What kind of bug/cockroach is this? ?

We just recently moved in these apartments and we have started seeing these cockroach looking bugs around. Inside as well as outside. We are going to call the exterminators but I want to know what kind it is? It's not very often we see them inside they are brown and look almost exactly like cockroaches but when i threw one in the toilet, it started swimming and it was able to climb around the toilet!!! The last time I threw a cockroach in thw toilet it drowned. Overtime we see these bugs they are usually dying(no clue why?) and some are about 1" to 1.5" inches long!!! I live in northern California so if anyone could help me out figuring what these things are it would be much appreciated. We see them throughout the day and not just night. They aren't in tiny crevices or hiding places they come out in the open and they aren't afraid of light. They look like they have little tiny pincsers or something on their butts but I don't know for sure what those things are.