Roach motels work quick and efficiently.
This wouldn't happen if DC could ban handguns.
Give them little laptops and wait for them to autocockblock.
I predict this thread is going to get really disgusting.
This wouldn't happen if DC could ban handguns.
Wait, that's just it! Shoot 'em!
After four years it won't get any worse, you know.
You can't stomp on them, because then they crunch, and that really is disgusting. Bleah.
Move. Or napalm. Whichever's cheaper. Or more fun. You decide. And remember to liveblog if you go with napalm, okay?
2: Roach motels work quick and efficiently.
When I used them (in roach central Houston) I always had the impression that roaches were traveling great distance just to die in my "motels". Lots of dead roaches, but lots of ongoing live ones too.
11: They worked great in my basement apartment in Austin. And there were boatloads of big flying roaches everywhere right outside my door.
i hate to break it to you, but i saw cockroaches 4-5 times in my flophouse stint. i once killed one by throwing a bathroom stack of new yorkers at it. anyways, i think some motels will probably do the job.
i once killed one by throwing a bathroom stack of new yorkers at it.
This was, of course, before the DC gun control law was struck down.
Call an exterminator. Or mix up some Borax.
13: I bet it was the caption contest that delivered the final blow.
the borax link is funny
i had the poison sent to me by my loving family, it just leaves traces on the floor and my jade died for a season, but no live creatures since the eradication campain
i can bring it for you in august if you wish
I once had a cockroach hiding in the overhead vent in my house. (The only reason I knew it was there was because the antennae were sticking out.) It lay there motionless for twelve hours. Finally, I figured it was dead so I unscrewed the vent to get it out. It jumped out, and I couldn't figure out where it went. I discovered about five minutes later the fucker was hiding inside my sleeve. It was gigantic, too.
Long story, but onthread: While living in New Orleans, I co-habitated with the sainted Megan, a Lab-Husky mix. She was a wonderful and sweet dog. But also a stone killer. (She learned to hunt on a trip to Montana when she was just eight months old. She disappeared from the cabin where we were staying one evening and only returned two days later, with blood, not her own, all over her lovely white maw.) One time, while running with her in Audubon Park, she began stalking a squirrel, which wasn't unusual. But I happened to notice a group of schoolkids watching the hunt. They were so impressed with how lovely little Megan was. And she really was. Until she caught the squirrel, after a zig-zag chase across twenty or thirty feet of open terrain, and shook it to death before ripping it to bits. The kids began screaming. I left the park, pretending that I had no idea whose awful dog that was.
Anyway, one night, while writing in my room in my quaint Uptown raised plantation, I heard a loud skittering. Looking down, I noticed the largest Palmetto Bug (there are no roaches in New Orleans, you see, as roaches lack the proper romance for such a once-proud city) I'd ever seen. It was at least three or four inches long. Megan noticed it, too. Her ears pricked up. She began tracking its movement with her eyes. And I figured, "Well, sorry Mr. Palmetto Bug, but you're about to slip off this mortal coil." Megan then pounced. But in mid-pounce, the horrid bug took off, flying, making the sound of a small Bell (not at all like a Eurocopter or a Boeing, for sure) helicopter. Megan stopped herself, I'm not sure how, and reversed course. She then jumped up on the bed and began cowering under my sheets. I had to kill the bug myself.
We moved the next day.
The big roaches (not the little ones but the big 2 inch monsters) like wet, damp, cool and vegetation. What that means is that if you're seeing a bunch of those, there is probably some kind of vegetation growning really near the flophouse (along the outer walls) that wasn't there before. Your giant roach will hide in that vegetation and loiter, which gives them lots of time to find the cracks in the walls (or you're leaving the windows open, which works out to be the same thing), and smell the lovely cool air, pizza and beer.
[Joke deleted.] Anyways, remove the vegetation from near the doors and/or cracks in the walls and/or open windows and they then should lack easy entrace into your humble hovel abode, and since they don't reporduce indoors, that should be the end of them.
Of course, if you really need a good gassing/dusting/experience with mass-manufactured non-organic deeply cruel chemicals, I can holler at my step-dad and see if he can work you in.
max
['At least you aren't afflicted with wood-eating bees, right?']
