Has anyone managed to live in Japan without seeing a single cockroach in their home?

47 comments

1. 8 years. I have cats. If I had cockroaches, I wouldn’t know.

2. Me.

3. The trick is paying more rent.

4. 30+ years. Only 1 in my previous place, the night after borrowing a tent from a friend. 0 in current place

5. Hokkai has 0 cockroach. Glad to live here,lol

6. Been in my current place for two years. No cockroaches and I think it’s probably due to living on a higher floor.

7. Me.

8. Live on a high floor in a concrete building and you should be able to avoid them.

9. Me. Never saw a single creeper in my house bigger than a drain fly. I don’t live in the first floor. I don’t have any particular anti-cockroach measure other than not leaving any food leftovers exposed. I often see bugs hanging around all over the place outside my home, but somehow they never make it inside. Big disclaimer though, I have seen a healthy amount of small lizards and spiders outside my house, I am sure they are doing the dirty work for me so I do my best to leave them alone.

10. Never seen any in 20 years, but I live in concrete buildings and above 5th floor

11. Only two. I am a reasonably clean and neat person, but at two former apartments, those little buggers just managed to get in somehow during a summer. They hate the scent of peppermint, so I try to keep that around. With it being so hot this summer, they have more urge to get inside of people’s homes.

12. In my old place in Kyoto I was on the 14th floor, and in 4 years I didn’t see cockroaches, mukade or anything. Just spiders on the balcony.

    Our current place is on the first floor, but it’s a new construction and we put black caps in all the corners. I’ve seen one cockroach in 2 years. That was our cue to replace the black caps.

13. The only place I have not encountered them was a tower mansion high up. I think it depends on the people living around you as well.

14. First Apartment in Kanda -Run down area – saw a tonne.

    Hokkaido – none as there are none up there

    Shinjuku – New apartment but saw a couple each year.

    Yokohama – saw none as I lived above the 10th floor.

    Current place – hitting 3rd year now in a modern apartment and have not seen any. I have a crap tonne of birds living in my roof/ balcony area like 30+ and I think they be eating the majority of bugs in the area….. but new neighbours below leave their moeru gomi bin in their back garden so hmmm I think this may be the summer…..

15. I had a couple when I first moved into my latest house. But I believe they were agitated from a house being demolished across the street.

    I placed a half dozen black caps and haven’t seen any presence of one in 2+ years.

16. One once. I’m on a 9 year 0 mukade streak too, but my 0 cockroach streak ended in the pandemic with the one little bastard

17. I have been here 30 years, so I can not say I have managed to live without seeing them because the first placesI lived, while still in school, were rather cheap student living places. The buildings were old and a shared space tends to be less tidy.

    Another good portion of my time in Japan was in rural area in an old house with all sorts of bugs. Cockroaches don’t stand out in my mind as being particularly bad, but we had every other bug.

    Aside from that though, I have not seen a cockroach in at least 8 years of living in the city, as an adult, in modern apartments.

18. Be careful for the cardboard boxes you get from delivery people. Get rid of them as soon as possible.

19. live above the tsugaru strait

20. Only in Sendai.

21. 0 at the new place so far. Plenty of gejigeji, though.

22. I’ve probably seen one maybe every 2 or 3 years. 8th floor mansion.

23. lived in huge tower mansion my first 5 years, never saw a roach. last year lived in first floor unit, basically infested even though i’m a huge stickler about cleaning, this year moved back into a tower and no roaches.

24. My neighbourhood doesn’t really have much in the way of bugs. We have two bat colonies. Best neighbours ever.

25. Live on 2nd floor, no bugs or cockroaches. I’m not a clean freak or anything, my room is pretty messy. But I always throw away food properly and quickly. I don’t let food trash to be in my apartment for long. Plus I clean the kitchen sink drain, bathroom drain regularly. I use cleaning sprays, powders etc for drains. I don’t open the windows during summer.

26. I have never seen a cockroach in my mother in laws 100 year old kominka…but she is surrounded and overrun with frogs from the rice fields.

27. My first apartment didn’t (other bugs, sure, but not roaches). Being on the second floor might have been one reason, but the bath tub floor panel and drain were a lot easier to clean in my old apartment than my current one, so I think that has to do with it as well

28. I thought I had, until 2 days ago 🥲

29. Lived in 6 different places, only saw roaches in 2 of them, and both those places were very old, one practically run down (building was demolished a year after I moved out), and the other I fell into a bad spot in life and didn’t exactly keep it very clean.

