From what i remember from the documentary Joes Apartment i think you have to befriend them.

Fumigation after envelope repair.

You need to, or preferably a pro, need to go around and seal up every possible incursion point and then gas the fuckers.

There is no solution but the final solution. Traps and poisons are like addressing a leaking roof with a pot to catch the water falling on the floor. God help you if you are on piers or block foundation, your fight will be Sisyphean.

There's a food source somewhere. Assuming they're not getting food from your kitchen (you're not finding them in the pantry), there must be something else nearby. What's around? Anything you can get rid of? Old cardboard boxes? Dead plants/yard waste? Pet food?

How old is the house? Does it have wallpaper? If you are unlucky they might be eating wallpaper glue or something like that. Also have you made sure there isn't a sewage leak under the house?

There are some mini black plastic baits for them (with poison), they eat and go back to their lair, dying and infecting everyone. Every 3 months I replace mine, never had cockroaches after I've put them everywhere in my apartment, even living on top of a restaurant.

Edit: It's similar to this I think

First, as an Aussie while I would welcome you to our hairy friends they are actually not doing too great at the moment, so hands off, mine!

That said, cockroach population is almost entirely a matter of the neighbourhood you are in, not the house you are in. If you have a neighbour who's house is suitable for roaches they will live and breed there and then reinfest your home.

That leads to two main options. Move somewhere without the issue or make your house the most hostile possible place for them.

I don't know what options you could try that have not already been tried, but I will list a few I have seen work. Roach motels work well. Flypaper under the fridge works well. Some chemical treatments work well.

That said, being diligent and keeping the food for them to a minimum may be the best adjunct. By this I mean making sure food is eaten, dishes are done, surfaces are wiped, and nothing left behind as soon as possible after making meals. Emptying the rubbish bin daily, maybe even switching to a much smaller bench top one so you can have smaller bags. Adding a seal to your rubbish bins in the form of some rubber or silicone around where the lid fits, though this differs depending on your local waste management systems.

Have you tried diatomaceous earth (wp:Diatomaceous earth#Pest control) and sealing everything?

Gentrol point source. It mutates the males so that they're sterile. It take one generation and then you'll see them born with crinkled wings. Don't kill the gross mutated ones. 8 weeks and you'll notice significantly less. Its also pet safe and okay to be in areas near food. Restaurants use this as their go to. Its just a puck you stick in areas that are the worst.

Roach motels when the situation becomes unmanageable.

From what you're describing, the roaches are probably laying eggs and living inside rotted wood or old furniture.

I'm not a fan of fumigation since it is expensive, rarely works anywhere near 100%, and uses toxic chemicals, so it makes your house dirty and then the roaches are back in a couple weeks.

Buy a large pack of these glue traps with packaged bait, bait the traps as you need them, and put one trap in the area of each room you see the most roaches, somewhere dark, under furniture or out of sight.

You don't need more than one trap per room, roaches are plenty mobile. Check them daily in the beginning, replace them when they are one layer full of roaches trapped in the adhesive.

You will have a whole bunch of live roaches you can feed to your chameleon and you will notice the roach infestation going down rather drastically. They catch young and old roaches with equal effect.

Very simple traps, and I've always found them to work very well.

I recommend buying the highest rated variety of baited glue traps with the highest amount of people who have bought it before.

Have you tried fumigation? Like bug bombs or getting an exterminator to do it professionally? You might have to leave your house for a couple of days but it would attack all of them at once that way

Get that bait gel. They eat it then die back in the walls where others eat it and die.

Glue traps.

Seal up everything. Foam for the larger gaps, caulk for everything else. All baseboards.

Use the baits that destroy the nest, but you'll need many by how bad it sounds. It'll take a bit to see the effects of wiping out the next generation but I don't see how else you'd handle this on a small budget

Also it probably goes without saying but remove all their food sources and seal whatever gaps you can

You, your gf, your bf, and your wife? I'm very confused regarding who lives here

I had a minor but very noticeable infestation a few years ago, I'm guessing from a used blender I bought (picked up from someone at a not very nice looking apartment). Tried all kinds of things, and what finally made it go away was Advion bait gel and a general understanding of where they like to be. Just a tiny dab in lots of places. Obviously start in the areas you see them most, but my understanding is that they don't really like open areas. So put a tiny bit in every little corner, crack, and hole you can find. From what I remember, roaches will eat their own after they die, which means they'll ingest that bait gel and one "dose" will cause a nice chain reaction.

My dad swore by borax and I can attest to it this summer.

You can find it with the laundry detergents.

We sprinkle it on the ground and it covers everything like a scene from Scarface lol.

But what I’ve heard happens is that the roaches get it on their legs and it begins killing them as they have further contact with the powder.

I’ve heard this isn’t toxic to humans or pets, and I’ve not had issues myself or my cat or any of the other animals we’ve had over the years doing this.

I have had really bad roaches and earwigs at my house. I got fed up with it this year and threw down some of this all over the ground outside and inside. I did this at the beginning of summer when they start getting crazy.

I won’t say I’ve not seen any at all, but the numbers have gone down by 98%, easily, on both of these nasty insects.

There’s a place under a berry bush I have that seemed to harbor them and I made sure to sprinkle down a lot around the edges of that plant. About 5 inches away from the base, but still close enough and in a circle around it. I have seen some but much much less than in previous years there and my berry bush is doing fine and not reacting badly to the borax.

Borax. Lots.

An exterminator probably, but you can thin the herd by sitting up a trap.

A large preferably glass or metal bowl, and a small ramp up to said bowl. Put some sugar in the bowl and the next day there'll be some roaches trapped in the bowl. Empty and repeat...

Also those glue traps work well...

You bought a house but can’t afford $40 a month? That’s so reasonable.

No offense, but if I had a roach problem this bad I would find a way to afford $40 a month for an exterminator even if I had to cut back to bare utilities only. Maybe even no electricity and cold showers until they were gone.

There are a few around my desk because I often eat here, I get that bit.

Stop that. If you're feeding them then you undermine the entire effort. Stop it.