Activity

Aggregation

Cockroaches naturally cluster together where the four key elements for survival are available in close association.

They rarely travel more than a few feet from their living clusters to forage for food and water unless they become over-crowded, although Oriental cockroaches generally forage over longer distances than their German counterparts.

They also actively seek darkness, with most individuals spending the majority of their lives in protected harbourages in cracks, crevices or voids.

This means infestations should be sought in specific areas of the premises rather than generally throughout them, and control needs to be tightly focused on these locations.

Variable Activity

Cockroaches forage almost exclusively at night and may adapt their activity to the presence or absence of people.

Levels of activity change with population density, with individuals in smaller populations tending to forage over greater distances than those in larger populations.

Cockroaches in over-crowded populations are more active and more susceptible to baits than those in smaller populations as they have compete more vigorously for food and water.

This means infestations can be easy to overlook when small and the effectiveness of treatment easy to over estimate when large.

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