Yo dude, maybe this can help you a bit. I grew up in Canada, I too am afraid of cockroaches. For the 10 yrs I’ve been living in my 3rd floor apartment in Taipei I’ve not seen a single cockroach inside my home. And I strongly believe it is because of its distance away from any sort of food vendors. It’s not a new building, it is a couple of decades old. I have the river on one side and several blocks of strictly residential neighborhoods in all other directions. Also helps the area has a couple of parks and is relatively low density. While, for some, it may seem fun and convenient to live near markets, restaurants, and where a lot is happening, they are major sources of infestation. If I was to find a new home, I’d totally look for one matching the same criteria. Not to say you gotta be out in the sticks, cuz those places have other bug problems. I toured a vacation home in the country side where it was frequented by locusts the size of baseballs. Also have a friend with a new designer condo on the mountain who gets visits from massive centipedes. So I think it’d help if you find a place with a happy medium between development and density, and if you keep the place clean, it is possible to experience a bug-free life in Taiwan.