Their natural home is tropical Asia.
You see, about four hundred years ago, the ships that bore fruits and other merchandise from India and other warm countries in Asia, bore, as well, a number of little, flat, reddish brown stowaways.
Stowaways, as you know, are people that do not buy their tickets, but that hide among the ship's cargo, and so get free transportation to other countries.
Well, these little flat stowaways were not human beings, they were insects. Yes, May, they were the cockroaches.
When they landed from their hot land of Asia in cold England, they must have wondered what was to become of them. Many of them no doubt died, for they cannot stand cold weather at all; but some of them were carried, with the fruits and other things, quite unintentionally, of course, for nobody guessed they were there, into warm cellars and kitchen cupboards.
Then they felt at home!
They knew better than to leave the cosey nooks where they could hide away and sleep all day, and when they came out at night would find a delicious supper close at hand.
They are great eaters, you know, so what with the good things in the pantry and the warmth of the kitchen quarters they prospered wherever they could find a kitchen to live in.
Soon they spread all over the large cities of England and finally into even remote country districts.