I want all the motherfuckers dead. What's the best course of action here?
Step 1: eradicate the human race.
Step 2: allow remains of human civilization to crumble and disappear.
Step 3: without fresh garbage and artificial heat, cockroaches will dwindle and retreat to the tropical lands from which they sprang.
This is also good for rats.
She said she wants them all dead.
Stop this madness. We don't have cockroaches. We have had a completely reasonable number of cockroach interactions for a house in an urban area. It's summer, they seek shelter from the heat, but they're not the (little brown) kind that nest and truly infest.
Hey Arm Guy, your blog is down. I bet you didn't know that already.
Cockroaches have taken over my domain.
i once killed one by throwing a bathroom stack of new yorkers at it
#1. How about saying that you threw a stack of Time Magazines or People Magazines at it? The New Yorker is swipple and we're moving away from that concept.
#2. Please capitalize properly because the Mehitabel reference is too subtle for the Unfoggetariat, which likes unambiguous, unmistakable messages which don't need a lot of interpretation and context.
Just like whitey to underrate the black cockroach. Racist.
|| I'm reading a true crime book about the Mafia, one of my favorite literary genres. The author is a childhood friend of the mafia boss he's writing about who became a true crime writer, and his affection is at war with genre conventions, giving the book a strangely schizophrenic quality.
So on one page you might read "After hearing what he had to say -- garnered while being beaten and tortured -- Gaspipe shot him in the stomach and buried him, still alive and screaming, in the Everglades off 595...Gaspipe gave no more thought to killing those who crossed him than an ordinary person gives to stepping on a cockroach."
Then a few pages later..."For Anthony [Gaspipe] Casso, the bond and solidarity of family was in a very tangible way, like a religious committment -- a holy bond to be devoted to, to be held in high esteem and respected...His love for Lillian was deep and wide and all consuming. As well as being husband and wife, Lillian and Anthony were helpmates and friends...partners in life".
Of course, the very next line continues "Yes, Anthony fooled around with other women now and then, females he met in fancy restaurants...but Lillian he held in high esteem, he trusted only her."
The last few chapters of the book are devoted to a tiresome series of complaints about Mr. Casso not getting a break from the government even though he flipped after being arrested. ||>
Sorry for the digression. Kill the cockroachs. Give them no more thought than a Mafioso might to someone he vaguely suspected of having betrayed him.
Please capitalize properly . . . the Mehitabel reference
One of those immutable rules of life.
Why must there be cockroaches? Why?
They're properly called "Attenboroughs". And they're really very friendly.
I bet that Jake guy is a real douche.
31: there is an entire branch of theology known as "theodicy" that deals with this question. It also addresses the mosquito issue.
The subject of extermination reminds me of the all-time greatest product name. Want to eliminate pests? Buy some death!
Someone once told me that the big black bugs are not cockroaches at all but some other kind of beetle that's harmless. Is this false?
Just like whitey to underrate the black cockroach. Racist.
Sorry, DS, whitey's now more afraid of the Mexicans.
Insofar as it implies that cockroaches are harmful, yes.
Wait, I thought this was Unfogged? Shouldn't someone be saying something like:
Just like whitey to underoverrate the black cockroach. Racist.
? I'm disappointed in you people.
23:Armsmasher. One or two waterbugs, the big ones, can come in with newspapers, grocerry bags, boxes or whatever. Flyswat them and don't worry about. And I think they are too big for the usual roach motels. It is the little ones, in vast quantity, that are horrific.
Umm, incidentally, disgusting confession. While I was deepest into my speed-driven high modernist studies in the mid 70s, I was in an efficiency near downtown Dallas. I got both newspapers daily, and never threw them out. I ate TV dinners, and just lay the empty trays on the kitchen counter. I was inexpressibly disgusting and seriously crazy, and the dozens of waterbugs did Busby Berkeley routines on my kitchen table, trying to distract me from Wilson & Kenner. Or so I remember.
