How To Get Rid of Roaches From Your Garage? (The Best Solutions!)
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
The roaches in your garage may not be visible during the day. They hide in nooks & crannies, behind cabinets & storage racks, waiting for darkness. Then they come out hunting for any food you may have dropped on the floor. In case of a roach infestation, “How to Get Rid of Roaches from Your Garage?”
To Get Rid of Roaches from Your Garage you have to:
- Kill the Roaches using baits, traps or sprays
- Deprive the Roaches of food, water & shelter
- Create physical “entry barriers” for the Roaches
- Stop the Roaches from breeding outside the Garage
Cockroaches are tough enemies. They can go without breathing for 40 minutes, without water for a week and without food for a month. They can even survive for a week after their head has been cut off! (Source of Information: PESTWORLD.ORG)
It’s not easy but you can get rid of Roaches from your Garage.
So let’s get started by understanding:
Why are Roaches Infesting your Garage?
There are three reasons why Roaches are infesting your garage.
The Roaches that got Banished from your Home
You banished the roaches from your home but forgot about the garage. The garage quite often gets the miss when you engage in any spring cleaning activity.
By the time you are done cleaning and tidying up the bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room etc. you are pretty tired. So the garage cleaning is postponed to another day, A day that never comes!
The same thing happens with your “getting rid of pests” program. The kitchen and the bathrooms get top priority. Next comes the bedrooms and the living room.
When it comes to cleaning and pest control, the garage, the basement and the attic are often not even on your radar.
The Roaches, driven out of your house, find refuge in your garage. It’s their safe haven!
Your Garage has Everything the Roaches Need
Roaches are simple insects. They just need food, water and a place to hide in the day. Your garage has it all!
Roaches are not even very picky when it comes to food. They will eat just about anything, including their own dead or own feces.
How do you think they have survived for over 300 million years?
Actually, you have probably laid out a feast for them. The trash can, the dead insects and rodents, the uneaten food (including pet food).
If you have not taken good care of your garage you likely have damp floors, wet walls or a clogged up drain. So roaches will get their water supply.
The garage has enough places for a roach to hide. What with all the junk that has accumulated in your garage. Roaches will always find dark, moist, warm cracks & crevices to squeeze into and rest during the day.
You Virtually Invited them by Not Sealing the Cracks
Roaches do not need the entire garage door to be open to come into the garage from the sewage drain outside. A little crack in the door seal or some wall joint is all they need to get in and be your uninvited guests.
What Kills Roaches and their Eggs in your Garage?
When it comes to roaches, what you see is just the tip of the iceberg. If you see a few of them in the day, rest assured there are a lot more hiding in the cracks.
Your garage will likely have more than one type of roach in your garage. The roaches have been mutating and getting resistant to some pesticides.
In order to get rid of all the roaches in your garage you will have to try a combination of killing methods.
Roach Baits attract and poison them
Roach Baits work by providing food to the roaches. The food is laced with a killer poison. Roaches are attracted to the food, eat it and also take it back to the nest to share, So it kills many more roaches than the one that entered the trap.
Combat Max 12 Month roach killer baits are designed to start killing German roaches and other small roaches in hours and prevent them from coming back for up to 12 months.
The bait is formulated with food that specifically attracts small roaches, plus a powerful insecticide, Fipronil.
These baits kill roaches in a Domino-Effect and eliminate at the source of the infestation.
For best results use a combination of three Combat products. Buy them from Amazon using the links below:
Combat Max 12 Month Roach Killing Bait, Small Roach Bait Station, Child-Resistant, 18 Count
Combat Roach Killing Bait, Large Roach Bait Station, Kills the Nest, Child-Resistant, 8 Count
Combat Max Roach Killing Gel for Indoor and Outdoor Use, 1 Syringe, 2.1 Ounces
You can also use these outdoors around your garage so that you are killing the roaches outside too.
TIP: Resist the temptation to clean up the dead roaches immediately. Wait a while. Other roaches will eat the dead roaches, get poisoned and die too.
Roach Traps will trap & Kill
Roach Traps do not use poison to kill the roaches. They simply use use a sweetly scented and highly sticky substance in a trap. The roaches are attracted by the scent, enter the trap and get stuck. Over a period of time they die.
It does seem a lot neater as you do not see dead roaches all over the garage. However, their ability to handle a roach invasion is somewhat suspect.
Use Roach Killing Sprays
So once the Roach Traps have been working for a while the roach population in your garage would have reduced to manageable numbers. But you may still see some scurrying around.
Keep a can of Roach Spray at hand. Spritz them when you see them. Roach Sprays use insecticides that kill on contact.
But do not wait for that. Spray all corners of the garage, once a week before you retire for bed. You should see a few dead roaches on your garage floor the next morning. If the number of dead roaches starts declining, then you are winning the war!
Raid Ant & Roach Killer Lemon Scent, available on Amazon is one of the best roach sprays out there.
Zap the Roaches to Kill them
You can get rid of common pests like flies, mosquitoes, spiders, moths and roaches from your garage. I have a blog post on each of these pests that you can check out at https://garagemadesimple.com/category/space/
Alternatively you can try out Atomic Zapper. It is multipurpose.