    Nobody wants to admit a big part of roach prevention is keeping your room clean, because that implies you’re not keeping clean, but such is life.

30. Tokyo 23 for 15 years.
    Never.

31. 4th floor in Kumamoto- 0 ¥29,000 a month/
    7th floor in Kitakyushu- a few ¥35,000/
    3rd floor at current place- 0 (I think they spray or something because I’ve see them but they’ve all died at the entrance) ¥41,000

32. All concrete “designers” house. Only the occasion spider bro in the corner just chilling.

33. UR building in Tama-shi, 9th and 17th floors, no roaches

34. Haven’t seen a single one and I live on the first floor.

35. We have a house in Tokyo, usually get several every summer, never more that. This year absolutely zero to date (🤞). Only big change I’ve made is to keep the stairs and entrance area near the front door extra clean. We are getting dango mushi aka “rolly pollies” but pretty sure that’s from my sons’ soccer bags. Wife still screams like aliens have invaded when she sees one, even though she grew up on a farm in inaka.

36. my trick is guess is periodically spraying with window screen bug spray, those anti-bug spray things on the walls and making sure there’s no way in through pipe gaps. I also try to live as high up as i can but right now i live in a maisonette (kinda like a town house) so the entrance is ok ground level. i’ve seen a cockroach outside but nothing inside (thank god)

37. 8th floor of a relatively new mansion.

    Never seen a cockroach here.

    We only get the odd spider on the balcony and that’s about it for insects.

38. I used to live in the 1st floor of a mansion, and despite not being high up we never had any roaches. Now I’m on the 5th floor of a different mansion, still no roaches

39. I’ve been here 34 years and one time, I watched a cockroach run in through a door on my balcony I opened. A 20 minute hide and seek battle commenced, and I won.

    That is the only one I’ve seen.

40. Hokkaido

41. Having lived in half a dozen different places over the years:

    First year in Japan, fairly inaka, none. (But got mukade and all other manner of weird and wonderful things instead)

    Second year, medium sized town, second floor of a two-story LeoPalace, had one or two, generally not a problem

    Next apartment was also LeoPalace and brand new yet I saw them on a regular basis.

    Oddly, the following place I lived in was old, and in Nagoya, but I never saw so much as one.

    Moved in with my then girlfriend, now wife: none. She was of the firm belief that keeping your house spotless is a good deterrent; although if the neighbours are slobs, that can negate it.

    Now we live in a fairly new mansion (in the Japanese meaning of the word) and haven’t seen any yet. We also have these plug-in devices which are alleged to keep cockroaches away. Whether they’re working or not, of course, I can’t tell; I can only say that they’re not *not* working, as we don’t get roaches.

    So overall, fairly lucky on that front.

42. Live on the ground floor in a wooden apartment and nothing.

43. I purposely live on floor 8+ to avoid this issue. Been living here for 6 years, never had an issue with cockroaches. We had flies one time, but it was due to pet environment. Other than that, no issues.

    I think the general sentiment is, the cheaper/lower floor it is, the higher the chances of it happening.

44. I live quite high up in a tower mansion so I’ve never seen one at my place, but my ex who was a clean freak still had to deal with them from time to time because she lived close to the ground in a regular apartment complex.

45. I have a deal with my home centipede 🤝

46. I’ve lived in 5 different places since moving to Japan. After moving into slightly pricier places made of concrete, I stopped seeing cockroaches.

    First place, ground floor LeoPalace RIGHT next to the garbage pickup. It was there I found out what baby cockroaches look like. ¥50000/month

    Second place, second floor above a hair salon. Would regularly find dead cockroaches in and around my toilet. Also swarms in my kitchen. ¥30000/month

    Third place, third floor, across the street from a hospital. One cockroach each year between summer and autumn. Without fail. ¥60000/month

    Fourth place, first floor… Concrete building! Never saw a cockroach. Rarely saw any bugs inside. ¥90000/month

    Fifth place, ninth floor, concrete, daily cleaning staff, dedicated on-site trash facilities. No cockroaches. No bugs. ¥200000/month

    Concrete seems to be the answer.

47. they can fly??? Wow. New fear unlocked.