When trying to find out how to eliminate cockroaches from your home, you might be wondering how long they can live without food and if you can starve them out.
Roaches can live for a long time without having much nutrition, which goes for food and water. Still, on average, a roach can live for approximately a month without food but only about a week without water.
This is partially due to them being cold-blooded insects but more so due to them not requiring nearly as much food intake as other insects to thrive. That being said, roaches are very difficult to kill. How else could a cockroach survive over two weeks without a head?
Let’s dive deeper into roaches and their dietary needs.
What Do Cockroaches Eat?
Cockroaches eat practically anything. The better question would be, what don’t cockroaches eat? This can be noted by anyone who has dealt with a cockroach infestation, as they will eat pretty much anything, excluding metal or other non-organic matter. There isn’t a cockroach species alive that won’t eat another of its kind, so they aren’t picky in the slightest.
Roaches eat things that are within reach and aren’t heavily contested or outwardly lethal. So, the most common cockroach species will happily dine on everyday items that litter your garbage can, to things you’ve forgotten, like cardboard boxes and leather jackets.
Will Roaches Go Away If There Is No Food?
No, roaches will not go away if there is no food. Hypothetically speaking, they would migrate away if there was nothing to eat. Still, cockroaches live for the challenge, and it is almost impossible for a person to live in an area where they aren’t actively creating something for roaches to dine on.
Cockroaches live for weeks without having any food. In that case, finding a way to exist on odd pieces of cardboard, food storage you’ve forgotten, dead bugs, leaf litter you track in coming into your home, and organic matter from your shoes will suffice. The list is endless, so this option is almost impossible.
Can Cockroach Eggs Survive Without Food?
Yes, cockroach eggs can survive without food, primarily because cockroach eggs do not consume food while the nymphs are still inside them. It is only when they crawl out that the need for food arises. As such, you can expect all cockroach species to live happily through this period with little to no interaction.
That means the American cockroach, Oriental cockroaches, German cockroaches, and other cockroaches not mentioned can all thrive without this step, making them that much more difficult to get rid of if you have an ongoing infestation.
Can Roaches Survive In an Empty House?
Yes, roaches can survive in an empty house. Primarily because roaches do not require much to survive, and what little requirements they do have can easily be met with resources left inside an empty home. This means you will never be able to “wait out” a cockroach infestation; you must be proactive to rid yourself of these cretins.
Embracing that mentality and understanding cockroaches survive with next to nothing, you need to obtain proper control over your household. You will want to set up roach traps, remove any possible food scraps, decaying food, dirty dishes, and anything else commonly found in a home to begin working toward a solution.
How Can I Keep Cockroaches Away From Food?
You can keep cockroaches away from food by creating an impenetrable barrier between the food you eat daily and whatever the insects can get into. If roaches are inside your pantry, you may need to eat out to get things under control for a while.
Assuming they have not gotten that bad, putting all your food in sealable containers and doubling up on your cleaning regimens are some of the most important ways to keep roaches at bay.
Bear in mind these are some of the most adaptable creatures on the planet, so you will need to be flexible in your storage methods and mindful of what kinds of food you eat to avoid leaving crumbs.
Will Roaches Leave a Cold House?
No, roaches may not leave a cold house. Roaches despise cold weather and will do anything they can to survive it. Often, staying in a cold house is still a better option than leaving it, meaning they will get more resourceful about where they are hiding in the house to maintain enough heat to survive.
The underside of a fridge, a generator, and the heating elements of a boiler are all places a roach may seek refuge to survive the cold, so expecting a situation where cockroaches leave of their own volition is very rare.
Read More: How To Kill & Eliminate Kitchen Roaches
How to Stop Cockroach Infestations
To get rid of the most common species of cockroach, you will want to limit their options for acquiring water and food. Typically, up to a month or so will be long enough to begin seeing significant effects. Still, you must couple this with extreme cleaning and using bait and traps to kill off the current population of roaches.
Removing a cockroach’s preferred food is not enough to stop them. Even if you were to eradicate every female cockroach in your home, they would still migrate in and eventually begin thriving again.
Female roaches, in particular, make for good targets. Still, discerning genders is complex at a glance. Such blanket treatments like insect growth regulators can prove highly effective against these cold-blooded animals. Thankfully, these treatments work for both short and long cockroaches alike.
Final Thoughts
To sufficiently kill a roach infestation at its source, you must control its food and water intake. If possible, assault the cockroach while it is in the nymph stage with insect growth regulators.
Make sure to do everything within your power to hinder their ability to find food sources. In a worst-case scenario, you can turn to pest control or a professional exterminator for a more long-term solution with much more peace of mind.