I recommend the Atomic Zapper from BulbHead. This powerful device is a 2-in-1 ultrasonic pest repeller and bug zapper. It uses ultrasonic soundwaves to drive rodents crazy but doesn’t bother you and your pets. Atomic Zapper™’s blue light technology attracts and zaps flying insects. Order it by clicking on the link below:
What do Roaches eat in your Garage? Deprive them of Food
As mentioned before, cockroaches will eat anything. To deprive them of food you have to keep your garage as clean as possible.
You must treat your garage as a part of the living space of your home. So you must apply all the practices of good housekeeping to your garage as well.
Basically this means that you must declutter, organize your garage storage and use airtight plastic storage containers as far as possible. Deprive the roaches of hiding places such as cardboard boxes.
You must also regularly and frequently clean up your garage. If you like having beverages and snacks in the garage, clean up immediately. It is a good idea to have a small refrigerator in the garage.
Do you keep the garbage bins in the garage, as many people do? Roaches just love garbage bins. Everything they need is there, lots of food, enough water and a cozy place to keep out of sight. Storing mulch in the garage is also an invitation to the roaches.
Get a few tips on organizing your garage, especially the garbage bins by reading my blog post How To Make Sure You Eliminate Bad Smell From Your Garage
A clean garage is an important step in how to get rid of roaches from your garage because they will not get anything to eat.
How to Create “Entry Barriers” for the Roaches?
Roaches that breed just outside your garage can come in through any opening in the garage. Make sure you do not let them sneak in.
Garage Door Screens
The biggest opening is of course the garage door. Try to keep it closed as much as possible. If your garage is not climate controlled then you will need to open the garage door often to let in some fresh air.
So a great option for you is to make your garage climate controlled. It has a lot more benefits than just keeping roaches, flies and other bugs out of your garage. Find out more on my blog post How To Make Sure Of Best Climate Control For Your Garage .
LG 18,000 BTU Single Zone Mega Mini Split Heat Pump available at Sylvane is ideal for the garage.
This single-zone mini split can do it all and that’s why it’s the perfect choice for year-round comfort. Multiple operating modes deliver the performance you need for any season.
- Cool Mode: Its 18,000 BTUs of cooling power fights back against rising summer temperatures.
- Heat Mode: When winter arrives, stay comfortable indoors with its 18,000 BTUs built-in heat pump.
- Moisture Elimination: A dehumidification setting helps to eliminate stuffy indoor air and prevent mold growth by removing excess moisture from your space.
- Fan Only Setting: In its air circulation operation, the system will move air around the room without increasing or decreasing your set temperature.
Of course if your garage is climate controlled you will not need to keep your garage door open that often.
If you still want to keep your garage door open for an extended period of time you must use garage door screens.
Garage Door Seals (Roaches just need a tiny crack!)
Roaches can move through the tiniest of cracks. Check your garage door & make sure that all the seals are in good condition. These are:
- Bottom Seal
- Bottom Threshold Seal
- Top & Side Weatherstripping Seal
- Between Panel Seals
How do you keep Roaches from Multiplying Outside your Garage?
Roaches can breed and multiply outside your garage and then move in . They can also move in from your neighbor’s garage or house.
The possible breeding grounds for roaches outside your garage are:
- Trash cans outside the garage or on the curbside (Food source)
- Dead insects, rodents, birds etc. (Food source)
- Still water in clogged drains, bird baths (Water source)
- Compost, damp wood piles (Food & water source)
- Raked wet leaves, dense shrubbery (Hiding places)
Keep the outside of your garage as clean as possible. You can also use roach bait outside your garage door to trap & kill them before they can infest your garage.
Some Interesting Facts about the Roaches
Roaches are insects from the Order Blattodea, which includes termites. Roaches are among the most primitive insects on Earth.
Fun Fact:
- Roaches have been around for over 320 million years, with little change in their physical features. (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica)
- The first Dinosaurs appeared 230 million years ago. (Source: USGS)
- The first humans emerged around 2 million years ago, long before Homo sapiens (that’s us) appeared 0.3 million years ago. (Source: History)
Roaches are survivors, to say the least!
“There are actually 4,500 species of cockroaches in the world. But just 30 are considered pests. Of those 30, however, four especially excel at making a nuisance of themselves: the German, American, Australian and Oriental cockroaches.”
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
All four of those roach species are found in the US.
Life Cycle of Roaches
Roaches go through three phases in their life cycle.
Egg
Female roaches lay their eggs in a lot of 10 to 50 eggs in small leathery capsules. They will leave these in some warm, humid place that is hidden behind cabinets, sinks or furniture.
The egg stage is typically 1 – 2 months.
Nymphs
This is the baby stage of the roach. After it hatches the nymph will undergo several molts. It grows from one molt to the next, shed their skins and grows again. This continues till the nymph has developed into a full grown adult.
The nymph stage is typically 1 – 3 months.
Adults
Once the roaches reach the adult stage, they are ready to mate and start the cycle all over again. Left on their own the roaches will increase their population by say 30 times every 4 – 6 months.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that everyone hates roaches. You want to stomp them if you see them. They are hideous and unhygienic. They can spread bacteria from say trash to food leading to gastrointestinal diseases such as diarrhea.
Roaches are hardy survivors. You need to be extra vigilant to get rid of roaches from your garage. You must:
- Kill them with baits & sprays
- Deprive them of food, water & shelter
- Create physical “entry barriers”
- Stop them from breeding & multiplying
Hope this post helps you to get rid of roaches from your garage!
Thank you very much for reading the post. I do hope you found it informative and useful.
