How to Get Rid of Ants and Roaches for Good

DOUG: Roaches love … and this is a phrase used in the pest-control world, “cracks and crevices.” So a roach is extremely happy if they have their feet on one surface, and their back is against another surface.

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.

ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.

ROSIE: All right, Caira and Christine, it’s time for us to finish a task we started months ago.

CHRISTINE: Ooh, what is it?

ROSIE: Well, last fall, you’ll recall, we did an episode about how to get rid of mice and rats.

CAIRA: How could I forget?

ROSIE: It was a real skin-crawler. This spring we did one, of course, on combating mosquitoes and ticks.

CAIRA: Yes.

CHRISTINE: And everyone’s favorite …

ROSIE: Everyone’s favorite, how to keep those off your clothes in person. Now the trifecta is completed, because, sadly, we have to talk about roaches and ants.

CAIRA: You don’t really like this sequel.

CHRISTINE: This is the worst. This is the worst of the trifecta, I think.

ROSIE: Have y’all dealt with them? You both live in New York?

CHRISTINE: I’ve had them, but not, like, roach infestations. I’ve never had that problem.

CAIRA: I have.

ROSIE: Sure, I sure have too.

CAIRA: I have.

ROSIE: This is my second apartment in New York. Many, many years ago, I had a friend over who came out of our bathroom white as a ghost, and she was trembling. Said that she found a giant roach on the head of one of our toothbrushes. I thought we were never going to see her again. It was horrible.

CHRISTINE: Well, okay, obviously a roach infestation is disgusting.

ROSIE: Ants are pretty bad too.

CHRISTINE: Ants are gross too. These are not fun problems to have, and sometimes the solution is pretty simple — just clean up. But sometimes the answer is not so simple. Sometimes it’s pervasive, it’s really hard to take care of. And so today we are going to call our favorite pest-management expert, Wirecutter senior staff writer Doug Mahoney, who has also shared with us how to get rid of other creepy-crawly things in your home.

CAIRA: If you’re a regular listener of the show, you probably already know Doug, and you might also remember that he lives on a hobby farm in New Hampshire, where he has combated rats in his barn, where he’s contracted Lyme disease five times from ticks, and he’s tested all kinds of bug repellents. Doug’s going to fill us in on what works, and when you should just call it quits and actually call a pro — because if you’re not careful, you can make an ant or roach infestation much worse.

ROSIE: This poor guy has seen it all.

CHRISTINE: He really has. We’ll take a quick break, and when we’re back, we’ll get into the first steps you should take if you see ants or roaches in your home. We’ll be right back.

CAIRA: Welcome back. With us now is Doug Mahoney. He’s Wirecutter’s senior staff writer covering home improvement and pest-management gear. In addition to writing our guides to ant and roach traps, Doug has written about mosquitoes, flies, bug zappers, wasp and hornet sprays, and bug repellents, and also why essential oils are not good bug repellents. For our coverage, he’s interviewed a lot of pest-management experts, entomologists, and other bug experts.

CAIRA: Welcome, Doug. It’s so good to have you back.

DOUG: Hi, how is everybody?

CHRISTINE: We are good. Doug, at this point, you’re such a regular on the show. Could we just maybe install a podcast studio in your barn? I feel like… You live on this farm in New Hampshire. What is the bug situation there? Do you have ants? Do you have roaches? Are roaches a thing in New England?

DOUG: We have ants, sort of a seasonal, summer ant thing. Just like a lot of people, we really don’t deal with roaches. I don’t have a ton of firsthand — thankfully — a ton of firsthand experience combating roaches, but flies are certainly an issue, especially if you have animals.

CAIRA: I would take a million flies over one roach.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, they’re gross.

CAIRA: So Doug, in our mice and rat episode, you quizzed us on our rodent IQ, and I think you’ve come prepared with another quiz. So you’re going to test us today about our ant and roach IQ, right?

DOUG: Yes, we’ll see how you guys do.

CAIRA: Okay.

DOUG: So the first one: Ants do not sleep like humans. Instead, they take a series of naps over the course of a day. So how many naps on average does an ant take in a day? A) 25, B) 50, C) 150, D) 250.

ROSIE: God, 250 naps is my dream. That’s actually my dream.

CAIRA: What qualifies as a nap? Like, three seconds? How do you take 250 naps in a day?

