One of the most common things we hear is, “But my place is clean why do I have roaches?” It’s a fair question, and the answer has everything to do with where you live. In Brooklyn brownstones, Queens row houses, and Manhattan pre-war buildings, cockroaches don’t need an invitation. They travel through shared walls, move along pipe chases, and slip through gaps in aging foundations that have been there for decades.
The German cockroach the most common species we deal with in New York City apartments reproduces fast. A single female can produce an egg capsule carrying up to 48 eggs every six weeks, and nymphs can reach maturity in as little as 40 days. That’s why what looks like a small problem can turn into a serious cockroach infestation in a matter of months.
American cockroaches, which many New Yorkers know as “water bugs,” are the second most common species we encounter. They thrive in the warm, humid conditions found in building basements, boiler rooms, and the plumbing infrastructure that runs beneath Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. If you’ve been calling them water bugs and wondering why they keep appearing near your sink or bathtub, now you know — and now you know who to call.
