Fear of and getting rid of cockroaches

G

God's lonely asperger

Protestant
Heritage
I absolutely despise cockroaches. They are so downright ugly and nasty that they make you question why God made them in the first place. This is common place like fear or hate of rats, but sewer rats are different than bubonic plague rats from the 1400s. You will not see a version of Ratatouille for these things. Trying not to say profanity over roaches, but I think I got the point across that I somewhat fear, and don't like cockroaches.

So what do we do with this information? Sun Tzu's first rule is to know your enemy, and I do not exaggerate this. Florida has flying beast cockroaches from what I heard, but I constantly just get the smaller ones here. A giant one is not the norm at all for me. Still, one has to recognize what infestation he has, and why it is there. Do not judge a Christian brother when he chimps out over a flying beast cockroach, or a medium sized normal legged beast.

My situation is the average story for infestations. Humbler apartment, near grass, in Brazilian big-ish city, without proper poisoning for it. Sometimes you just move openings in your apartment, like windows, and these guys will be bothered you disturbed their habitat in some type of wood biome nature thing. I always lived near grass, but it varies very much.
Problem number one is that I noticed small cockroaches upon getting on said humbler apartment today. I don't go here often, so if I eat a pizza or something that has crumbs, even if I thoroughly clean the crumbs, the DIY poisoning (putting raid on the openings like sewers and bathrooms) is not enough considering the "wildlife" or bugs near it. Had a lot of ants here as well, but they got spooked.
I also had bed bugs even on fancy apartments, but overlooked it until someone pointed out the large bites from it. Just an additional fact for this.

I also got some eggs on the doors, as is to be expected with an OLD apartment. Not sure if they're cockroach eggs, since they're small, but I don't think someone would put brown-reddish gum looking candy on my door..

Post advice on roaches, or how you live with these things. Do you just whack a mole them regularly and suck up to it, or invest in good poisoning? Had houses, apartments, etc with the former and latter. Varying degrees of infestation. Sometimes just downright nasty infestation.
 
Get2choppaaa said:
This is one of the most bizarre posts I've seen here.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what your standards for bizarre here would fall on, but it is pretty bizarre to rant on cockroaches either way. This is a thread that I believe would have been in the RVF or fit there. At least on the older days. The top search query for RVF was at one point "RVF carpet cleaning". Cockroaches are a lesser example of wildlife, so irrational fear of that hurts any man.

Get2choppaaa said:
Aside from the usual roach bombs/spraying not sure what advancements there have been in the field of insecticide...
Click to expand...
Insecticide in itself is not as simple, I find. If you DIY, like I did, it causes cracks in the system. If you pay a guy in the field of it, carrying poison around, he will undoubtedly do a better job than you spraying raid poison around the house and maybe poisoning yourself along the way, if you overuse it. The question is if you are using an infested place for work or really need it. Being homeless for a day after having literal scorpions around the house is a reality I had in my tall grass former residence, and with insecticide poison around.

Get2choppaaa said:
I think you ought to do some internet research and TELL US what works.
Click to expand...
Internet research does not fit all cases. I kind of described my situation in OP, but then again, not really. This post should be enough, especially the response above. As of right this moment, I am just wilding over these dang eggs. If they cracked now, it would be an infestation that would require immediate and large use of poison I have here (raid), and if they didn't, I'd have to mess around with that nasty garbage of their fluids to remove them from an already nasty place. To be honest, I just got disgusted looking up "what do cockroack eggs look like" and made this thread, but this thread very much fits man's lifestyle, though it is bizarre.
 
God's lonely asperger said:
I absolutely despise cockroaches. They are so downright ugly and nasty that they make you question why God made them in the first place. This is common place like fear or hate of rats, but sewer rats are different than bubonic plague rats from the 1400s. You will not see a version of Ratatouille for these things. Trying not to say profanity over roaches, but I think I got the point across that I somewhat fear, and don't like cockroaches.

So what do we do with this information? Sun Tzu's first rule is to know your enemy, and I do not exaggerate this. Florida has flying beast cockroaches from what I heard, but I constantly just get the smaller ones here. A giant one is not the norm at all for me. Still, one has to recognize what infestation he has, and why it is there. Do not judge a Christian brother when he chimps out over a flying beast cockroach, or a medium sized normal legged beast.

