Cockroaches

Yes, & yes!. I´ve only seen one where I live. Must be thriving down your way.

If you search on the forum, there´s plenty of stories & advice.

Villas

I'm afraid it's a inescapable fact of life that in a hot climate like Spain's you're going to find cockroaches and mozzies pretty much everywhere.

How much of an actual problem they present can vary enormously though, and be quite localised, so asking about whole areas, such as your question about Santa Pola, is futile as unfortunately it can only ever elicit individual and subjective responses.

Mozzies are of course selective about who they choose to feed from (only females bite) so it's perfectly possible to have two people living next door to each other one of whom gets bitten to death on a daily basis whilst the other gets bitten rarely if ever at all.

Accepting the virtual certainty of encountering one or the other or both then control and deterrence come into play but you can only plan and implement those once you know you have a problem, and its extent.

As an aside I was at the Marjal campsite at Catral last week and saw a young woman in a bikini with mozzie bites over just about every square inch of her body head to toe. I felt sorry for her of course but at the same time thought that in a mozzie infested area she would be an ideal neighbour to have !

To keep mozzies away eat plenty of spicy food , loads of onions and garlic ,it comes out thro the pores of your skin and keeps them away to find someone who smells a little sweeter , a side effect is your friends also stay away …..!!

Not mine! eat that more than me! ( not not the mozzies) they searching out coastal KFC, Ol' Mc Donald ( when he sold the farm into the fast food sector) & English sausages! i've been told. ( I did'nt believe!). Villas.

Not just in the local area, they are all along the coast and beyond!

There is a niche market available for them if you can handle catching them!

You will find both all over this area of Spain, perfect breeding groun, hot. They have ample food as people BBQ, spilt oil, splashes if oil, crumbs from the crusty bread all sustain cockroaches. As a previous poster has said you are never more than 6 feet away from a cockroach.

And other comments (& I agree) are  the breeding ground, (cockroaches) are in the sewers, which why they live. They will emerge for the human odd splash´s at a bar-b-q, along with the rest of the insects & animals, rats, ants, wasps, mossies foxes,cats dogs & the rest of the world, we have invaded. Most existed for centuries before the humans decided to even cook meat,  build sewers or turn into vegans. They are the survivors, I think!

Villas 

We live on Urb Montegolf and have seen few more than previous years.

We purchased a plug in from Leroy Merlin designed to repel cockroaches, so far it seems to be working as not seen any since.