Why Do Cockroaches Come Out at Night?

Waking up at the midnight hour for nature’s call or a midnight craving and finding a big roach challenging your way with even bigger tentacles, could send chills down the spine!

Is this your every night story? Did you know that having roaches at home could pose a serious threat to your health? You need to get rid of them in no time. But! Why Do Cockroaches Come Out At Night?

If you are a bug hater and wonder why these night creepers are always awake to make you feel jelly in the knees, this article is where you fit right in.

The Story Behind the Night Creepers:

While there is a wide variety of roaches, the majority of them are nocturnal. Science says that cockroaches have a circadian rhythm like all living creatures (organisms) on earth.

This rhythm is a sleep-wake cycle that keeps alternating between pause/activity periods of these nasty bugs and governing their conduct of different organisms.

In short, this rhythm is solely responsible for the night activity cycle of these insects. In this activity cycle, cockroaches hunt for food and water in a low light environment and stay mostly inactive during the day.

Their immobility during the daylight hour is either to stay safe from predators or nature’s extremities.

This means when the bedtime is approaching and the light goes off, a big welcome sign flag to your enemies.

And now they will cascade in bulk from under the kitchen shelves, store room cabinets, washroom holes, and the smallest crack and the crevices. Stay SAFE!

Do Roaches Sleep During the Day?

Plenty of research has been conducted on the activity cycle of roaches and a few of them to find out whether they sleep during the day or not! And each one points to the aforementioned circadian rhythm responsible for a sustained bout of inactivity in these bugs.

In other words, studies indicate that cockroaches too have a resting session like other creatures on this planet.

Here, Professor Irene Tobler-Borbely best sums up the activity of the roaches inthree clear stages: locomotion, limb or antenna movement (no locomotion), and a period of immobility. And this period of hiatus is the same a human’s “sleeping” period.

So, if you are not finding traces of these little monsters during the daylight, probably they are taking a siesta… * LOL! *

Why Do Cockroaches Hate Light?

A few studies indicate that cockroaches have a zero aversion to light. But, why do these annoying species run away from the lights then?

It’s probably because these tiny, wild beasts have evolved through all these years only to learn that flickering light is an indication of the arrival of their human predators!

A number of encounters have possibly taught them that human intervention means a mass killing. And so, whenever there is the light, they seem to scurry for their hideouts. Simple as that!

What’s more, a former body of research also emphasized the impact of artificial illumination on the roaches. It suggests that the artificial lighting, even with the lowest intensity could tamper with the circadian rhythms of these insects and obstructs their activity at night.

So, even a dim light in the kitchen area could reduce their appearance. Mind it!

So What Do They Scout For At the Nights?

So, coming back to the question again, “Why Do Cockroaches Come Out At Night”, you should possibly look for an answer inside your house, more precisely the kitchen and the pantry.

Roaches are always out on forage for food and water during the darkest hours when you are crawling into the comfort of your bed.

Have a large number of these bugs at home?

You will surely discover hundreds of thousands of them wobbling and running for shelter when you suddenly turn on the lights after 4 hours of darkness interval.

And the reason is nothing but the leftover in the cooking and the dining space. After the sundown, cockroaches are prone to emerge in a big group and hunt for foods.

In fact, roaches can feed on virtually anything, including the tiniest food scraps that you might have left uncleaned from the last supper.

It can be anything from the organic materials, soiled clothes, bookbinding to trash bin rubbishes, crumbs on the floor, sludges between the gas burner or pet bowl remains, no matter, fresh or rotten!

The best way to keep cockroaches at the bay is keeping these areas forever clean and free of every single residue.

Once you do that, you will soon find these roaches scavenging during the day.

And that means you have already managed a critical infestation of these seedy bugs and they are threatened with the scarcity of food. This is why they are forced to hunt foods when are they are not supposed to.