Killing cockroaches with pesticides is only making the species stronger
Americans need a less toxic approach to managing the most common cockroaches, which are evolving resistance to store-bought insecticides.
At around age 10, I spotted a cockroach on the kitchen counter and grabbed the closest thing near me: a coffee pot, which I brought down on the head of the bug and then found myself standing there, holding nothing but the glass handle. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said about the broken flask. “But at least I got the roach.”
German cockroaches were a regular, omnipresent part of growing up in a trailer park in Phoenix, Arizona. Nothing seemed to deter them: no amount of poisons, electric zappers, or bug bombs. It wasn’t until we moved to a house that my family finally rid ourselves of our six-legged plague.
Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. understand the frustration of bad