ROSIE: My gut says 150.

CHRISTINE: I was going to say that too.

CAIRA: Yeah, I’m going to go with 150 also.

DOUG: The correct answer: Ants take 250 micro-naps in a day, each lasting about a minute apiece.

CAIRA: Oh my God. Wait, that’s really cute. I don’t know why.

DOUG: Which adds up to about four to five hours of sleep each day.

CHRISTINE: And is that just because they are literally working so hard, they have to take these little, minute naps?

DOUG: I don’t know. I think that’s just how they roll. They just go plugging along and shut down for just a little bit.

ROSIE: How many naps do you think I can fit into this episode?

DOUG: Okay, so the second question: How long can a cockroach live without its head? A) one hour, B) one day, C) a couple days, D) a couple weeks.

CAIRA: I think it’s a couple weeks.

CHRISTINE: Oh my God. Of the options, I am praying it’s number one, because that is just frightening if it’s any longer than … what did you say, an hour?

DOUG: One hour.

CAIRA: Is that the first one?

DOUG: One hour, one day, a couple days, or a couple weeks.

ROSIE: I think one day.

CHRISTINE: I’m going to say an hour. I’m just praying. I want it to be an hour.

DOUG: I’m sorry, Christine. It’s a couple weeks.

CHRISTINE: What? No, I was right the first time.

ROSIE: I hate this so much.

CHRISTINE: Wait, so what do you have to do to actually kill this thing? Is it a vampire? You have to spike it with a wood spike.

DOUG: Just crush it.

CAIRA: You have to kill the whole thing.

CHRISTINE: Is crushing it completely with my foot going to kill it?

DOUG: That’ll probably do it.

CAIRA: Okay.

DOUG: That’ll probably do it.

CAIRA: All right.

DOUG: Okay, so we all know about cockroaches surviving a nuclear war. So, true or false: Of insects, cockroaches are the most resistant to radiation.

CAIRA: True.

ROSIE: True.

CHRISTINE: False.

DOUG: False. MythBusters actually did a piece on this. They exposed cockroaches, fruit flies, and flour beetles to different levels of radiation, and it was the flour beetle that performed the best. After exposure to 100,000 rad — a unit of radiation measurement, which is about a hundred times what a human could survive — 10% of the flour beetles were still alive.

CAIRA: Oh my God.

CHRISTINE: And how many of the cockroaches were alive?

DOUG: No cockroaches made it.

CAIRA: Thank God.

CHRISTINE: Voilà.

ROSIE: Wow, Christine.

CHRISTINE: I seem to know more about bugs than I want to.

ROSIE: All right, so ants and roaches are clearly different. I would strongly argue, roaches are the more disturbing problem. Do you treat these infestations in the same way, Doug?

DOUG: You basically do. There’s certainly behavioral differences between those two bugs, but as far as the products you use and how you use them, it’s basically the same.

CAIRA: Okay, break it down.

DOUG: So basically there are four things you want to do. First, you want to observe and identify the bugs. You want to find out, really, what you’re dealing with, where they’re coming into your home, where they’re spending their time. Then, as with any pests in the house, whether it’s mice, rats, roaches, ants, you want to really just clean up, seal up any food, especially pet food. When researchers raise cockroaches, they feed them dog food.

CAIRA: Hate that.

DOUG: Yeah, they’re particularly attracted to that. And you want to clean up things, like, you want to make sure the counter is wiped down every night, the sink is cleaned out too. If you’ve found out where they’re coming in your home, you want to seal up any entry points. And then, as far as getting rid of the bugs that are in your house, you want to use a bait.

CHRISTINE: Okay, so let’s start with observing and identifying bugs. Is there any kind of difference in how you approach that with ants versus cockroaches?

DOUG: Not really. You want to just see … really, as far as ants, it’s a pass/fail test. You either have ants or you don’t, unless you’re seeing signs of carpenter ants, and that’s going to be little bits of sawdust or small holes bored into the wood of your home. If you see that, you should just immediately call a pest-control operator. Basically, you’re on the clock already.

CHRISTINE: So just to reiterate what you just said: Basically, if you’re seeing ants, and you’re seeing sawdust where you didn’t create the sawdust, you probably have carpenter ants, and that’s when you should call an exterminator. Otherwise, you might want to try some DIY methods to get rid of the ants before calling a pest-control expert.

