Which of the Two You Have Changes Where to Look
The German cockroach is the small one, about a centimetre and a half, light brown with two dark stripes behind the head. It lives and breeds indoors and stays close to heat, so it belongs to the fitted kitchen and the boiler cupboard. The Oriental cockroach is bigger, darker and slower, and prefers cool, damp places: a back yard behind a trading unit, a gully or a cellar step, the underside of a sink in an older terrace. This comparison separates them, and it is worth doing before anyone decides how far the problem reaches.
The Flat Above the Kitchen, and the Flat Behind It
Up is only one direction. A trading unit on the Broadway usually has its kitchen in a back extension, which means a wall and often a roof shared with the flat behind or the flat over the rear of the building. Warmth and water follow boxed pipe runs, risers and the holes cut for cables and extraction, and German cockroaches follow the warm ones without going outdoors at all. A home two doors along a parade can have them while the one directly above the fryer does not. The guide on cockroaches moving between flats describes the same movement in a block of flats.
Where They Are During the Day
Daylight is spent jammed into a warm slot: the motor housing behind a fridge, the casing of a microwave, the underside of a worktop beside the boiler, the void behind a kickboard, the rim of a cupboard hinge. Looking in the evening tells you little; going in at two in the morning and switching the light on tells you which gap they run to, and that gap is the address you want. The kitchen hiding places guide lists them in order, and the signs guide covers droppings and egg cases if you are not sure what you found.
What Helps Before the Visit
- Note which gap they disappear into on that late-night look, and tell us when you book
- Clear the cupboard under the sink and the one beside the cooker so the backs can be reached
- Wipe the sink and shower tray dry at night and mend a dripping tap, because damp holds them as firmly as food does
- Put rice, flour, cereal and pet food into sealed boxes and take the crumbs off the worktops last thing
- Leave sprays and foggers alone: they scatter cockroaches deeper into the building and into the flat next door
Booking a Flat, a House or Premises on the Broadway
Tell us what kind of address it is - a flat over a shop, a flat at the back of the building, a converted flat in a terrace, a whole house or trading premises - which floor you are on, where you see them and whether the neighbours have said anything. Food premises are quoted per site rather than at the flat or house price, because the kitchen, the storage and the trading hours are different in every unit. Anyone running a food business has a legal duty to keep pests out of the places where food is prepared and stored, so a single sighting has to be acted on.
Afterwards, and What Not to Read Into It
Cockroaches still turning up for a while after a visit, as eggs that were already laid hatch out, is normal rather than a sign of failure, and this guide explains why that happens. How long the whole thing takes depends on the building and on how far they had got before anyone noticed; if you are still seeing them past the point we describe, ring us again. None of it is a verdict on your kitchen either - in a building shared with food premises they arrive however carefully the place is kept, which this guide sets out.
Keeping Them Out of a Cricklewood Kitchen
Once the kitchen is clear, the work is about warmth, water and gaps. Run the extractor while you cook and wipe down the condensation, keep the strip behind the plinth clear enough to see the floor, and break down delivery boxes and packaging outside rather than stacking them in the hall. Ask the freeholder or managing agent about the holes where pipes and cables pass between one unit and the next, since those belong to the building rather than to your tenancy.
Yards and bin areas behind the Broadway bring rodents as well, so scratching in a ceiling or droppings in a cupboard is a job for rat control in Cricklewood or mouse control instead. The borough page is Cockroach Control Brent, the Brent cockroach advice covers the first steps, and the prevention guide has the rest. Premises in neighbouring Willesden are quoted the same way.
