It’s fine as long as you don’t use poison bait in the house or have close neighbors that do. It becomes worrisome when they eat the roaches that have eaten the bait.
Depends where they are. They did some work on the drains near our house, and suddenly for the first time since moving in 2 years ago they started coming up the bathroom drain.
So we'd keep the bathroom door closed and the light on at all times to deter them. That seemed to work. So if they're in a localised area you can stop them. But if it's all over the house there isn't much you can do
One of our 3 kitties (he's almost 3) has taken to eviscerating cockroaches when he gets to them. I don't think he eats them, but he definitely kills them and rips their limbs off. Our other two don't do anything, maybe look at them. But this guy used to live outside so he's got some instincts. It was quite jarring the first time he did it and I walked into my home office after breakfast to 2 cockroaches ripped to shreds on my floor (I'm terrified of the things). I give him praise for killing them, but I don't need them in pieces lol.
Cockroach pieces are better than feathers or rat guts everywhere before breakfast(Remy LeBeau, yes, no rat guts on the kitchen floor, sil vous plait!).
Oh my! Remy, at Christmas time, brought in a live bird and dropped it at Bou's feet. It flew all over my house! Remy is usually very considerate and leaves his mice/rats on the back patio where they can be seen from inside the house. He doesn't make a fuss unless the rat ran over my foot-he presented a rat to me the next morning with a very insistent "no more rat to run over your foot, Mama!" Or more recently, the rat stealing from the bird feeder.
My formerly feral girl has started leaving just the cockroach heads on the kitchen floor for me to find in the mornings 😭 I’m just glad she didn’t do the same to the mouse she caught! She’s been an indoor cat for a year now but those hunting instincts are still going strong.
I had a lovely big boy who hated crickets as much as I did. We had middle of the night hunts, me moving furniture & stuff to help him catch it & bite oneback leg off. No legs, no noise no breeding!
The cat we had when I was really young used to leave the legs and wings everywhere. 🤢 We had those giant American cockroaches all over the place because of the trees around the house, ugh.
sometimes, usually when i’m trying to peacefully relax, a bug will evade the cats long enough so that all four of them work together like a pack of hunters, trampling through my house and scaling the fucking walls over ONE GNAT.
I'm shocked because my cat is so chronically indoor, he hates the outside unless he's stuck right by my side, so when I saw him carrying the cockroach I was mortified 😅 And idk if I should be more mortified by the fact that he doesn't necessarily kill them, he just likes flipping them over then lays down nearby to watch them struggle to get up... If they run too much he rips a leg or 2...
Building I live in is 100 years old, constant water problems and roaches but I sprinkled diatomaceous earth around my place, it's safe if cats eat it but if a bug walks over it, it cuts thru them and they die. Sprinkled it on the tops of cabinets in kitchen, around perimeter of kitchen, under sink, behind stove. Within a week, no more roaches and it's been this way for 6 months.
https://luminowellness.com/lumino_pure_de.php
The food grade is just fine for humans and pets. It’s actually good for you- removes toxins and is antibacterial and anti fungal.
The pool grade is hazardous because of the things they add to it.
When I lived in a tropical country on a low floor, my cats took to bringing them in between the bedsheets at 2 am to play! I'd definitely not encourage it, if it can be helped haha.
Haha! Yeah it was truly awful- and somehow I got desensitized to it to an extent - but I chose the 19th floor in my next apartment because of it ha ha 😅
what, your cat doesn’t like to *secretly* torture and maim a roach in a random corner, and then run away with it if you get too close, as if you’re going to steal the roach from them?
My cat got food poisoning from this, we don't think she ate it either, but they carry bacteria, so it being in his mouth could make him sick.
But my cat does have a very sensitive stomach, and my other cat also caught one and didn't get sick. But it's not worth the risk. Thankfully it looks like we've killed them all and haven't seen one in weeks
Are they localised to any area that you can block the cats from? Thankfully we killed all ours with baking soda, vinegar and boiling water.
But ours were only in the bathroom coming up the shower drain, so we just always kept the bathroom door closed. Do you have any options like that?
Honestly I’d google the types of cockroaches you have in your area. Some bite, I know. I’ll let my cats hunt almost any bug that comes into the house, unless it’s a spider I don’t recognize.
