Why do cockroaches show up even in clean places?
The short answer
Cockroaches are endemic to warm, dense cities. The medina's interconnected drainage, shared walls, and century-old construction create pathways between buildings. A cockroach in a clean riad traveled there from the infrastructure below, not from the kitchen. Their presence indicates climate and urban density, not hygiene failure.
The riad is immaculate. Tadelakt walls, fresh linen, not a crumb in sight. You turn on the bathroom light at midnight and a cockroach the size of your thumb freezes on the tile.
It's not about cleanliness. It was never about cleanliness.
Marrakech's medina is one of the densest urban environments on Earth — roughly 30,000 people per square kilometer. Buildings share walls. Drainage channels connect entire neighborhoods underground. A cockroach born in one building has physical access to every building on the same drainage line without ever going outside.
The species you're meeting is most likely Periplaneta americana — the American cockroach, which is actually African in origin. It thrives between 25°C and 33°C, which describes Marrakech for seven months of the year. It needs moisture, which the shared drainage infrastructure provides. It needs organic material, which exists in every building ever occupied by humans. It can flatten its body to fit through a gap the width of two coins.
Pest control in a medina is a collective action problem. A single riad can spray, seal, and sanitize — and the roaches will return through the shared drain from the building next door. Effective control requires every building on the same drainage line to treat simultaneously. In a medina where some buildings are abandoned, some are under renovation, and some owners live in Casablanca, coordination is impossible.