History of German cockroaches
German cockroaches are not native to North America. American cockroaches and Brown Banded cockroaches are common to this country but German cockroaches, as their name describes are from continental Europe. They may have originated in Germany but the truth of the matter is that cockroaches have existed since the Carboniferous era and has been found by geologist to be about 300 million years old meaning they existed before the dinosaurs and have survived multiple global extinction events, the ice age and will survive global warming and possibly global nuclear war. They are the oldest insect on the planet. To say the German cockroach is from Germany is false as cockroaches were around before mammals existed, let alone humans.
The birth rate of German cockroaches
Cockroaches often have five to ten babies in a single egg sack, which is called an ootheca in etymological terms. This ootheca is a protective coating as cockroaches have only one canal in their bodies. They have a digestive tract but no birthing canal and so the eggs must survive a journey through stomach acid that is very strong and comes out through a single exit that combines both liquid and solids. German cockroaches have a superpower even compared to other cockroaches. They can produce up to sixty eggs in a single ootheca making them one of the most serious infestations of cockroaches you can have.
Cockroaches can eat anything
Cockroaches can live off of almost anything. They can eat the glue off of cardboard boxes and feed off food in a drain that is years old. They will eat any organic matter they can find, so the question is not how long they can go without food but how long it will take them to find it.
They will find more food
In a perfect world if you sealed off everything in your kitchen, cleaned every crumb of food from your home, threw away every cardboard box, book and magazine with a glue binding and carefully cleaned every drain in your kitchen with multiple bottles of drain cleaner then there may be nothing for them to eat.
Starvation? Not a problem
In this specific and unlikely case, they would starve to death in a month. That being said. In the event, food becomes that scarce they will resort to cannibalism and start eating each other. So at the end of the day, you could do everything in your power to keep them from food and they would still be there, still infesting your home and still accessing food whether through a drain through your neighbour’s trash, or your crumbs they will survive and they will continue to live.
Treatment of cockroaches
The only way to get rid of them is through treatment. You cannot freeze them out as that requires temperatures lower than seventeen degrees celsius, you cannot starve them because they will find food in places you cannot access and they will perceive even if they have to eat each other.
Professional treatments
So get a treatment done. A professional one with commercial grade chemicals and get it done fast. Even after a commercial treatment you will still be seeing activity for up to an entire month and will still be breathing their moult and touching their faces and urine. All of which are extremely dangerous to your health.