DOUG: Yeah, there’s definitely different types of ants, but the differences between them aren’t really going to affect much of the approach that you’re going to take to get rid of them.

ROSIE: And then for the difference between cockroaches, it doesn’t matter what type of cockroach it is, you’re going to deal with it in the same way.

DOUG: Correct.

CAIRA: Are there particular places that roaches versus ants like? Dark versus light, or wet versus dry, anything like that?

DOUG: Definitely. So ants are going to tend to just go where the food is. The telltale sign of ants is ants. You’re just going to see the little trail of ants. You’ll see them walking in a row. It can be easier to find out how they’re coming in. You just sort of trace their little trail back as far as you can, and then look around the foundation of your house. If they’re coming from outside, they may just be in your walls too. Roaches, on the other hand, roaches love … and this is a phrase used in the pest-control world, “cracks and crevices.”

So, a roach is extremely happy if they have their feet on one surface, and their back is against another surface. You want to look for them in tight little spots. So right between the stove and the cabinetry, a little nook like that. They love being around the refrigerator, because the fridge actually provides a good water source too; there’s condensation from the compressor unit, or maybe the gasket on the fridge door isn’t really tight, so there might be some condensation there. Cockroaches, they love cardboard too. They raise them in cardboard when they raise them in labs.

ROSIE: Why is that?

DOUG: Well, because it just provides so many of these little …

ROSIE: Little crooks and nannies?

DOUG: Little cracks and crevices, yeah.

ROSIE: All right. So Doug, how many bugs — in this case, maybe roaches — indicates a problem? If you see one, do you have an infestation? If you see one ant, does it mean you have more ants? What’s the guidance there?

DOUG: Yeah, I would say if you have one ant, if you see one ant, you should start thinking about doing something about it. Ants really don’t operate on an individual basis, so you’re not going to have just one. And roaches do not live in a colony the way ants do. But still, even if you have one roach, I think it’s worth dealing with.

CHRISTINE: This might be an old wives’ tale, but I have been told as a city dweller that if I see a really big cockroach, it’s not as big of a problem as if I see a little tiny cockroach.

CAIRA: I’ve also heard this.

DOUG: Really?

ROSIE: I’ve also heard this, but I knew, even while I was being told, I knew it was a thing that they tell you so that you can sleep at night.

CAIRA: Is it?

ROSIE: I mean, Doug, is it?

DOUG: I don’t know, I haven’t heard that.

ROSIE: You’ve not heard that, so I think that’s something that you would hear.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, I’ve been told … I had a friend who had a really bad roach infestation in their apartment, and they had all these tiny little roaches, and it wasn’t, like, big ones. It was just, like, a bunch of little ones.

CAIRA: I’ve lived in a roach-infested apartment before, and I can corroborate that. They’re always the small ones.

ROSIE: I have also lived in a roach-infested apartment, and they were small, and they were medium, and they were big.

CAIRA: Well, lucky you.

ROSIE: My poor brother, his old house, they were big, and they were bigger, and they were biggest, and it was an infestation. And so I don’t know if I buy that. I do … I like this idea of the individualist roach, the Ralph Waldo Emerson.

CAIRA: So once you figured out how the bugs are getting in and what you’re dealing with, then I’m guessing it’s time to clean, because that usually seems to be the right answer. This is also an important step in getting rid of rodents. But what’s more important here? Are you cleaning out crumbs in your kitchen or putting food in airtight containers? What’s the order of operations here?

DOUG: I would recommend both. You want to give your kitchen a really good cleaning, and then at the same time, you want to make sure that your food is protected, especially roaches. If you keep a little honey jar on your counter, that’s going to be highly targeted by ants. So I would find a new way to store that.

CHRISTINE: To this cleaning point, going back to my friend who lived in this roach-infested apartment, they kept things really clean, and they could not get rid of this problem. After a while, they discovered that their landlord was keeping all of the yard trimmings in the basement, and it was just creating this area for all of these roaches to just chow down. So, keeping things clean in your entire home is key here, right?

DOUG: Yeah, and that’s the difficulty with living in an apartment or a condo. You’re only as good as the entire structure, really.

