If there’s one good thing about living in New England, it’s the lack of year-round outdoor bugs. But while the winter weather might spell the end for mosquitoes, wasps, and other seasonal pests in the area, cockroaches still thrive.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy getting rid of these resilient bugs on your own. If you’ve got roaches in your Western Massachusetts home, you’ll need all the help you can get.

Types Of Roaches In Western Massachusetts

While biting frost and snow spare Massachusetts homes from many pest insects in the winter, cockroaches are eager to get cozy and warm. There are only a few types of roaches found in the area, such as:

American cockroaches – American cockroaches can grow up to 2 inches or larger, making them the biggest of the home-infesting roaches in the country. They have a reddish-brown color with a trademark “figure-eight” pattern on the back of the head.
Oriental cockroaches – These roaches are dark brown to black in color with a shiny appearance. Most specimens measure an inch or less in size. Oriental cockroaches prefer moist environments like sewers and bathrooms.
German cockroaches – Arguably the most difficult type of cockroach to deal with, German cockroaches grow between 1/2 and 5/8 of an inch long. They are light brown with two dark vertical stripes on their back. Their small size gives them an advantage in hiding and evading.

Why Are There Cockroaches In My House?

If you’ve detected roaches in your home only to hang your head and wonder where you went wrong, don’t worry. Even the cleanest houses get cockroaches. While trash, food, and general messiness are attractive to roaches, cockroaches are often brought home accidentally. Many homeowners introduce roaches from boxes, bags, and other containers from warehouses and stores to their homes.

Or, roaches in the wild or from a nearby infestation may infiltrate your home by squeezing through entry points like damaged door sweeps, cracks in the foundation, or gaps around pipes. Cockroaches are experts at avoiding detection and will hide under heavy appliances, in wall voids, and other out-of-reach areas. Not to mention, roaches breed rapidly. In fact, a single female American cockroach can lay up to 300 eggs in her brief lifetime.

Why DIY Cockroach Control Fails

Efforts to eliminate cockroaches with DIY methods don’t usually work. The harsh chemicals in store-bought pesticides often do more harm than good, posing health risks to family and pets while doing little to stop your roaches. These pesticides are only effective against the roaches you can actually see — and some roaches have evolved to resist pesticides altogether.

If you’re seeing a cockroach or two around the house, there are likely many more where you can’t see. Without proper identification and total extermination of every breeding site around the home, your cockroach problems will come roaring back, even if you experience some temporary relief.