Physical Debugging

[Paper Carnival]

That does it. I was enjoying a rather peaceful sleep, when I was awaken by a roach that decided to seek for adventure up the side of my neck. I slapped off the annoyance, but when I saw what it actually was it scared the crap out of me. I have a phobia for insects (especially roaches), and my house is slowly becoming a huge roach empire.

We don't know what's wrong, we have a clean house, we keep spraying stuff and leave those poison traps at the darkest corners. Our kitchen is especially suffering, every night I go downstairs to have a break from my geeky activities I'm caught in the middle of a mad roach orgy.

At least the little buggers are some kind of breed that doesn't grow any longer than about half an inch. That doesn't make them any cuter, though.

Is there a solution to the problem without getting cancer myself? Spraying not only seems to be ineffective, but it's also unhealthy. Has anyone had this problem before?

[zabnat]

Does this work? At least looks simple and cheap. And shouldn't be too harmful for humans

[Paper Carnival]

That is such an adventure-game solution We used to do something similar to keep the ants away from our honey (simply put the honey jar in a wider tapper filled with water). I'll try that tonight and see what kind of fish we get. Thanks for the advice!

[Lionmonkey]

Also, you could tame them, just like what I am going to do with the spider under my bed. I heard that they kill other insects and are realatively clean if you take a good care of feeding and washing them. And later you could eat them! And thus you will beat your fobia and will become a more accomplished person. Chicks dig this!

[InCreator]

Traps do not eliminate problem.

Is it single house? How far are neighbors?

I live in a flat and upper neighbors had cockroaches. Next thing, EVERYBODY had them. All 18 apartments (9-story building)
It was quite impossible to do anything unless neighbors eliminate their source of problem. But cockroach is often called russian national animal... Add tartar-russian ethnic alcoholics-neighbors with high tolerance of all parasites and bugs and life quickly becomes hell.
Well, roaches ARE quite harmless bugs, but still awfully disgusting and may carry diseases.
When neighbors finally decided to clean their hellhole out, roaches disappeared in whole building.

Why I ask this: Where's roaches, there's always a source. It must be SOMETHING that attracts them. FOOD.
First thing, clean kitchen from end to end to smallest crack in floor tiles. If there's ANY food that's not covered or accessible by them bugs, they won't go anywhere. A piece of bread that fell between oven and wall few days ago is quick way to keep them happy and residing for weeks. And those things eat everything. from cookies to meat to cooked vegetables.

If your home is totally roachproof, it might be messy neighbors nearby. Anyway,

Never ever leave anything edible at table or counter during night. Not bread, not meat, nothing. It is most likely forgotten, lost, or simply accessible food that keeps them in.

In daylight, they usually won't come out so nights are their dinner time.
If you have a pet, it's bowl - usually uncovered - is quickest way for them to feed.

Also, check all pipes in your home. They love going through walls near pipes, because usually, pipes don't really exactly fit in their holes made into floor or walls. There's always a bigger opening, leaving space between floor/wall and pipe so it's a quick and dark way for roaches to travel. Stuff those openings with something, even a well stuck rags would do. For extra effect, you might poison the rags.

Cover all ventilation shafts with something thick enough not leaving holes they could get through. Keep kitchen totally isolated at night if possible. Leave lights on (helps a bit).
Pick a graveyard and put poisoned food there (watch out for your pets!).
Simplest and most inexpensive bug killer which I used to eliminate a whole race of ants is

* Water or tea
* Loads of sugar, turning it almost into a syrup. Since roaches are clever, coffee-ground solution might work better and attract more, since it smells more...
* Poison (small ants die even without it, they get stuck into syrup and die, roaches are harder case)
Mix, pour a puddle somewhere you can clean easily later

Two nights of syrup puddles produced gazillion of dead ants. It was a genocide.

So, isolate, eliminate loose food (especially lost or forgotten crumbs'n'stuff), wash all dishes, keep carbage cans tightly covered, etc. You get the idea, I think. You will never kill them all or make them leave unless there's nothing for them to eat.

It's all, all in the food.
If you leave them poisoned food, chances are, they carry it to their nest and kill their babies.
But don't let them pick their diet.
For poison, anything that contains boric acid works well.

