No roaches in Anchorage or Portland. We had a lot of ants in Portland, though. I finally had to resort to spreading ant powder all around the house. If you kill the queen, the rest of them move on. We had no mice until our old cat died. They moved back out when we got a new cat. No roaches in our apartment in MSP. We are having an infestation of Asian beetles, though. They look very similar to ladybugs. We’re told they’re thriving because of the drought conditions. At least no box elder bugs this year.
In three plus decades in Santa Barbara I have never seen a roach nor have I ever heard of someone with a roach problem. I imagine that they might be somewhere in the area but if they were in my house I would have seen one by now.
Even a house clean by normal standards can harbor roaches. The most common way for roaches to enter a detached home is by bringing eggs in from elsewhere (groceries or materials from an infested location) or from them coming in via the sewer drain lines. However, if your home is on a septic system then that’s probably not much of a risk since their only means of accessing the system is via your home in the first place. Free roaming “wild” German cockroaches (the most common household type) aren’t really a common vector as they are dependent on human activity to live.
We’re in Ohio (not sure if that matters). Have never seen a roach in our house. We occasionally get a mouse, and I am constantly vacuuming cobwebs. Our biggest problems are brown marmorated stink bugs and multicoloured Asian lady beetles.
Yeah, stink bugs. We have those everywhere. They are quaint now. They are just a nuisance. They come in on the fall and go out in the winter. I don’t care about them that much. The roaches? Whle 'nother story.
They’re harmless, but still annoying. Loud buzzing when flying and crawling around everywhere. And if you squash one they stink (hence the name).
I know that they’re supposed to stink, but I have not noticed any odor. Maybe my sense of smell is conveniently, in this case, faulty?
If you crush them they stink. When the invasion was heavy, I learn to grab tissues quickly, wrap the stink bug up and crush them.
I’m so happy some local birds discovered those and the lantern flies are edible.
Both are reduced a lot in numbers.
I was washing windows a couple weeks ago. There was one loan boxelder bug strolling up the tilted window. I flicked it off telling it, “Oh no you don’t; we’re all booked up. There’s no room at the inn.” 
Heavy hitters in homes are wicker baskets, cardboard boxes, stacked newspaper. Books of unknown heritage.
Any fresh produce especially bags of potatoes and onions from a certain big box store.
Stacked firewood.
Things from yard sales and flea markets.
Stored cat litter. Especially the natural clay type.
Bags of potting soil. Peat moss.
Oddly, artificial flowers. (Non-plastic)
Painting and wallpaper supplies.
Most anything from a lumber yard.
House plants.
Christmas decorations that’s been stored.
It’s a constant battle. It’s us or them.
Ah for the olden days when these things were common knowledge.
They really do not have to make the effort to try to find methods that only kill some of the bugs. The bugs are way better at surviving than any method humans have come up with to eliminate them. WAY better.
I have been in, and occasionally lived in, some pretty damn messy houses. Mice, yes. Flies, sometimes. Cockroaches, no.
Houses that are in cold climates and also hundreds of feet apart often just don’t have them.
Are they Asian ladybugs? There are such things.
– oh yeah. Stink bugs. We get a few of those too.
“Bugs” I can get behind.
Lots of houses don’t have rats, though. Ours, for example. Yes, there are some rats outside, although only a few - we see maybe 6-8 rats a year (almost always dead ones). Our secret weapon is many cats, both ours and other neighborhood cats that include our property in their meanderings.
One way to ensure that you have zero vermin of any kind - bugs, rodents, lizards, etc. - is to tent your house for termites. But it’s only temporary - eventually every critter moves back in.
I remember decades ago hanging out after hours in a fancy restaurant’s kitchen where a friend’s brother was head chef. At one point he smacked some surface an some roaches scurried out. When we acted shocked to see roaches in such a fancy restaurant, he said matter-of-factly, “Every restaurant has roaches.”
No idea if he was right.
What kind of cats do you have?
Most house tabbies will only play with a mouse…they are not hunters. They need to be trained to be hunters and identify rodents as food. Mom will do that for them. Most cat house pets have never been trained to hunt mice. Mice are an interesting toy to them.
And, honestly, if you have rats like we have rats most cats won’t bother. They are of a similar size. The rats are certainly too big for a cat to decide it wants to have a go.
Mice, sure. Rats…I don’t believe a cat will even consider trying.
I have not seen a roach in any of the four houses or seven apartments I’ve lived in for over 30 years. The last place with a roach problem was a very downmarket apartment I shared in university.
Barn Cat certainly would go after a rat. I’ve seen her dragging big ones up a tree. I guess to hide.
And she’s just a medium sized feral that adopted our barn. Obviously had kitten learning how to hunt.
She’s basically retired now, spends her days sleeping in the barn windows. And being fed nice meals.
I wonder how big your rats are.
I have seen many city rats that are scary big. Smaller than a cat (on average) but big enough to give most cats pause unless they are really, really desperate for food.
Rats, even scary urban rats, are not the same size as a housecat. The largest brown aka Norway rat (the most common “city” rat) on record still weighed under two pounds, the average is around 1lb. An average adult housecat is around ten pounds. Likewise, brown rats are about 8 inches from head to butt (no tail) and cats are 18" for the same. A comparison for people who haven’t seen an urban rat, it would be approximately the same length and weight of a grey squirrel.
There’s a reason we bothered to domesticate cats to hang around our granaries and barns. I’ve had cats pull in mature rabbits before. Granted he was a beefy non-neutered unit of a cat.