(Aww fuck glanced at the weather channel:
7 straight 100+ forecasted, and it's only July. Bad summer)
I hear that squirrels will take care of the cockroaches. Of course, this could be like swallowing spiders.
Becks' cockroaches are black metal. (The Norwegian kind -- they're a little lost.)
38: I'll teach them, fuckers. Underrate the black cock, will they?
Of course, this could be like swallowing spiders.
When you face an infestation of horses, you'll think back fondly to the days of cockroaches.
Diatomamus earth. Which you can get at like garden supply places and shit. Sprinkle it between the floor boards, behind the baseboards, cracky places like that. It's non-toxic for people and pets but it cuts the shells of bugs all to crap and kills them.
Diatomaceous, for those of you Googling at home.
It also used to be used in swimming pool filtration systems. And it's really NOT non-toxic for people. You really DON'T want to breathe it. Or you'll get CANCER. (I think.)
49: Right.
Don't listen to Ari. You're not going to be snorting the stuff.
When I lived in Brooklyn these horrible giant cockroaches would show up occasionally. Once I killed one with a 2x4. They often seemed to end up sitting on the bourbon bottle. Maybe you could leave out a saucer of bourbon and see if they drown in it. It works with snails and beer.
Men will sometimes try to tell you these hideous creatures are harmless, but that is because they know you're going want them to catch and kill the things, or at least relocate them outdoors.
Right. Don't listen to me. I just mix the drinks. But do listen to these people. Unless you want to die.
Or you'll get CANCER
Silicosis, actually.
Silicosis
Whatever, smartypants. With your big words.
Huh. I stand corrected. But you can still get silicosis.
Silicosis, actually.
One of the occupational hazards of running with hackers: one of my very good friends picked this as his handle, with the result that whenever I see it I think "aw, Sili" and my thoughts turn to warm nostalgia, as opposed to crippling lung disease.
Turns out that cockroaches are landcarp. Where's your God now, Emerson?
OT:Yet I, simple critter that I am, find myself very pleased today. For my favourite online gallery has become active again after a couple quiet months. New Bellows! Luks! Demuth! Arthur Davies!
Unless you are into those old foreign farts like Raphael and Titian, this is the best. Got 1875-1925 covered, dudes, like all down. Even Pascin and that Austrian pervert Schiele.
Good on earlier Americans too, the Peales, Copley.
One of the occupational hazards of running with hackers
Having to stop every 10 feet to let them catch their breath?
Bear in mind that if you kill the cockroaches, you can't use them to control robots.
61: that's why they have rollerblades, dude. It's like you've never seen the films of Angelina Jolie.
warm nostalgia, as opposed to crippling lung disease
I suppose these really are mutually exclusive, aren't they?
There is a difference between sprinkling non-toxic bug killer in your floors and working in a factory that produces the crap, Ari, you paranoid Jew.
With your big words.
I got your big words right here.
The full name for this disease when caused by the specific exposure to fine silica dust found in volcanoes is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
64: I dunno. I'm pretty nostalgic for smoking.
That doesn't mean you're not paranoid.
You're totally freaking me out. But wait, that's what you mean to do, right? Oh, fuck.
Next up, I put cockroaches in your shoes.
Everyone loves the Jews, except the Jews themselves. That's why today's biggest anti-Semites are Jewish.
B's right, you know. Paranoia and having enemies are independent.
75: untrue. Having enemies is independent of paranoia, but the opposite is much more complicated.
You can be paranoid and have enemies, and you can be paranoid and not have enemies. You can have enemies and be paranoid, and you can have enemies and not be paranoid.
You can even have enemies and be paranoid with regard to the selfsame entities which are your enemies.
They're independent.
B's right, you know.
Ah, such lovely words.
Some basic results of Enemies and Paranoia theory:
P(enemies,paranoia) = P(enemies) x P(paranoia)
P(enemies | paranoia) = P(enemies)
P(paranoia | enemies) = P(paranoia)
P(paranoia | enemies) = P(paranoia)
I refute!
P(paranoia | enemies) > P(paranoia), for the general case.
That's why today's biggest anti-Semites are Jewish.
