Cockroaches thrive on food, water, and shelter.
They’re incredibly adaptable and can easily invade your home from anywhere. When they’re around, it’s essential to take steps to eliminate them.
So, do roaches eat bed bugs? Many people keep roaches in their house to keep away bed bugs.
However, this isn’t a good idea. Roaches will devour bed bugs that they find, but they won’t stop bed bugs from invading your house and eating your food.
Furthermore, roaches are dirty and messy, so having them around will lower the hygiene of your house. Finally, studies show that roaches spread harmful bacteria to humans.
For these reasons, it’s best to get rid of roaches and keep bed bugs away.
Do Roaches Eat Bed Bugs?
Contents
Yes, roaches consume bedbugs and their eggs when they find them in their habitats.
Scavengers are roaches that feed on dead animals and other insects.
They consume anything they come across that may be nutritious for them such as human feces or human blood.
They have been seen eating rubbish and dirty tissues.
Bed bugs are similar to roach in that they do not cultivate food.
They feed on the blood of humans only and seek out their hosts at night.
Bed bugs are nocturnal and active at night while roaches are diurnal and are active during the day.
They feed on a wide variety of food sources including plants, fungi, and animals including mosquitoes.
So, eating bed bugs makes very little sense for roach.
Food sources make roaches more nutritious because they provide protein to improve the development and health of the roach.
However, bedbugs are themselves already fully nourished and the focus for roach feeding is on human blood only.
Can Roaches and Bed Bugs Live Together?
Cockroaches and bed bugs are rare to live in the same environment together because of numerous reasons.
Cockroaches will live in bedrooms, while bedbugs are found mostly in bedroom closets where clothing is stored.
Bed bugs tend be found in households that have pets as pets serve as the primary source of their food supply in the form of fleas which feed on the pet’s skin and eventually fall off onto beddings or furniture where adult bedbugs lay.
Unfortunately, you may have both in your house if you have cats or dogs as they are also common carriers of fleas as well as rodents like mice which can also carry fleas.
When this occurs, both of these pests will breed and cause major infestation problems in the house or apartment where they reside.
Access to food, water, shelter and safe breeding grounds will make them thrive more.
So, if they are left unchecked for a long time until they build up to a major infestation level where regular pest control treatment is required to get rid of them.
They will dwell in an area with suitable temperatures that are warm but not too hot where they can live comfortably.
Consuming human blood provides bed bug with the necessary protein they require to develop healthily and become reproductively active while getting enough nutrition from their host for survival and growth.
As a result, they infest places of residence where people are found most especially in places where there is constant supply of human blood such as bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens.
Can Roaches Be Used to Get Rid of Bed Bugs?
Roaches can kill and consume bed bugs, but they may not be able to completely get rid of them if there are too many of them present in an area where they feed regularly.
A few cockroaches introduced into a bed bug colony can indeed kill the immature ones but will not be able to eradicate the problem if the population is large.
Bed bugs reproduce quickly, and in a short while, new individuals will keep replacing their dead colony mates transforming the bed bug population into a fresh population that can withstand cockroach predation.
So, roaches are unreliable to dispose of bed bugs.
Roaches are nocturnal animals that feed on anything that they find in their habitats which may be food for them such as dirty tissues and rubbish.
They thrive well in urban areas where there is constant supply of such food sources available in abundance for them.
Eliminating bed bugs should always be your priority when dealing with these pests as getting rid of them will in turn eliminate the source of the problem that is their food source.
Other Natural Enemies of Bed Bugs
Masked Bed Bug Hunter
The masked hunter, also known as Reduvius Personatus, is a tiny parasitic wasp that feeds on bed bugs along with other pest insects such as cockroaches and silverfish.
This little insect is known as “masked” because it hides under pieces of debris to feed on small insects.
House Centipedes
Centipedes are another sort species of pest that feeds on insects including bed bugs.
Centipedes, on the other hand, have been seen infesting houses where they are known to feed on cockroaches, silverfish and bed bugs that they find lying around the house.
A single centipede can eat a lot of bed bugs, but they won’t have a chance of getting rid of the entire colony because of the eggs that will have hatched before the centipede can complete its task.
Even among centipedes, home centipedes have been found to be the best killer of bed bugs as they are bigger in size and have stronger jaws and longer legs compared to their outdoor congeners.
Moreover, home centipedes are also better suited than outdoor centipedes for attacking and devouring bed bugs as they are able to gain entry inside houses and can survive there due to their resistance to extreme temperatures.
House Dust Mites
Dusty settings are the breeding grounds of house dust mites which feed on dead skin particles of people as well as their pets.
They’re so little and transparent that they can’t be easily seen with the naked eye unless they’re swarming or jumping around in large numbers.
Dust mites feed mostly on dead cells that are found on the surface of human skin.
They may be present in bedding material where humans sleep, cushions, sofas as well as upholstered furniture.
They can even live on leather, wallpaper or even carpets as long as there are sources of dead skin cells readily available for them to eat.
Mites don’t live in beds or mattresses but rather live and feed in the beds, pillows, couches, carpet and other areas where humans sleep.
They also consume bed bugs, flea eggs and larvae which they have infested in these areas.
Thanatus Flavidus Spider
Many spider species have been seen hunting and killing bed bugs, but the only one known to kill adult bed bugs as well as hatching eggs is the one known as Thanatus flavidus or the common yellow sac spider.
The female of this spider is commonly seen searching the house’s interior walls for suitable areas to lay eggs.
When she locates such areas, she lines up her eggs and then applies a glue-like substance on the egg cluster that she has produced.
It is a member of the tarantula family which is found in warm climates and likes to live in dark places.
Pharaoh Ants
Although this little yellow or light brown, nearly translucent ant may sometimes be mistaken for a termite, this ant is not termite.
Sometimes known as ‘sugar ants’ due to their preference for sweet foods, they are generally harmless to people but can be very harmful to bed bugs as they feed exclusively on them.
When killing a cockroach that eats this pest, the cockroach returns some of the dead bed bug to the ant nest which feeds on it thus hastening the death of the bed bug.
The pharaoh ant has a painful bite which is more like a pinch due to its sharp mandibles.
Also Read: Do Spiders Eat Roaches?
Conclusion
Although roaches like eating bed bugs, they should never serve as your only weapon in dealing with them.
They can only eliminate some immature bed bugs, but they can’t completely get rid of the problem if too many infest your house as they are incapable of consuming eggs, nymphs and adults.
They are just too tiny compared to bed bugs.
However, you can eliminate bed bug population by using other natural enemies of bed bugs, such as house centipedes, spiders and ants.
A Roach infestation is significantly worse than a Bed bug infestation because of the health implications associated with Roaches.
