Identifying the pest is not trivia. It decides where the work has to happen, and for some of them the work is not in your apartment at all.
A small striped roach and a big reddish one are not the same problem, and treating one like the other is a documented way to waste months.
Small, light brown, two dark stripes
Half an inch or so, tan, with two dark lines running back from behind the head. This is a German cockroach, and the thing to know about it is where it comes from.
German cockroaches do not enter structures from outdoors. They live and breed indoors. They are spread entirely by humans and live only in association with people.
National Cooperative Extension ResourceSo this population lives in the building, not outside it. It arrived on something somebody carried in, and it spreads the same way, which is why a case in one apartment tends to show up in the ones around it.
Where the work happens: inside the units, and it needs access. Bait placed where they harbor, repeated, plus the leaks and openings that support them. This is the pest where what a resident does matters most, and where a refused appointment costs the most.
Big, reddish-brown, usually near a drain
An inch and a half or more, reddish, often in a bathroom or a basement, often at night, often alone. Most New Yorkers call this a waterbug. It is an American cockroach, and it is a different animal with a different fix.
American roaches often come up floor drains and sewer pipes. They are found in hot, damp areas of the home.
Penn State ExtensionWhere the work happens: drains, sewer connections, basements and the building perimeter. Almost none of it is inside your apartment.
Treating one like the other fails, and the extension guidance says so directly: “These are not simply baby American roaches and can not be treated as such.” A small roach is not always a baby big one, and gel placed in a kitchen does nothing about a population coming up a floor drain.
If you are not sure which one you saw, a photo with something in frame for scale settles it faster than any description.
Mice
The number to know is a quarter of an inch, roughly the width of a pencil. That is what a mouse can pass through, and it is why mice are less a treatment problem than a repair problem.
Where the work happens: the openings. Around pipes under the sinks, behind the stove, under the front door. NYC's rules put sealing those openings and fitting door sweeps on the building, not on you, which is covered on the mice page and in what the landlord is actually responsible for.
Rats
Rats are mostly an outside problem that comes inside, and they run on a different enforcement track from everything else here. Rat complaints go to the Health Department rather than to HPD, and the standard the property is measured against covers the yard, the alley and the waste storage as much as the building.
Properties shall be free of pests. All premises capable of attracting or supporting rodents, insects and other pests shall be kept free from rodents, insects and other pests, and from any conditions conducive to pests.
NYC Health Code §151.02(a)Where the work happens: waste containment, harborage removal, and burrow and entry treatment, almost all of it outside the apartment. If you are seeing rats, the useful thing you can report is where, when, and what is uncontained nearby.
Bed bugs
Bed bugs are the one where speed changes the outcome more than anything else, and where the fix depends on access to several apartments rather than one.
Where the work happens: your unit and the ones next to, above and below it, quickly. Preparation matters more here than for any other pest. What to do the night you find them.
What this means for you
What follows from all of this is practical.
Report what you saw, not what you concluded. Size, colour, where, what time, and a photo if you can get one. The identification changes which of these five situations the building is in, and nobody can make that call from the word “roaches.”
Some of these you cannot fix from inside your apartment, and that is not a failure on your part. A resident with American roaches coming up a floor drain can keep a spotless kitchen and still see them. The work is in the drain. Knowing that saves you from cleaning harder in response to a problem that cleaning does not touch.
The reverse is also true: with German roaches, access and what happens in the unit are most of the result, and that is the case where letting the treatment happen decides the outcome.
Do not reach for a fogger. The extension guidance is blunt about it: “when activated the insecticide does not reach the cockroach harborage area”, and a spray over a bait placement “will render the bait unpalatable and will not be consumed.” More on why the treatment does not make things worse.
Pest control in an apartment building requires treatment, repairs, access and information working together. See how the pieces fit.
Send this to your building
If other apartments have the same problem, one message to your super or managing agent does more than ten calls about one unit. Copy this and send it however you already talk to them.
Edit it before you send if you want. No sign-up, nothing collected, and we do not see who you send it to.
Sources
- National Cooperative Extension Resource — German Cockroach, an Integrated Pest Management Overview
- Penn State Extension — Got Roaches? Eliminate Roaches with IPM
- CDC — How to Seal Up to Prevent Rodents
- NYC Health Code Article 151 — Rodents, Insects, and Other Pests (PDF)
- 28 RCNY Chapter 54 — Indoor Allergen Hazards rules (PDF)
We are a pest control company working in Bronx and Brooklyn apartment buildings, and this is general information rather than advice about your apartment or your lease. Where our sources conflict with each other, we say so on the page rather than picking one quietly.