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.
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
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Comments
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caniscandida Posted 7:06 am
23 Oct 2006
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.
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whokn0wz Posted 10:47 am
23 Oct 2006
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tlowe Posted 12:09 am
24 Oct 2006
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.
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sheepguy42 Posted 12:30 am
24 Oct 2006
"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.
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willa Posted 3:31 am
24 Oct 2006
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.
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caniscandida Posted 4:22 am
24 Oct 2006
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.
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fedupinla Posted 6:23 am
24 Oct 2006
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 http://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!
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SeeKeR Posted 2:14 pm
24 Oct 2006
My personal experience is that Borid Acid podwer and powdered sugar sure works for getting rid of ants.
SeeKeR
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mihan Posted 4:32 am
25 Oct 2006
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caniscandida Posted 1:03 pm
25 Oct 2006
Where were you in the Peace Corps?
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ilovekillingroaches Posted 6:33 am
10 Nov 2006
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