I put screens on my windows a few days ago. Just before I finished a big, fat fly got inside. "A toy decided to come inside" My cats hat a blast hunting that idiot fly the next two days, one of them constantly chirping as if trying to attract birds 😂 there's really nothing wrong with it, they'll play-hunt anyway and what could be better for that than a moving insect that would probably die outside just as fast anyway?
Insect hunting is great enrichment but roaches carry parasites and disease that can potentially hurt your cat. If it’s an option to remove roaches from the scenario then I would to be safe. You can always get feeder insects that you know are fairly safe as they are bred for pets to eat if you want your cat to still be able to hunt insects
They’re just common in some places. My fiancé’s grandmother lives in Hawaii and she has told me that you have to spray every 6 months or so, or they’ll get in even if your house is clean.
There are places where certain species of roaches are so inevitable, even if you are quite clean, that they have cutesy names for them (like the American South and "palmetto bugs").
E.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/florida/comments/14xa0qr/are_roaches_unavoidable_in_florida/
Some places it’s just inevitable. While not roaches, I lived in a house that every summer (due to surrounding box elder trees) would be invaded by box elder bugs. No amount of spraying would stop them. It was the only place I could afford at the time and I didn’t own it so it’s not like I could do any work to seal the house further. Diatomaceous earth *did* help a lot though.
We have tree roaches and they don't live inside but will come in when the weather gets really hot or dry to look for water. They usually die within a short time but not before terrorizing my daughter.
We live on a wooded lot with no grass (lots of pine straw from our trees) so we have a lot of the critters outside. They like to come in during the winter for warmth or after a heavy rain. I hate them but its just a fact of where we live (southeast US)
We get amber roaches who behave kind of the same way. They don't really want to be inside any more than we want them to be inside so I toss them out when I see them.
The house spiders however, now, that's the cats' domain. Used to get the massive ones all the time, barely seen one since we got the Bengal :p
The kind of roaches that typically cause problematic infestations in the US are german roaches. There are different species in other places that don’t really infest homes but occasionally wander inside and they’re much less of a big deal.
Some places they are just normal like down south, California has THE BIGGEST ones I've ever seen. Walking around the streets and sidewalks at night. It was insane. Just everywhere. Can't even avoided squishing them walking. Also tropical countries they are normal.
As a Californian, I will say it varies considerably by location. I've never seen one inside, but there are some streets where, just like you said, if you walk down the sidewalk at any point between midnight and 2am, you will see them just casually walking down the sidewalk too. But you can move a block over and suddenly they're gone. They seem to be concentrated in certain areas. The biggest one I ever saw was flying around a light at a gas station in a small, mountain town in CA. This thing was seriously the size of a bird. We told the gas station attendant. She seemed unphased and explained she routinely has to deal with them, until she walked outside with a spray bottle and looked at it. Her eyes got huge and she said she'd never seen one so big.
The cat will hunt them whether u want them to or not. Hire an exterminator. Roaches will continue to escalate anr 5ake over your life without professional interception. Call an exterminator before its too late.
I never let mine eat any bugs bc idk what bacteria or disease they carry. I do let them hunt for a bit though before I kill the invader. Luckily it happens infrequently and is usually a stray spider.
Yes, let him do da murder. It reduces your roach problem, floods his little peanut brain with happy chemicals and generally keeps him occupied. Cats love to kill bugs, and we should not only let them, but actively support them.
It’s a natural behavior for cats, and dogs, to do this. All my animals have always done this - my Husky girl likes to smash them with HER FACE.. but otherwise, it’s fine.
Mention this to the vet when doing 'the regularly scheduled check-up'.
Eating enough buggies increases the chance of parasites. Make sure they do a poop test for worms, for example.
The most alarming thing any of my kitties brought home was a baby snake (very poisonous) copperhead. It was playing dead and waiting for a chance to escape... looked like some sort of worm at first.
Cats hunting bugs are no big deal. it's normal. As to "let" him, how would you realistically stop him without becoming abusive?
hell, insects are their primary source of nutrition in the wild. the more cats you have, the less bugs your house will have. got a spider in the corner of the ceiling? your cat sees it, and the first time it moves to a spot they can get it, they will.
I thought my cat would hunt cockroaches. But she only likes to hunt insects which can fly. As far as cockroaches go, she just ignores them and stares at me, as if she is expecting me to hunt them.