ROSIE: Yeah. What do they eat, or what do they like to eat? You mentioned dog food is what they feed them when they’re growing them in a lab, but are they going to essentially eat anything and drink any water source they can find?

DOUG: Yeah. Ants typically have more of a sugar diet. It actually … it can change over the course of a year, but during the summer they typically have a sugar-based diet, and they may switch to more of a protein-based diet in the colder months. But roaches are more consistently a protein-based diet.

CHRISTINE: They’re little weight lifters.

DOUG: They are.

ROSIE: And then, what about water? You mentioned the refrigerator. Is this also why you’re finding roaches in and by a sink and in and by a shower tub and drain, that kind of thing?

DOUG: Yeah. Roaches, they can go quite a while without eating. I think they can go weeks without eating, but they can only go a few days without drinking. So they’re going to definitely focus in on a water source, which again, like I said, it’s why refrigerators provide a good opportunity for them, because they not only get those small cracks and crevices, but they typically can get water there too.

CAIRA: But what about your sink? When you finish doing the dishes at the end of the night, are you supposed to wipe it down dry too? How do you keep them out of sources like that?

DOUG: You could try and do that. I mean, you just really got to do the best you can. I mean, if that means squeegeeing down your sink, I guess you could give that a shot.

CAIRA: Yikes.

ROSIE: So the next step is to seal up holes. What is the best way to do that?

DOUG: Well, the best way to do that, like I said, with ants, you can often find the trail of ants, and you can trace it back, maybe, if you’re lucky, to where they’re getting in the house. It’s a matter of going around the outside of your house, looking at the condition of your foundation, usually where the framing … where the wood meets the foundation, there can be gaps there. Or if you have a fieldstone foundation like I do, that actually can be very, very difficult to patch up. But you want to just take some heavy-duty caulk and just kind of fill the holes best you can. A good silicone caulk will be good, especially if it’s on the outside of your house; that’s going to provide more flexibility for the freeze and thaw expansion and contraction that your house goes through.

ROSIE: So to recap what you’re going to want to do here, and this goes for roaches, this goes for ants: Observe what the bugs are, identify them, and identify where they’re coming from. Find where they’re coming into your home, where they’re spending their time. At least you will know the source, and this can be much easier said than done, but that’s going to be your first step. The second step, clean up. Clean, clean, clean. Food, put food away, airtight-seal it, seal up your cracks that you can see. And finally, what you’re going to want to do is use a bait. We’re going to get into that with Doug after a break, and we’ll also ask about why people should avoid certain pest treatments. And if it’s time to stop faffing about and call a pro. We will be right back.

CAIRA: Welcome back, Doug. Before the break, we talked about the first steps in combating an ant or roach infestation, but now let’s talk about bait traps, which is what you’d recommend for both ants and roaches, right? So what exactly is a bait trap, and how does it work, exactly?

DOUG: So a bait … a bait is a mixture of food and a slow-acting poison. And the theory behind it is that in the case of ants specifically, they’ll collect the food, and then they bring it back to the colony, and they distribute it. So that ultimately kills all the other ants, and then eventually the queen. The models’ bait comes in a bunch of different forms. We prefer the ones that are … they’re called bait stations, which is like a little box that the bait comes in. The one unusual part about baits is that if you start seeing more ants, it might be a good thing, because that means that they found the bait station. The toxin is mixed with an extremely attractive food. So once they find it, they’ll just usually start lining up to get at it.

CAIRA: Oh, poor little guys.

DOUG: And so roaches, like I said, they don’t live in colonies, but they share the bait amongst themselves using other ways. What roaches will do is, roaches might vomit and another roach will eat it.

ROSIE: Poor little guys.

CHRISTINE: If they weren’t appealing enough to begin with.

CAIRA: No, no.

DOUG: Roaches, they may eat each other’s feces.

ROSIE: Poor little guys.

DOUG: Or they may just die and be cannibalized by another roach.

ROSIE: Poor little guys.

CAIRA: It’s like The Road out there in the roach world.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, it is like The Road in roach world.

CHRISTINE: So it sounds like, okay, ants and roaches, they live in different types of communities. Are the traps themselves the same, or are they different? Because it sounds like they eat slightly different foods.

