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Do Roaches eat Bed Bugs?

Roaches are omnivorous. Although they can feed on plants to starchy items, they love the smell of a proteinous diet and are attracted to it. Moreover, the bed bugs emit a strong and musty smell like urine, attracting roaches towards themselves.

Roaches are attracted to the smell of bed bugs and love to eat them. However, cockroaches can never help you exterminate bed bugs because roaches fail to feed on bed bugs deep inside the mattress. Moreover, the bed bugs multiply rapidly than the ability of roaches to eat them.

Infestation with cockroaches is not an ideal situation to fall in. Furthermore, risking an added infestation to an already infested home with bed bugs is a silly mistake to make. Therefore, I advise never to introduce roaches to your house to clear out a bed bug infestation. I will share more information in the blog below on do roaches eat bed bugs.

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Yes! Roaches Eat Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are among the favorite meals roaches love to feed on. Cockroaches have a strong sense of smell and are attracted to the musty odor emitted by bed bugs. Some cockroaches can feed equals to half of their weight (Reference). This means that a cockroach can eat between 4 to 8-bed bugs per day on average.

Moreover, you can force roaches to feed on bed bugs if you remove all the food sources inside your house, like covering the garbage bins, drains, and leftover spilled food.

Cockroaches have a unique misty and oily smell that can be a nuisance in itself. Read this article: How to Get Rid of Roach Smell in Your House? to learn more.

You Can’t Exterminate Bed Bugs Using Roaches?

Interestingly, Bed bugs are among the slow breeding insects. A single female bed bug lays approximately one to five eggs per day, equaling 500 eggs in her lifetime. However, this is still faster than the capability of roaches to eat bed bugs.

Moreover, bed bugs are excellent at hiding deep inside the mattress and usually come to the top layer when they sense heat. Therefore, it’s impossible to exterminate bed bugs using roaches.

However, if you have planned to kill bed bugs using roaches, remember that roaches are no pets to be kept at home. They transmit disease and trigger allergies. Therefore, I advise against it.

Roaches and bed bugs can Live together

Roaches love to live in a warm and humid environment with plenty of food in the form of filth and rotting items.

On the other hand, bed bugs love to live in a dry environment, especially mattresses, chairs, and jute furniture. They are attracted to heat and feed on blood.

However, you will find both bed bugs and roaches inside a warm and humid environment with factors that attract both of them. This is seen more often in filthy and shady hotel rooms and guest houses.

But this doesn’t mean that roaches and bed bugs only infest filthy places. On the contrary, they are also seen infesting very clean and pristine places.

Therefore, It is common to find a house infested with bed bugs and roaches together.

Natural Bed Bug Killers

It is just a simple science that animals prey on each other for survival. Similarly, insects also show a predator-prey relationship. As a result, some insects or small animals hunt other insects.

The bed bug is also prey to many animals and insects including,

House Geckos

House geckos love to feed on insects, including bed bugs. Although they can’t eliminate them, a well-trained house gecko will help you keep bed bugs in check for you.

Exotic pets

Exotic pets, including leopard geckos, Lizards like bearded dragons, Monitor lizards, and Chinese Water dragons, all require a constantly balanced diet in the form of proteins. In this scenario, bed bugs come in handy.

These exotic pets love to feed on bed bugs and can be a lethal weapon for them. That is why these exotic pets are in high demand in certain states like Louisiana.

Pharaoh Ants

Although this small yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant can kill bed bugs, they are notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals and closed dwellings.

The pharaoh ant has a lethal bite that instantaneously kills bed bugs.

House Dust Mites and Centipeds

These creatures are a major nuisance to deal with inside a house. No one loves house dust mites and centipedes evading their space. But interestingly, they are sometimes the only reason that keeps bed bugs in control for you.

Although they fondly eat bed bugs, house dust mites should not be your priority at eradicating bed bugs. This is because they have a major role in triggering allergies and asthma episodes.

Do you know that you can keep roaches and bud begs at bay using Natural Repellents?

Conclusion!

Although roaches love to eat bed bugs, they should not be introduced into a house just to exterminate bed bugs. A Roaches infestation poses far more danger than a bed bug alone.

Don’t make that silly mistake. Instead, try a recommended bomb/fogger to solve your bed bug problem.

Additional Read!