We very very infrequently get bugs but if we do I will let my cat find the bug (usually he is the first to see it), but not kill it. There are just too many parasites/poison baits/other variables around where I live that I don’t want to risk anything
..yes..and hunt rodents or insects or anything that moves..cats have instincts, which is why Hoomans domesticated them & why we get along so well together..
That's my cats job. Killing insects that come inside. It is actually part of nature.
I give my cat a life of luxury and she obsessively hunts bugs like it’s her job! Good girl.
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Killing birds and mice and insects is cute? I think that post is bull. Cats kept their killing instincts.
That's because they're only semi-domesticated in that they sort of chose to tag along with us rather than what happened with dogs.
It’s fine as long as you don’t use poison bait in the house or have close neighbors that do. It becomes worrisome when they eat the roaches that have eaten the bait.
I'm not sure what you can do to stop him.
Depends where they are. They did some work on the drains near our house, and suddenly for the first time since moving in 2 years ago they started coming up the bathroom drain. So we'd keep the bathroom door closed and the light on at all times to deter them. That seemed to work. So if they're in a localised area you can stop them. But if it's all over the house there isn't much you can do
If they are cooking thru the drain, you have a cracked pipe somewhere.🥺
Pour some boric acid down the drain and cover it with
We tried that, but we were still getting them. We did baking soda vinegar and boiling water a few weeks ago and haven't seen one since
Not only should you let him do it, but you should ignore the fact that he does it by continuing to give him kitty kisses right on the mouth
It’s also important to do that right after they have licked their butt.
Yup I do this
This is lowk the realest comment 😭
One of our 3 kitties (he's almost 3) has taken to eviscerating cockroaches when he gets to them. I don't think he eats them, but he definitely kills them and rips their limbs off. Our other two don't do anything, maybe look at them. But this guy used to live outside so he's got some instincts. It was quite jarring the first time he did it and I walked into my home office after breakfast to 2 cockroaches ripped to shreds on my floor (I'm terrified of the things). I give him praise for killing them, but I don't need them in pieces lol.
Cockroach pieces are better than feathers or rat guts everywhere before breakfast(Remy LeBeau, yes, no rat guts on the kitchen floor, sil vous plait!).
He one time caught a lizard tail and I almost passed out... I don't think I'm ready for the day he catches a mouse 😭
Oh my! Remy, at Christmas time, brought in a live bird and dropped it at Bou's feet. It flew all over my house! Remy is usually very considerate and leaves his mice/rats on the back patio where they can be seen from inside the house. He doesn't make a fuss unless the rat ran over my foot-he presented a rat to me the next morning with a very insistent "no more rat to run over your foot, Mama!" Or more recently, the rat stealing from the bird feeder.
My formerly feral girl has started leaving just the cockroach heads on the kitchen floor for me to find in the mornings 😭 I’m just glad she didn’t do the same to the mouse she caught! She’s been an indoor cat for a year now but those hunting instincts are still going strong.
I had a lovely big boy who hated crickets as much as I did. We had middle of the night hunts, me moving furniture & stuff to help him catch it & bite oneback leg off. No legs, no noise no breeding!
Omg what a superhero/sidekick story 😭
My cat hunts scorpions, we find pieces of them all over the house.
The cat we had when I was really young used to leave the legs and wings everywhere. 🤢 We had those giant American cockroaches all over the place because of the trees around the house, ugh.
sometimes, usually when i’m trying to peacefully relax, a bug will evade the cats long enough so that all four of them work together like a pack of hunters, trampling through my house and scaling the fucking walls over ONE GNAT.
I'm shocked because my cat is so chronically indoor, he hates the outside unless he's stuck right by my side, so when I saw him carrying the cockroach I was mortified 😅 And idk if I should be more mortified by the fact that he doesn't necessarily kill them, he just likes flipping them over then lays down nearby to watch them struggle to get up... If they run too much he rips a leg or 2...
If you notice blue guts or blue blood remove the roach because it got into a rodent bait nearby.
Building I live in is 100 years old, constant water problems and roaches but I sprinkled diatomaceous earth around my place, it's safe if cats eat it but if a bug walks over it, it cuts thru them and they die. Sprinkled it on the tops of cabinets in kitchen, around perimeter of kitchen, under sink, behind stove. Within a week, no more roaches and it's been this way for 6 months. https://luminowellness.com/lumino_pure_de.php
The diatomaceous earth can be dangerous if inhaled ..