DOUG: A bait station made for ants is not really going to attract roaches. So it’s two different products; there’s two different toxins and two different food sources. The general theory is the same, but the details are not. Ants go for a sweet diet, so the food that’s mixed with that poison is sweet, almost, but it seems like it’s a honey or a maple syrup. It’s a very liquidy, very, very sweet thing. And then the roach one, it’s more of, like, a paste. It’s more of, like, a protein-based …

ROSIE: Like Muscle Milk.

CHRISTINE: That’s right, Muscle Milk for those little weight lifters. What traps do you like? What bait stations do you like for ants and roaches?

DOUG: We like the ones from Terro. Terro makes liquid ant baits, and they also make roach baits. Their liquid ant baits are notable. There is … in all the product reviewing and testing I do, it is rare to find as much consensus as there is about how well the Terro ant baits work. When I was looking at all these ant baits, I set maybe five or six of them out when we had our own ant problem, and all of the ants, they went right to Terro, and they cleaned that one out. And all the other ones, all the other bait stations were right next to it. So, I’m not sure what they put in their little sugary mix, but whatever they do, it is highly, highly effective. We have a number of colleagues who have had really good experience with Terro ant baits too.

CHRISTINE: Okay, so you’ve gotten a little bit into how you test these. Can you tell us more? You said you don’t have cockroaches, so how are you testing those?

DOUG: We test … when it comes to all, sort of, our ant and pest control, for the most part we don’t test for efficacy, we test for usability. So we’ll get the products in our hands, and we’ll use them as anyone would use them, see which ones … in the case of bait stations, which ones are easier to monitor, which ones are easier to open, which ones are just generally easier to use, how many you get in a pack, that sort of thing. But it just does not make sense for us to do efficacy testing on this.

There’s just too many variables involved, as far as what season it is for the ants, which ants you’re trying to get rid of, which roaches you’re trying to get rid of, what their specific diets are. So there is a huge body of literature already out there as far as the effectiveness of different toxins. We look at that, and then we also speak with pest-control operators, we speak with entomologists, we speak with people at extension offices and get their input as well.

ROSIE: So again, are roaches and ants going into these little poison homes, and that’s how they’re getting the bait and then taking it out and then coming back and doing the same thing over and over?

DOUG: Yep, that’s exactly it.

ROSIE: Fun.

DOUG: And in the case of ants, you’ll just have a line of ants going across your kitchen right to the bait, and then a line of ants right next to it going back to the colony.

ROSIE: So then, where are you meant to put the traps? Particularly if you don’t … I mean, obviously, you put them where the source is. But if you don’t know, how do you figure that out?

DOUG: Well, you really want to put them sort of where you see the bugs. It’s not going to make much sense to put them in the middle of your room. So along the baseboards would be good. Or on your counters, if that’s where you see ants. With roaches, you can put them around, like I said, around the refrigerator. You can put them in places where there are those cracks and crevices.

ROSIE: You mentioned the countertop. Do these bait traps pose any risk to kids or any risks to pets? Should people be careful where they’re placing them for those reasons?

DOUG: Well, as with handling any kind of toxin, you definitely want to be aware with kids and pets. I will say the ant baits, their active ingredient is borax, which is commonly used as a laundry detergent. So that is about … it’s about as benign as it gets, but it can spill out, and you don’t want your dog eating it up, you don’t want your kids drinking it. It comes in different forms. We like the bait stations because it’s a little more contained. Roach baits, they use a stronger active ingredient, but it’s a thick paste, and it doesn’t easily fall out of the bait station. So that one is a little safer, as far as if a kid goes over and just picks it up, or if a dog knocks it over.

CAIRA: From your reporting, Doug, I know that there are other types of pesticides that you could use, like gels and powders, but when would you go for one of those?

DOUG: Well, what we’ve been talking about are bait stations, and so that is when, like I said, the bait comes in a little compartment. But most manufacturers, they’ll sell the same bait, the same mixture of the poison and the food, but they’ll sell it in just a different format. So you can often get them in a powder or in a gel, and that can work depending on the situation. So especially with cockroaches, the gel is sticky, so you could kind of smear some, maybe, on the side of a cabinet that’s near your stove, or it’s just not a place where you want to put a bait station, you could do a little bit of the gel. The powder it comes in, you could just puff a few little bits of this powder underneath the refrigerator. We find that they’re harder to use, they’re harder to monitor, and they’re a little tougher around kids and pets. So we prefer the bait stations.