My situation is the average story for infestations. Humbler apartment, near grass, in Brazilian big-ish city, without proper poisoning for it. Sometimes you just move openings in your apartment, like windows, and these guys will be bothered you disturbed their habitat in some type of wood biome nature thing. I always lived near grass, but it varies very much.
Problem number one is that I noticed small cockroaches upon getting on said humbler apartment today. I don't go here often, so if I eat a pizza or something that has crumbs, even if I thoroughly clean the crumbs, the DIY poisoning (putting raid on the openings like sewers and bathrooms) is not enough considering the "wildlife" or bugs near it. Had a lot of ants here as well, but they got spooked.
I also had bed bugs even on fancy apartments, but overlooked it until someone pointed out the large bites from it. Just an additional fact for this.

I also got some eggs on the doors, as is to be expected with an OLD apartment. Not sure if they're cockroach eggs, since they're small, but I don't think someone would put brown-reddish gum looking candy on my door..

Post advice on roaches, or how you live with these things. Do you just whack a mole them regularly and suck up to it, or invest in good poisoning? Had houses, apartments, etc with the former and latter. Varying degrees of infestation. Sometimes just downright nasty infestation.
Click to expand...
In Australia pest control professionals have stronger commercial grade chemicals that are not available to the retail market which are a lot more effective (but obviously there is some negative environmental and poisoning concerns surrounding those). They don't have this system in Brazil?

In general calling in a professional pest controller every 6 months works in most cases.
 
Australia Sucks said:
In Australia pest control professionals have stronger commercial grade chemicals that are not available to the retail market which are a lot more effective (but obviously there is some negative environmental and poisoning concerns surrounding those). They don't have this system in Brazil?

In general calling in a professional pest controller every 6 months works in most cases.
Click to expand...
The big thing in this thread is countries. Australia being the elephant or kangaroo in the room, that needs entire warnings on Peppa Pig for kids to not touch spiders. Did not happen in Brazil as spiders are a road thing on large spaces of grass. Scorpions are a big issue on some states and cities. Gym worker friend got bitten by one very hard, and called in sick.

Pest control I often hire, but not this time, as detailed. It is kind of troublesome to have a new house, and an infestation of cockroaches to give you good night's sleep. Spiders are a no-brainer and Aussie pest control is probably billionaire at this point.
 
On a more educated guess, with a biological advice website, cockroach eggs are in fact as bad as I thought. Almost 48 cockroaches once they open up. Makes me wary just to imagine, and it did not help the website had these large pictures. This is the fear part of this thread, which I'd say is irrational.

What is rational is calculating what to do with an infestation. Cockroaches never killed anyone (maybe, actually) but you would never want to get swarmed by them. Like scorpions, except scorpions and spiders can one hit kill in real life, which I'm not well knowledged on which animals and bugs are OP or need a nerf, but still, as a human, I try to keep infestations in control, especially in a newer or way older type of house.

Very rational is calculating the days for it to hatch, which was my main point. Statistically, more than a month, but I can't really tell when they were laid down. It says on the website I mentioned earlier some very rational advice, such as where they even put it (very hidden on purpose).

The lowercase orthodox advice is to just stomp the eggs or putt them on a freezer ASAP. I am not in a good shape right now to do such things, however. It's easy, but fear is not easy or rational to overcome. Also just causes a nasty mess for everyone involved.
 
First of all, you mentioned sewer rats being not that bad. I am very opposed to having sewer rats in my life, personally. YMMV.

Leaving that important issue aside, I think you need to develop a multi-perimeter defense concept. Outer perimeter, then secondary, tertiary, and critical perimeter defense zones, each with multiple cockroach elimination protocols applied.

You may be limited in your ability to establish reasonable insect defense perimeters, but you can probably take some steps in this direction.
 
