The simple answer is no. The complicated answer is yes. It depends heavily on what kind of cockroaches you have, how long you have had them and how severe the infestation is. If you have German cockroaches, the smallest cockroaches in the world as well as the most fertile cockroach with a birth rate of up to 40 eggs in one ootheca. The oriental cockroach is bigger and has fewer young but can hide inside drains and travel from your home, into the sewer and back. This makes them exceptionally dangerous and deadly as they carry horrific diseases from the sewer. If you have brown-banded cockroaches you are in a better position to deal with the issue yourself, the same goes for the native American cockroach. If the cockroach is big and brown you can probably kill them off on your own with a very aggressive domestic treatment. There is a lot you can do, from home remedies like cayenne pepper and chilly powder to clove oil and dish soap in water. All of these are effective when used in conjunction with bait and other treatments. The bait should be purchased from a hardware store. Get the best brand you can find, price is no option here, you need something effective. You can then go to the grocery store and get a powder-like material called diatomaceous earth. This is a very fine silica powder that is often food safe and one of the easiest ways to deal with cockroaches on your own. You must inspect the house thoroughly before you start your treatment. If you can do everything in the following instructions then you will have taken away access to what the cockroaches need and replaced it with things that will kill them. Your home will be a death trap for insects.
The first step is to clean. Clean everything. Cockroaches like hiding in appliances like fridge motors and dishwashers. Make sure to run your dishwasher on empty with a good amount of soap and go through and remove any remaining food bits. You must then store all your food in glass, metal or very hard plastic. This will keep cockroaches from eating your food in storage. Also, make sure to throw away all leftovers or store them in the fridge. Do not leave dirty dishes in the sink for even five minutes. Make sure to remove and dispose of any food stored in the house that you do not need immediately. Long term food storage is a great way to get cockroaches. When eating outside do not spill anything, cockroaches can suck the sugar out of dirt and survive on the glue used to bind cardboard boxes so get rid of those as well. Do not feed pets or children outside unless you are willing to crawl around picking up bits of food. Make sure any outdoor appliances for making food are cleaned after every use and covered well.
That is not the end of the process, you just took away their food source. Now you need to take away their water. Make sure that every pipe and faucet in your home is not leaking, if they are fix it or call a plumber. Make sure to cover every drain with a very fine mesh, so fine it will stop baby cockroaches which are nearly microscopic. Remove or drain any outdoor water source that is not chlorinated strongly and make sure to level out areas on your property that gather water when it rains. This can be masonry that is not level or a ditch on your property. This will do a lot to prevent them from coming at all.
Then when you have taken away all their access to food and water you can fill every crack and crevice with diatomaceous earth and boric acid. This material catches in the carapace of the cockroaches and tears open the waxy layer that keeps fluid in their body. The result is dried out husks of cockroaches covered in white dust. Do this everywhere and leave the powder around the baseboards and plenty all over the floor of the kitchen. Bait using domestic cockroach bait from the grocery or hardware store and continue to keep the home clean. It should not take long, or many treatments, to get rid of them for good.
