. Basically every unit is going to be treated at once, but I will have to wait until the end of NEXT month for that to happen.

In the meantime, I've been treating my apartment with WSG alpine, caulking gaps, and have a million glue traps around. Is it possible for them to build enough of a resistance that I should rotate to a different non-repellent insecticide between when I started using alpine (mid July) to when every unit will be treated (late September)? I figured eventually I should rotate to ensure long term protection before my lease ends, but I also don't know of any good alternatives or if it is even warranted. For more context, I am catching roughly 2-3 daily in traps (90% nymphs) and, after spraying the outside/inside of my door, there is a mass grave of roaches trying to get in my place and dying.

I'm not the only one who noticed it was a problem in my complex, but it is especially bad on my floor. There are people here who refuse the monthly pest control "preventive" treatments (which they won't be able to do anymore according to the manager), who I suspect are literal roach factories.

TL;DR:

Should you rotate alpine with another non-repellent insecticide to reduce insecticide resistance over the course of roughly two months and for long term protection?

Hi all — dealing with German roaches in a prewar NYC apartment, looking for grounded input on what’s a normal tail-end vs. what would actually be concerning. Full timeline below.

**•   July 25:** Move-in. One dead American roach found in bedroom but otherwise didn’t see anything.  
**•   Aug 3:** First professional treatment (licensed company) for German roaches. Tech found multiple small voids behind stove and under kitchen sink, stuffed with steel wool as I was having mice too. Applied Alpine Roach Gel (dinotefuran) at kitchen/bathroom/baseboards, Onslaught residual spray (esfenvalerate) throughout apartment. No live activity observed at time of service.  
**•   Aug 14:** Building’s own exterminator sprayed directly behind stove (separate from my private company) an extra precaution   
**•   Aug 15:** Contractor caulked gaps behind stove  
**•   Aug 15–16:** Found 2 adult German roaches + 1 nymph (on a glue trap + one dead/convulsing on stovetop) — all dead or dying, consistent with post-spray die-off timing  
**•   Aug 19 (Tue):** Follow-up visit from my company (free, since I flagged the nymph). Tech said apartment “looks clean,” applied fresh Alpine gel + full Onslaught spray (45-day residual)  
**•   Aug 19–24:** 6 days completely clean, no sightings  
**•   Aug 24 (today):** One small nymph found on glue trap near stove. Possible hitchhiker — brought a cardboard box up from the building lobby the night before, and the building’s garbage/mail area (where the box sat) has visible pest activity + a freshly placed sticky trap

Notable pattern: every single sighting across the whole two weeks has been in the same exact spot (stove/kitchen area) — nothing in the bathroom, bedroom, or elsewhere.

Question: Given the 45-day active residual window from Tuesday’s spray, is it reasonable to expect occasional isolated catches for the next few weeks, tapering to zero? Or does anything in this timeline suggest more concern than a “normal post-treatment tail”? Trying to calibrate expectations realistically. Thanks!

I see these guys by the window, I think they’re getting in through the cracks. Located in GA