Thomas More said:
First of all, you mentioned sewer rats being not that bad. I am very opposed to having sewer rats in my life, personally. YMMV.
Click to expand...
Hah, probably thankfully, I have never visited New York. Then again, those NY rats carry the actual plague. Never seen a rat outside a zoo, or one incident I can think of. Rats are just more defensible and culturally "cleaner" than cockroaches (Ratatouille, my father loves the movie). Doesn't help I grew up only with cockroaches as the bad infestation that gets yelled. Scorpions I never had the pleasure of seeing eye to eye, even when a girl in my class had one in her school backpack.

Thomas More said:
Leaving that important issue aside, I think you need to develop a multi-perimeter defense concept. Outer perimeter, then secondary, tertiary, and critical perimeter defense zones, each with multiple cockroach elimination protocols applied.
Click to expand...
My only "defense" at home, so to speak, is just the hand poison. Spray it on a roach and then the problem is gone clean. This is the "whack-a-mole" method I kind of say in the OP. The issue is poisoning pets with raid or poisoning your own home and yourself.

Thomas More said:
You may be limited in your ability to establish reasonable insect defense perimeters, but you can probably take some steps in this direction.
Click to expand...
My ability is bad right now as I am very sick. I could elaborate more on the sickness, but being sick and seeing a possible infestation mechanism like eggs is the perfect way to kind of snap. Especially stuff I kind of fear, like roaches.

My point in this thread is not to have a "baby's first home duty" as much as it is a big thing in my life. Always hated cockroaches, and this time they took it too far with the eggs in plain sight while I'm sick. Not sure, but I kind of assume from reading this that everyone here has fancier defense of standard 20-50 dollar insecticide.
 
Get2choppaaa said:
This is one of the most bizarre posts I've seen here.

Aside from the usual roach bombs/spraying not sure what advancements there have been in the field of insecticide...

I think you ought to do some internet research and TELL US what works.
Click to expand...
For as smart as you are you seem to constantly take troll bate and run with it.

Think in terms of metaphors, it's possible we have another jewsplainer in our midst.
 
You said you're in Brazil. I've never been, but if it's warm and humid like a lot of places I've lived in Latin America, you likely can't get rid of the cockroaches entirely. When I lived in my wife's country south of the border, I made it a goal to get to where I'd only see a roach maybe two or three times a week. They if you see even one daily you've got a full blown infestation, so I figured if I didn't see one every day I was going pretty well.

Keeping your place as clean as possible is one obvious thing. Another is to keep it as dry as possible. Cockroaches need moisture, so you want to wipe up any water on your counters, floor, shower, sink, or wherever as fast as possible. Supposedly they hate vinegar, so I'd keep some in a spray bottle and spray some in the cabinets under my sink and other places in the house I thought they might hide. A little around the bottom of doors leading outside too. Just a little, not so much that there would be an overwhelming scent of vinegar in the house.

One of the most important things in keeping the roaches under control was proper use of boric acid. I had to get it shipped from the US, which surprised me, so hopefully you can find it in Brazil. It's a powder that you put down in areas where the bugs are likely to walk. It sticks to their bodies and they ingest it while grooming themselves, which basically melts them from the inside, which is a nice thought became I despise the disgusting creatures too. They can't build up an immunity to it like they can to pesticides. This link seems to explain it pretty well:


I'm back in the US now, in a cold, dry part of the country where we don't have the flying cockroaches, giant centipedes, bot flies, kissing bugs (look it up if you don't know what it is, stuff of nightmares), and hordes of ants I had to deal with in Latin America. I don't miss them at all!
 
You can get individual ones with boiling water from a kettle, that is the chemical-free method.

There are these baits which work well without dispersing chemicals - they walk into this plastic thing, nibble on a solid bait then at least you find them dead rather than running around. Sometimes they are considerate enough to go and die elsewhere. I visited a friend overseas with an infestation and observed this.
 
You just gotta learn to live along side them like Joe -



Seriously though, I share your revulsion for roaches. When I was a kid we were stationed on the FL panhandle at Eglin and lived in the craptastic base housing they had there in the early 80s. We had the most massive palmetto bugs / cockroaches there - hideous, winged monstrosities that were like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of insects. My mom would put poison all around the house trying to get rid of them. When I was like 5 or 6 I had a cowboy hat with feathers in the brim and I can still vividly recall picking it up and having one those things fly out at me because it was hiding under my hat *shrieking ensues*.

1706545563836.webp
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top