The cockroach may be the most objectionable household insect. They consume human food and contaminate it with saliva and excrement. They also produce secretions that impart a characteristic stinking odor. Most of the roaches observed in the Las Vegas area are German, Oriental, American, or brown-banded. Cockroaches can carry boils, dysentery, hepatitis, plague, salmonella, typhus, and several other diseases.
Cockroaches are primarily carbohydrate eaters.
They feed on just about anything of vegetable origin. But cockroaches also like meat. While they prefer starch, they thrive on grease, sweets, paper, soap, cardboard, book bindings, ink, shoe polish, and even dirty clothes. They've been known to gnaw on a fingernail while people sleep and on infants' eyelashes. They are especially fond of beer.