On battling cockroaches

23 Oct 2006

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

Help! I'm having a mysterious cockroach problem. I found four in my apartment in two weeks, and not in the expected places: one in a stack of papers (I know, I should pay my bills faster), one near my vitamin bottles, one nowhere near water in my bathroom, and, the worst one, crawling along the arm of my couch (while I was sitting on the couch). I don't like to spray them with chemicals, but these things freak me out. How can I get rid of these beasties without poisoning my space (not to mention my cats)?

Julie
New York, N.Y.

Ask Umbra continues below

ADVERTISING POLICY

Dearest Julie,

Cockroaches have been around for hundreds of millennia, and will keep on keepin' on long after our species is gone, as anyone at the journal Cockroach Studies could tell you. (Note to self: send cover letter, stat!) The good news is, there are scads of non-poisonous solutions.

How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways.

Photo: iStockphoto

The best solution to a cockroach infestation is never to have one. (As they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of roaches.) Effective prevention includes eliminating or minimizing moisture, food sources, and entry points for your insect friends. Be sure to drain sinks, tubs, and showers of standing water, regularly mop up condensation that collects under the fridge, and consider emptying your cats' water bowl at night, when roaches are most active. Don't keep food -- human or cat -- out, empty the trash often, don't leave unwashed dishes lying about, and sweep and vacuum frequently. You might also consider caulking or otherwise eliminating gaps around drainpipes and the like to prevent the buggies from coming back.

All this work won't necessarily get rid of your current gang (check out this lineup to see who you're hosting). So I have a few more ideas for you, most of which will necessitate keeping a careful eye on your cats.

If you're into peaceful approaches, you might be pleased to learn that catnip is a natural cockroach repellant, as is an inedible, softball-sized fruit called a hedgeapple. You can place these in known roach hotspots, sit back, and watch the diaspora.

Another option might be a simple trap. Roaches apparently love beer and bread, as well as cat and dog food. Place bits of bait in a wide-mouth glass jar, rubber-band some paper towels onto the outside for traction, and line the jar's inner lip with petroleum (or un-petroleum) jelly to prevent escapes. Never tried it myself, but people more knowledgeable than I am swear that it works. Of course, you have to deal with them once you catch them. I suppose you could try relocating them, or creating some sort of educational cockroach farm for children.

Violent options include flushing, vacuuming, good ol' blunt force, or filling a jar or spray bottle with dish detergent and hot water, which is apparently lethal to our little friends.

Two last non-toxic solutions are boric acid and silica gel. You'll want to keep your cats away from these. Boric acid is a white powder that's not toxic to humans (unless ingested), is inexpensive, and should be relatively easy to find. When a roach scurries across, the powder sticks to its legs. The acid is ingested when the roach cleans itself, and the poor thing croaks. One environmental downside is that most of the U.S. supply of boric acid apparently comes from an open-pit mine in Death Valley.

Silica gel can be made from sand and is also non-toxic by itself, though some common formulations include less innocuous additives. Overall, it's much less toxic than spraying your house with chemical insecticides. It's a desiccant, which means it absorbs moisture. And that's how it kills roaches, by absorbing the waxes protecting their cuticles, resulting in death by dehydration.

Go forth and depopulate. And good luck.

Creepily,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (11 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

cockroach discrimination

In the past, I have lived in out-of-control situations in which hundreds of little glistening eyes were staring from beneath the table where I was eating my dinner.

I would catch a few, and give them to my anoles, as if to show the others an example. But that never quite worked ...

Thank God, I have moved up in the world, and that is a distant memory.

Even now, though, we get occasional visitors. German cockroaches -- the smaller, more prolific type -- I crush on sight. But I have developed a fondness for American cockroaches, the larger ones. There was one who used to look down on us, every evening, from the top of the molding around a window, waggling cheerily its antennae. I caught it in a cup, finally, and threw it outside.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:06 PM on 23 Oct 2006

Pesticide Free & Pet Friendly Poison

We used to have cockroach problems and we had a 'homeopathic' remedy that I rather enjoyed. Cockroaches may stand the test of time but they can not burp, and most pets can. So we would put out milk-bottle caps full of a 50/50 mixture of powdered sugar and baking soda. You can hide these in cabinets, on counters, or anywhere. The roach eats the mixture, gets indigestion, and the best part is when you wake up the next day to find little exploded roaches on the floor! Of course most of them will crawl out of sight before they explode so for every one you find you've probably killed five. By the way, this will take time as you have to keep your home clean, sealed from new roach entry, and kill off any roaches that will later hatch from eggs in unknown places of your home.

by whokn0wz at 5:47 PM on 23 Oct 2006

Borid acid really works!

When I lived in NYC years ago as a college student, way before I had thought to be concerned about the toxins in regular pesticides, boric acid was the only thing I found that actually worked. I'd spread it all along the baseboards in the kitchen and bathroom, and in and around the kitchen garbage can, and the number of roaches went way down! And my cat never showed the slightest interest in eating boric acid.