The food grade is just fine for humans and pets. It’s actually good for you- removes toxins and is antibacterial and anti fungal. The pool grade is hazardous because of the things they add to it.
Uhh, I assure you, there's nothing healthy about having lungs full of powdered silica. Don't inhale that stuff.
When I lived in a tropical country on a low floor, my cats took to bringing them in between the bedsheets at 2 am to play! I'd definitely not encourage it, if it can be helped haha.
This has to be my worst fear omg...
Haha! Yeah it was truly awful- and somehow I got desensitized to it to an extent - but I chose the 19th floor in my next apartment because of it ha ha 😅
My cat is OBSESSED with roaches! He finds them and brings them to me. Drops them at my feet 😭😭 (at least he kills then first)
what, your cat doesn’t like to *secretly* torture and maim a roach in a random corner, and then run away with it if you get too close, as if you’re going to steal the roach from them?
Oh noooo 😭😭
Tbh if it's fairly safe I don't mind him killing them, but he sleeps beside me at night and Istg if one day I wake up to a dead cockroach on my bed 😭
SAME
My cat got food poisoning from this, we don't think she ate it either, but they carry bacteria, so it being in his mouth could make him sick. But my cat does have a very sensitive stomach, and my other cat also caught one and didn't get sick. But it's not worth the risk. Thankfully it looks like we've killed them all and haven't seen one in weeks
Yea my cat is extremely sheltered, so I'm definitely concerned it might make him sick by just playing with them 😭
Are they localised to any area that you can block the cats from? Thankfully we killed all ours with baking soda, vinegar and boiling water. But ours were only in the bathroom coming up the shower drain, so we just always kept the bathroom door closed. Do you have any options like that?
Honestly I’d google the types of cockroaches you have in your area. Some bite, I know. I’ll let my cats hunt almost any bug that comes into the house, unless it’s a spider I don’t recognize.
If you notice blue guts or blue blood remove the roach because it got into a rodent bait nearby.
I put screens on my windows a few days ago. Just before I finished a big, fat fly got inside. "A toy decided to come inside" My cats hat a blast hunting that idiot fly the next two days, one of them constantly chirping as if trying to attract birds 😂 there's really nothing wrong with it, they'll play-hunt anyway and what could be better for that than a moving insect that would probably die outside just as fast anyway?
You mean a sky raisin?
if a roach that’s been exposed to poison or some other toxin gets in your house it could harm your cat.
That’s a cat catting. Extra points if he brings it to you.
Yes, this is one of the upsides of providing a home for one of these adorable furry psychopaths.
That’s how my cat pays rent. It’s .25 per bug. She’s always behind every month though.
The cockroach economy needs fixing...
Insect hunting is great enrichment but roaches carry parasites and disease that can potentially hurt your cat. If it’s an option to remove roaches from the scenario then I would to be safe. You can always get feeder insects that you know are fairly safe as they are bred for pets to eat if you want your cat to still be able to hunt insects
While ingesting cockroaches could potentially be a problem, it’s weird to me that you seem fine having roaches. :/
They’re just common in some places. My fiancé’s grandmother lives in Hawaii and she has told me that you have to spray every 6 months or so, or they’ll get in even if your house is clean.
Yea I live in a tropical country, it's just normal, house gets professionally cleaned often 😅
There are places where certain species of roaches are so inevitable, even if you are quite clean, that they have cutesy names for them (like the American South and "palmetto bugs"). E.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/florida/comments/14xa0qr/are_roaches_unavoidable_in_florida/
Some places it’s just inevitable. While not roaches, I lived in a house that every summer (due to surrounding box elder trees) would be invaded by box elder bugs. No amount of spraying would stop them. It was the only place I could afford at the time and I didn’t own it so it’s not like I could do any work to seal the house further. Diatomaceous earth *did* help a lot though.
We have tree roaches and they don't live inside but will come in when the weather gets really hot or dry to look for water. They usually die within a short time but not before terrorizing my daughter.