ROSIE: I remember when I had a roach infestation, I remember feeling like anything that has any kind of review, I want to get it, and I want to pour it all over the apartment, and I want to do everything at once. Is there any detriment to doing more things, reaching for more than one type of bait or type of solution at once?

DOUG: No, not really. I mean, I think it’s a fact that there’s no one product that’s always going to work all the time. And I think one of the things to keep in mind in approaching this is to always have the flexibility to switch to a different product, a different active ingredient. There are times when the bugs will have just an aversion to a bait for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll also be averse to one that comes from another company or one that uses a different active ingredient or has a different recipe.

ROSIE: But by the same token, whatever you choose, you want to give it the time to work?

DOUG: Yup, maybe a week or two, and see how it’s going. The Terro bait station, one thing we like about them is that they’re clear, so they’re really easy to monitor. If they’re working, you’ll see some ants that drown themselves in there, so you should know if it’s working, you’ll be able to see.

CHRISTINE: Okay, so we’ve talked about bait stations, we’ve talked about gels, we’ve talked about powders. There are other types of products you can treat ants and roaches with. What are some of those, and why don’t you advise using them?

DOUG: Yeah, so there’s the kill-on-contact sprays. Those are not going to do any good, because you’re just going to be killing the ants that are right in front of you. And that, as we know, is not going to affect the colony, and it’s really not going to change the behavior of the ants. What’s more is, I’ve been told that you can … if you use those kill-on-contact sprays, that you can actually split the colony, and so then it’ll make the infestation worse.

There’s also bug bombs, which are those foggers, which … you set a bunch of them off in a room, and then you vacate the room or you vacate your house. Those don’t tend to work, they don’t tend to get into the cracks and crevices where cockroaches live. And then there is even a story where somebody set a ton of them off, and they use butane as part of the mixture in the aerosol can, and then I think it might been … there might’ve been a spark from the stove or from the fridge or something, but I believe the entire house blew up.

CAIRA: Oh my God.

CHRISTINE: Oh my gosh.

CAIRA: I mean, they solved the infestation problem.

ROSIE: That is dark. So are those kill-on-contact sprays not good for roaches, either?

DOUG: It may not get all of the roaches. I think the bait, it’s going to be a more passive way and have a better chance at getting all of the roaches.

ROSIE: I’ll tell you what, I was walking around the house with a holster and keeping Raid in my pocket, and I was just like … because you see one of these in the daytime, and you’re not going to be like, “Well, I guess I’ll just take myself into another room and hope that the bait works overnight.” You’re screaming, and then spraying this thing until it flips over on its back. So I don’t know, I don’t know what my question is. I’m clearly still haunted.

DOUG: They can certainly be added to your arsenal, but I think that it would be in conjunction with a bait.

ROSIE: Got it.

CAIRA: So Doug, on TikTok, I sometimes see “nontoxic” ways people can deal with bug problems, like, things like tea tree oil, vinegar, and I even saw something called diatomaceous earth, which is, like, a white, chalky substance made from fossilized sea creatures. I don’t know why I bought it, but I did. It’s supposed to be one of these natural remedies that keeps ants and roaches away. I want to know your thoughts on that.

DOUG: Yeah, there are definitely … with essential oils, there’s definitely a lot of essential oils that have bug-repellent capabilities. The problem with essential oils is that their effectiveness does not last very long. Diatomaceous earth can be very effective. It’s a very, very, very fine powder. It’s often just a messy alternative to deal with. They have to actually walk through it and get it on their bodies for it to work, it’s just a little trickier. I know, anecdotally, there’s a lot of people who swear by diatomaceous earth, and I’m sure that it works to a certain degree, I believe it dries them out. But again, it is just a messier option, where I think a bait is probably a little easier to deal with.

CHRISTINE: So if you are dealing with bugs, you want to do what we talked about in the first part of this episode. You want to identify, you want to clean, and then you want to seal up any holes. And then you want to turn to bait traps, and you want to get different kinds for ants and roaches; bait traps are generally going to be the most effective. You can also use gels and powders that have some of the same insecticides in them.