Most of the Bible is a passionate epic of Jewish anti-semitism. Culminating in the New Testament.
Maybe you think the NT is part of the Bible, friend.
I like the bible. They talk a lot about NASCAR.
Damnit! I am totally pre-pwned by 66. It was in my spelling book in 6th grade and I decided to memorize it. That was not the first rung on the ladder to being That Guy, but it sure was one of 'em.
That was not the first rung on the ladder to being That Guy, but it sure was one of 'em.
My fiancee just showed me some pictures of the diatoms whose fossils constitute diatomaceous earth. They are pretty! Maybe we'll use them in the wedding invites.
Come on, everyone knows about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
What I should have said is that everyone knows about "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis".
It is true. Leonard Cohen even said so. "Everybody knows how much his dose is / to fight off pneumonoultramicroscopicilicovolcanoconiosis / it really blows / this everybody knows."
Which you can get at like garden supply places and shit. Sprinkle it between the floor boards, behind the baseboards, cracky places like that. It's non-toxic for people and pets but it cuts the shells of bugs all to crap and kills them.
There's only one problem: that shit does not work. I'm the guy who tried every organic garden thing in the book and doesn't use chemical fertilizer etc. etc. I tried that stuff for three or four years and frankly, it was slightly worse than useless. That green shit with the catapillar disease in it works great. Praying mantises work great. Assorted various organic compund sprays work fabulously, but the DE does not cut it. You can dump that stuff straight on an ant mound and after they stop laughing so hard, they eat it. And then they get bigger and stronger.
Usually your product recommendations are dead on but you got this one wrong.
McManus: While I was deepest into my speed-driven high modernist studies in the mid 70s, I was in an efficiency near downtown Dallas.
Over 'round Fitzhugh and Gaston and all that? If it was as early as 73, we wuz neighbors! (You didn't know a hippie stoner motorcycle mechanic named Je/sse Re/ich, did ye?)
(Aww fuck glanced at the weather channel: 7 straight 100+ forecasted, and it's only July. Bad summer)
Sigh. Python is outlawed and verboten. Nonetheless, YOU LUCKY, LUCKY BASTARD!
max
['Maybe they have stopped with the fireworks now, finally.']
Wait! Not DE. BORIC ACID.
Sorry, my bad. Thanks, Max.
Yeah, boric acid works. Or at least it killed all of the ants and fleas that infested one my places in New Orleans. Nothing killed the palmetto bugs -- not even my dog, as I've already noted. Also, I don't think boric acid will kill you if you inhale it, which is a plus. The guy who came to spread it around my NOLA apartment actually ate some of it to "prove" to me that it was "harmless." I was like, "Um, you really don't have to do that." To which he said, "No, it's okay, this stuff is harmless." And I said, "Please don't eat that. PLEASE." Then he stopped. But not because he got cancer in front of my eyes. I don't think.
One of those aerosol bombs for each room (and please do follow the directions about open flames, pilot lights, food, etc.) and then motels, especially under sinks and near toilets.
That routine worked fine in the Alabama bug belt, I only had to repeat the bombing when I forgot to refresh the motels for too long.
Or, an air-rifle is good, and will prepare you for the soon to be available louder fun toys in D.C.
Over 'round Fitzhugh and Gaston and all that? If it was as early as 73, we wuz neighbors
Yeah, I lived on Fitzhugh for a while, but my main area was in Oak Lawn, Lemmon/Cedar Springs/Wycliff area. Couple blocks down from the chicken-fried place, 1st of the chain. There were several places. Fairmount. McCommas or one of the M's.
Your memory is better than mine. I had to look some of this up. I have trouble with years.
I can't believe how optimistic everyone is in this thread. Fact: you cant kill the cockroaches. The black Palmetto ones are better, sure, in terms of infestation, btu they are fucking disgusting and resillient. Call an exterminator have her/him spray poison, they will stay out of your place for a spell. But within a few months you will examine the corners of the home in the morning and discover tiny piles of itsy bitsy black balls: cockroach shit. You just have to start pretending you don't know they are around.
