r/Advice•
Osteojo

Cockroach confusion: Hoe else should I protect my home?

I found a cockroach one morning near my front door. I got rid of it immediately and informed my family. We are extremely clean, I rarely leave dishes in the sink, my kitchen is almost always spotless, we don’t have dampness or standing water anywhere. We live in one of four townhouses that is newer so it’s built tight with poured concrete basements and walls.

My daughter was watching TV last night and there was one on her TV screen, appeared out of the blue. Her bedroom is up-upstairs and she doesn’t keep food in her room.

My elderly mother lives in our finished basement. She snacks a lot and drops crumbs on the floor fairly often. other than that she keeps her kitchen and bath very clean. We compost everything and put it out in the outdoor tall compost bin almost daily. Our trash has very little food stuffs
in it. We recycle and rinse everything before putting it in the bin.

We have 2 cats that we free feed. There’s always kibble in each dish and of course we have 2 small water dishes out for them that we refresh daily.

Our sinks don’t leak, our toilets don’t leak, our home is water tight. Our doors have good weather stripping so I have no idea how these appeared in my home.

I have not seen babies or signs of black excrement. I checked all 8 traps today and nothing was caught last night.

The only thing I can think of is maybe they were in a food delivery box? We get weekly HelloFresh deliveries.

Has anyone else ever had this issue in such a clean and newer environment? What else can I do besides keeping everything very clean and dry and no trash laying around. I have also laid sticky traps in four places in my mom’s basement apartment and 5 on my main floor in various places. Should I go tell my neighbours?

Does anyone have any advice to prevent a full infestation? Anyone have any ideas how these things got in my home?

I live in Southern Ontario in a small town in a newer neighborhood.
Thanks!

Posted Jun 11, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

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