But Doug, you recommend avoiding instant-kill aerosol sprays for ants, because it can make the infestation worse if you split the colony. You might want to consider using them for roaches if you’re looking for an extra little gung-ho treatment there. You recommend avoiding these total-release foggers, these bug bombs, because they’re not that effective, and they can also be dangerous. And then also, you might try some of these natural treatments, but they’re not going to be as effective as the traps.

DOUG: Probably not. Baits are really the standard, especially with ants; I would say with cockroaches too. It’s very reliable, and it doesn’t really get you in contact with the bugs. It’s actually a fairly clean way to go about it.

ROSIE: So you’ve done all of these things that Christine just mentioned. It’s not working. When is it time to call an exterminator, Doug?

DOUG: Well, that’s sort of your call, your comfort level. If you want to keep trying something else, but you don’t want to let it get even further and further out of hand. So I would say once a couple baits are out, I’d monitor them for a couple weeks or however long you can handle it. Definitely don’t be afraid to just call it quits and call a pest-control operator.

ROSIE: Doug, it’s time you get in the hot seat. We’re going to test you.

DOUG: Really?

ROSIE: We started this with you quizzing us. It’s only fair we return the favor. So we’re going to play a little round of Would You Rather.

DOUG: Oh boy.

CHRISTINE: I’ll start, I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve been thinking about how I want to test you. Would you rather eat chocolate-covered roaches or chocolate-covered ants?

DOUG: Chocolate-covered ants, they’re smaller.

ROSIE: Would you rather have roaches that could fly or ants that could bite?

DOUG: I would probably go flying. Biting ants sounds awful.

CAIRA: Yikes. Okay, would you rather have a roach infestation or a rat infestation?

DOUG: Ooh. I would say … that’s tricky, that’s tricky. I have more experience with rats, so as gross as it is, I would probably rather have a rat infestation because I know —

CHRISTINE: The enemy you know.

DOUG: I know the enemy.

ROSIE: Okay. So before we wrap, Caira usually asks all of our guests one final question, what’s the last thing you bought that you really loved. But because Doug is a regular — and more than that, because Doug famously doesn’t buy all that much of anything — we’re going to spare him and just say, Doug, you’re wonderful. Thank you for coming back, thank you for humoring us and haunting us.

DOUG: Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

CHRISTINE: Well, that was thoroughly disgusting. Yuck.

ROSIE: I’m kind of surprised we made it through.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, I mean … but we’re done. We’re not going to do any more of these, we promise.

CAIRA: Yeah. I’m going to just … like all the other ones that we did that are this level of disgusting, I’m just going to blank it out. It’s going in the vault, I’m never remembering any of this.

ROSIE: I do feel like we bonded through some shared misery.

CHRISTINE: Yeah, I know what to do the next time I see the little trail of ants in my apartment or the rogue cockroach. For me personally, I now know that if I see one cockroach, it’s a problem. I always thought, if there was just one rogue one, it had just wandered in. But now I know that they might be nesting around the pipes in my sink and behind my refrigerator and all that good stuff.

CAIRA: You know what? I actually think ignorance is bliss. But if I do see another roach, or just before that, I think I’m just going to get some bait traps for roaches and ants just to be safe, because I actually live in a ground-floor apartment. I’ve been lucky so far, but I don’t want to risk it.

ROSIE: I hope you stay safe out there. My big thing, it’s annoying, but it’s clean. It’s clean, clean, clean, clean, clean. Having said that, when I had the roach problem, and actually I had an ant problem too, in a previous apartment, we cleaned, and it didn’t make a difference, and we had to call a professional. So, don’t be a hero.

CHRISTINE: That’s right.

ROSIE: If it’s not working, call someone for help.

CHRISTINE: That’s right. Give it a week or two with your bait traps and then call the pros.

ROSIE: If you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage, or if you want to check out Doug’s reporting, head to our website. You can also have a look at our show notes. That’s it for us. Sorry for creeping y’all out. See you. Thanks for listening.

CHRISTINE: Bye.

CAIRA: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief. I’m Caira Blackwell.

CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.

ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.

CAIRA: Thanks for listening.

The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel.
Editing by Abigail Keel.
Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman.
Episodes are mixed by Catherine Anderson.
Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong.
Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and general manager is Cliff Levy.
Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief.
Hosted by Caira Blackwell and Christine Cyr Clisset.