I have no advice but I sympathize entirely. I went 2+ years at my current place without seeing a cockroach, and now I've seen 4 in the last month. I don't know why they've suddenly appeared, as it's not like my cleanliness habits have changed. My theory is that the drought here has killed off all the spiders that used to keep them out.
Praying mantis. And cats. And poison.
hmm.
i have a mouse and the bunny rabbit is not exactly effective at getting rid of it for me. though he did thump his danger signal at it one time. and it ran away.
am trying to find a way to get rid of the mouse that does not involve glue traps.
DE does work pretty well when you have Confused Flour Beetles in your mill and augers. Just drop a half a cup into the bottom of your silo after you've run it empty. Be sure to wear a breathing mask the next time you use it though.
100: Kitten? I know people who have a rabbit and a cat (and a dog) who get along fine. It's like the Peaceable Kingdom. The mouse won't know that, though.
Failing that, old fashioned traps--unpleasant, but less so than the glue traps, which are horrible.
The full name for this disease when caused by the specific exposure to fine silica dust found in volcanoes is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
Our confirmation class got to pick a word that the pastor had to use in his sermon, and we chose that one.
I love living in Minnesota. I've never had to deal with a single roach. (You can get them here, but you have to be singularly devoted to poor hygiene and/or live in an apartment building with a neighbor who is).
Here, creepy crawlies are just part of the price of living in paradise (tm), but if one must live in DC in July, it does seem reasonable--perhaps futile, but reasonable--to expect that roaches not be part of the deal.
104: I saw three roaches in Dinkytowm in 1967-8.
before most of you fuckers were born.
Shit, by 1968 I was hardly even in diapers any more.
Here, creepy crawlies are just part of the price of living in paradise (tm)
I've seen and lived with those enormous goddamn flying cockroaches elsewhere, but it was only in Hawaii that I had one land on me. GAH. If more people knew about all the big fucking bugs, there wouldn't be as many tourists there.
I got used to the big cockroaches in Taiwan. I also had parades of tiny ants, a gecko, mud-dauber wasp nests two years in a row, a centipede, and a spider behind the stove about 6" across. The only things that creeped me out were the centipede and the first wasp.
AFAIK the big cockroaches don't actually live in your house, they just blow in by mistake. You're not going to end up with a thousand of them, they way you might with little cockroaches.
IME cockroaches need warmth and love grease. You can trap them in paper bags soaked in bacon grease.
I gotta admit one of the best things about MN is the bug unfriendliness of it. Forgetting the mosquito of course.
The worst bug problem I have faced were the sweet-loving yellowjackets attracted to my apple tree in the autumn. The second worst were the flesh-loving yellowjackets that swarmed some ducks I was attempting to clean outside.
Both kinds were bad-tempered, insatiable, and I don't think they even had the decency to die after stinging.
Eh, fewer bugs would be nice, but it's fairly low on the list of things I worry about. The only ones I really hate are the occasional summer termite swarms. Sometimes you have to just turn off all the lights and go to bed so you're not attracting the little fuckers into the house.
Not Prince,
Different strokes and all that. If you don't mind my asking what are your 'worries' in regards to where you live?
Cost of living; hurricanes; how bad the local economy will get due to climate change, high fuel costs, and Dan Inouye's likely failure to live forever; how to educate the two boys we're likely to inherit in the fairly near future, given the weakness of the public schools, the nature of their needs, and the limits of their preparation for anything involving competitive admission; remoteness; dysfunctional political culture; that sort of thing (in no particular order).
Forgetting the mosquito of course.
Forgetting the mosquito leads to unfair bias in favor of the north. Bugs may be more spectacularly disgusting in the tropics, but nothing IME compares to mosquitos in muskeg in the Yukon. Like a horror movie—the sound is ceaseless and comes from everywhere; caribou bite their fur into tatters for some relief, and look like they're going insane. Which probably they are, in some caribou-specific way. I'm sure Jackmormon can back me up on this.
115: My experience is BC rather than Yukon, but amen. You don't get bitten a whole lot if you keep dousing yourself with repellent all the time, but you still have clouds of the little bastards buzzing around a couple of inches from your head.
