Not All Cockroach Species are Bad

It may horrify you to know that there are thousands of species of cockroach out there, but the vast majority of them aren’t household pests. “Most cockroach species are perfectly innocuous,” says Maddocks, “and they have an important ecological niche. You can consider them as a team on nature’s recycling crew that prepares dead organic matter for the important decay process that cycles nutrients through ecosystems.”

“Our household pest species include the Oriental Cockroach, the German Cockroach, the Australian Cockroach as well as the Brownbanded, and Smoky Brown Cockroaches. All of these can be a problem in Australian homes, but the German cockroach is by far the hardest to deal with.”