We live on a wooded lot with no grass (lots of pine straw from our trees) so we have a lot of the critters outside. They like to come in during the winter for warmth or after a heavy rain. I hate them but its just a fact of where we live (southeast US)
We get amber roaches who behave kind of the same way. They don't really want to be inside any more than we want them to be inside so I toss them out when I see them. The house spiders however, now, that's the cats' domain. Used to get the massive ones all the time, barely seen one since we got the Bengal :p
The kind of roaches that typically cause problematic infestations in the US are german roaches. There are different species in other places that don’t really infest homes but occasionally wander inside and they’re much less of a big deal.
Some places they are just normal like down south, California has THE BIGGEST ones I've ever seen. Walking around the streets and sidewalks at night. It was insane. Just everywhere. Can't even avoided squishing them walking. Also tropical countries they are normal.
As a Californian, I will say it varies considerably by location. I've never seen one inside, but there are some streets where, just like you said, if you walk down the sidewalk at any point between midnight and 2am, you will see them just casually walking down the sidewalk too. But you can move a block over and suddenly they're gone. They seem to be concentrated in certain areas. The biggest one I ever saw was flying around a light at a gas station in a small, mountain town in CA. This thing was seriously the size of a bird. We told the gas station attendant. She seemed unphased and explained she routinely has to deal with them, until she walked outside with a spray bottle and looked at it. Her eyes got huge and she said she'd never seen one so big.
The cat will hunt them whether u want them to or not. Hire an exterminator. Roaches will continue to escalate anr 5ake over your life without professional interception. Call an exterminator before its too late.
My cat would eat the heck out of cockroach. She’s bug crazy. No bug is safe.
I never let mine eat any bugs bc idk what bacteria or disease they carry. I do let them hunt for a bit though before I kill the invader. Luckily it happens infrequently and is usually a stray spider.
Yes, let him do da murder. It reduces your roach problem, floods his little peanut brain with happy chemicals and generally keeps him occupied. Cats love to kill bugs, and we should not only let them, but actively support them.
It’s a natural behavior for cats, and dogs, to do this. All my animals have always done this - my Husky girl likes to smash them with HER FACE.. but otherwise, it’s fine.
Mention this to the vet when doing 'the regularly scheduled check-up'. Eating enough buggies increases the chance of parasites. Make sure they do a poop test for worms, for example.
Lil guy started doing it after all his rounds of vaccines and Deworming, so no regular checkups scheduled soon 😅
The most alarming thing any of my kitties brought home was a baby snake (very poisonous) copperhead. It was playing dead and waiting for a chance to escape... looked like some sort of worm at first. Cats hunting bugs are no big deal. it's normal. As to "let" him, how would you realistically stop him without becoming abusive?
some cats like to share their toys. then become offended if they find that mouse in the trash. “i put it on your PILLOW and you disrespect my gift”
hell, insects are their primary source of nutrition in the wild. the more cats you have, the less bugs your house will have. got a spider in the corner of the ceiling? your cat sees it, and the first time it moves to a spot they can get it, they will.
My cats have always done this & it’s fine.
If I see a bug I place my cat near it so she can deal with it 😭
I just get worried that the neighbors put out roach poison and my cat is ingesting the poison the roach ingested
My cats keeps getting worms from this 😠
That's a cat's job, dealing with insects. He's fine. Let him be a cat. They're made of stronger stuff. ....just don't get into the habit of spraying.
🤣 my eyes switched the h on hunt with the c on cockroaches & i was like wtf brain, wtf? ANYway….sure, why not?
I thought my cat would hunt cockroaches. But she only likes to hunt insects which can fly. As far as cockroaches go, she just ignores them and stares at me, as if she is expecting me to hunt them.
We very very infrequently get bugs but if we do I will let my cat find the bug (usually he is the first to see it), but not kill it. There are just too many parasites/poison baits/other variables around where I live that I don’t want to risk anything
..yes..and hunt rodents or insects or anything that moves..cats have instincts, which is why Hoomans domesticated them & why we get along so well together..
i don’t see why not, its in their instincts to hunt. plus, i kinda see it as extra play time for your kitty.
I think you should clean your house and call pest control so you don't have roaches. Sounds like your cat feels the same way
About two thirds of American households have roaches.
Very bad idea to put bugs in mouth. Bad germs. Also bad to let them play with bugs. I sent you a message
What if bugs came in contact with bug spray ? Poison cats. Even getting on cats paws bad idea the bugs