A city of owner-occupied houses
Census estimates count 9,652 detached houses among Temple City's 11,992 homes, about 80%, and 7,210 of its 11,454 households, about 63%, own their home. Only around 1,040 homes are in buildings with five or more units. That makes Temple City different from its denser neighbors: a cockroach problem here usually belongs to one household and one property.
In houses, the larger roaches mostly come from outside. UC IPM notes that the Oriental cockroach is most likely in single-family homes surrounded by woodpiles, ivy and ground cover, and that the invasive Turkestan cockroach lives in water meter boxes, concrete cracks, compost, leaf litter and potted plants. Both wander indoors at night. The small German cockroach is the exception: it rides in with grocery bags, moving boxes and used appliances and then breeds in the kitchen.
Sources: [1][5]
1950s houses and new builds on the same streets
The 1950s were Temple City's largest building decade, with about 3,530 of today's homes, roughly 29%, and the median home dates to 1959. At the same time, about 1,600 homes, roughly 13%, were built in 2000 or later. Older houses tend to have water heaters in garage closets, original cabinets and drain lines that have been patched over decades, all of which give cockroaches warm, sheltered gaps.
A newer house has fewer of those gaps, but it still has floor drains, a garage, irrigation and landscaping, and it still receives deliveries. UC IPM lists water heaters, cupboard cracks, stoves and crawl spaces among the places cockroaches hide during the day, so our inspection covers the garage and water heater closet as carefully as the kitchen, whatever the age of the house.
Sources: [1][5]
Restaurants, inspectors and who to call
Temple City's food businesses are inspected by LA County Environmental Health, which covers every city in the county except Long Beach, Pasadena and Vernon. A KTLA roundup of county closures from May 1 to June 4, 2026 listed a Temple City restaurant closed for vermin infestation on June 3, with no reopening date given. The county does not say whether such closures involve insects or rodents.
Temple City is a member city of the San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District, but the district does not respond to cockroaches and refers residents to private pest control.
About 13,200 residents, some 39% of those age five and older, speak Chinese at home, and about 7,800 of them speak English less than very well, according to Census estimates. Our technicians speak English and Spanish, our website can be read in Chinese at pespro.com/zh, and family members are welcome to join the visit to help explain the plan.
Sources: [3][2][4][1]