As a side note, when I was a kid my brother and I, for a time, had a pet cockroach named Lightning, who we let crawl up and down our arms (yuck, I say now!). But then Lightning died, and we caught another, Lightning II, and I have to admit, I never felt the same way about Lightning II as I did about Lightning I.

by tlowe at 7:09 AM on 24 Oct 2006

What about Raid Earth Options?

RAID recently began advertising "Raid Earth Options," a plant based version of their product which they claim is just as effective. According to a review on epinions.com, the breakdown is

"Active Ingredients: Eugenol 0.50%, 2-Phenethyl Propionate 1.25%
Inactive Ingredients: Other Ingredients: 98.25%, Petroleum Distillates"

So what dangers lurk here? If anyone knows, please post!

Anyway, since everyone is giving stories, I had a friend who, in his college days, had a roach problem. Then he caught one by placing a glass jar upside down over it. He left it there, telling it to tell its friends about him. He never had a cockroach problem after that.

By the way, to the first poster (caniscandida), your whole "crush on sight" approach doesn't really mesh well with your signature. You might want to think about changing one or the other.

by sheepguy42 at 7:30 AM on 24 Oct 2006

I love all critters, but...

Okay, so I can't necessarily say roaches don't feel pain--I'm pretty sure they do, although even I don't think they have complicated enough nervous systems to cause me quite as much concern as more complicated critters do.

That said, while not discounting their suffering, I feel that there are certain creatures I do not feel the need to allow in my space. I would rather put a roach outside than kill it, but if you live in New York, where it's just going to get back into someone's house right away and roaches are actually a real health hazard, that's just not realistic.

I also make exceptions for flies on my horses. I don't generally desire to kill flies, but when my horse's ears start bleeding from bites, I don't really get upset about killing flies to keep them from biting him.

True, it's not 100% logically sound, but neither am I willing to become a Jainist, sweeping the ground before me to avoid squashing a bug. We must all draw our lines somewhere, and I think I can safely speak for CanisCandida as well as for myself when I say that a reasonable line is one between harm we can reasonably avoid and harm we can only displace.

by willa at 10:31 AM on 24 Oct 2006

on crushing bugs

Thanks, Sheepguy, for your comment. I can see where you might suspect me of inconsistency.

And thanks, Willa, for your fine explanation. Your attitudes are exactly my own.

Yes, cockroaches, mosquitoes and biting flies are our cousins. But, like Willa, I am not a Jain, as much as I admire them. Many supporters of animal rights observe a kind of sliding scale for determining what kind of consideration is owed to the different kinds of animals. insects usually are not placed very highly. That is not to say that their suffering and death are matters of indifference. But the health and comfort of animals higher on the scale, including human beings of course, count for more.

Inasmuch as insects can feel pain, it seems that crushing them is about as painless a way of sending them to their heavenly reward as can be imagined. All those pesticides and powders, by contrast, sound kind of nasty. I am glad that I do not have to resort to using anything like that. But I understand if people do choose to use them. I am certainly in favor of in-door use of DDT to prevent malaria.

Persuading a captive cockroach to return to its tribe and tell them to stay away is a nice trick. I shall keep it in mind. As for my American cockroach, or "palmetto bug," it probably found refuge in the area where a nearby restaurant puts out its garbage. Or else it found its way into an apartment building's basement. Unlike German cockroaches, palmetto bugs seem to prefer to stay away from people and their dwellings. It must have just taken a wrong turn when it ended up in our living room in the first place.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:22 AM on 24 Oct 2006

Raid roach killer and my solution

I love reading the different natural solutions. We've tried boric acid but it doesn't seem to get all the little critters. I'm going to try the baking soda/sugar one.. that sounds like a good one.

For the really tough survivors though, and there is always one too many of those around, I found a great natural roach spray that I get at www.drclarkstore.com that's made from truly natural ingredients and it works really well.

I saw that RAID has made an "Earth" formula, but I don't recognize the names of any of the ingredients so I would not trust it. I'll stick with my trusty Ant and Roach killer.

Have a great day!

by fedupinla at 1:23 PM on 24 Oct 2006

Silica Gel Recipe?

Umbra mentions making silica gel from sand. Does anyone know how this is done?

My personal experience is that Borid Acid podwer and powdered sugar sure works for getting rid of ants.

SeeKeR

by SeeKeR at 9:14 PM on 24 Oct 2006

Delightful!

This discussion makes me recall my days in the Peace Corps, where teeming roach populations and (to be frank) crushing boredom forced us to invent ways of killing roaches. Sadly, for me it usually involved toxic chemicals from a can. But some people used sadistically satisfying methods that involved variations on the beer-bait theme and fire (kerosene lanterns).

by mihan at 11:32 AM on 25 Oct 2006

Pax, to all the bugs!

Usually, when one reads about the Peace Corps, it comes across as a gloriously happy experience. Nobody talks about the crushing boredom and the teeming roach populations. Good heavens, what are the rest of us well-meaning innocents to think?!

Where were you in the Peace Corps?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:03 PM on 25 Oct 2006

was i deleted?

was my post deleted about the roaches???? oops i didn't mean to offend i'm sorry

by ilovekillingroaches at 1:33 PM on 10 Nov 2006

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?

The Roach Approach