Do not spray them. It's pointless. Unless you find a nest.

[RickJ]

You need to find a pesticide that they will carry back to their nests.  I think these are usually in the form of a powder.  They walk in the powder and it gets on them, they go back to their nests to die and whatever powder is on them remains in the nest. 

The other thing you might want to try is one of those ultrasonic bug chasers.  I think Black&Decker makes one that plugs into the wall. 

[Nacho]

I only can send you my sympathies, I also have phobia to roaches

Good advices... In a national documentary it was told to spray things with wheels and to remove paperboard from the house, as well... But as said, nothing as effective as locating the source and DESTROY IT!!!

It' s great that those are small, though...

[Fyntax]

Eat them,

it's a nutritious and everlasting free source of food for both you and your entire family.

[LimpingFish]

Cockroaches are notoriously difficult to get rid of once they set up shop in your home. RickJ's suggestion about poison they take back to their nest is probably the best bet, along with actual physical destruction of their habitat. Roaches are beginning to appear here in Ireland, and reports are generally that people are having a hard time getting rid of them. Even after a nest is destroyed, they can re-establish themselves with alarming swiftness.

A couple of Vegas roach traps couldn't hurt. Or release a whole bunch of these bastards in your house.

[Evil]

I don't have a problem with roaches other than a few stray beetle-like bugs in my basement. I do have a lot of spiders and a few house centipedes.

LimpingFish may have a good idea, but those fuckers are more scary looking than roaches.

I've seen people use those "Vegas" traps and they work pretty well but don't solve the problem.

My Uncle uses a similar trap to kill ground squirrels and groundhogs on his property. You take a bucket and fill it with water and then sprinkle dried corn on top of the water. Then place a plank over the bucket and put corn on that. The animal climbs on the plank to get the food, then it looks in the bucket and sees what it thinks is a bucket full of corn. Once it jumps in, it can't get back out and it drowns. Sort of sad, but effective.

[TerranRich]

I love how we all approach problems with an adventure-gamer's mindset. Hardly anywhere else can you find that.

[zabnat]

A couple of Vegas roach traps couldn't hurt. Or release a whole bunch of these bastards in your house.

I was also going to suggest some of those buggers, but then I though because he has a phobia for insects he wouldn't like a bunch of centipedes (while not insects) running around his house .

[Ultra Magnus]

Roach problem? Just take a look at this handy-dandy instructional video.

A couple of Vegas roach traps couldn't hurt. Or release a whole bunch of these bastards in your house.

I was also going to suggest some of those buggers, but then I though because he has a phobia for insects he wouldn't like a bunch of centipedes (while not insects) running around his house .

He could always bring in lizards to eat the centipedes.
And then Chinese Needle Snakes to eat the lizards.
And then gorillas to eat the snakes.
Then, when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas will simply freeze to death.

[TerranRich]

Oh. My. God.

I have never heard of House Centipedes before today, and right after reading this thread, I go into my bathroom and what do i see among the laundry?

A House Centipede. WTF. Now I can't even go into bed I'm so freaked out.

Odd how I read about them, and now I saw one for the first time ever, minutes after reading about them.

[jetxl]

Somebody must have placed it there.

Good night, Don't let the bed bugs kill you.

[zabnat]

Oh. My. God.

I have never heard of House Centipedes before today, and right after reading this thread, I go into my bathroom and what do i see among the laundry?

A House Centipede. WTF. Now I can't even go into bed I'm so freaked out.

Odd how I read about them, and now I saw one for the first time ever, minutes after reading about them.

That's like folklore. We had to come up with different names for dangerous animals (bears, wolves etc.) because if you call them by their name they will appear . So my advice to you is not read up on any really big dangerous animals. I mean they might feel uncomfortable in your small washing machine .

[Paper Carnival]

I wish I could train an army of warrior ants, they're one of the few insects I don't mind and they're easier to deal with.

We discovered a few nests around, those buggers are more organized than what we thought. A tiny vegas trap only captured three of those, we'll make a bigger one tomorrow and see what it gets. It's good to see the humans finally winning for a change.

Well, thanks for your help, and also for those not-so-helpful-but-rather-amusing posts that we all like

Thankfully, it has never come to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A616XvtdL9A