We just moved in to a co-op. The place was clean but then we found this one GIANT FLYING roach. We killed it. Just to be safe I put out some boric acid. I’ve sealed the openings in the place just in case and cleaned every surface with pine scented cleaner.
But here is my question:
My husband says that roaches eat each other and that when you find one giant one in an apartment that was empty for a long time (ours was empty for 3 months) it’s the “great last roach” it’s so big because it’s :rolleyes: .
He says it’s always a female and when people show up it gets ready to lay eggs and “de-consolidate.”
He says he’s seen the “great last roach” before in other empty places he’s moved in to. He says you have to kill it or you’ll have trouble for the rest of the time you live there.
It is true that a roach will eat other roaches, if they’re dead or dying.
Your husband is also right that if you see one roach you’re likely to see others. His reasoning is wrong though. Roaches multiply fast, so one can easily become an infestation in a matter of days, if it’s left alone.
Get some combat max roach traps, and combat gold bait, put both out, and you shouldn’t have any more problems.
Even without what you think of as food. All of those thousands of skin cells you and hubby shed each day? The ones that a bloodhound can snif to track you across the prairies? That’s mighty good eatin’ to a roach.
Yeah, I totally thought this thread was going to be about using 4 or 5 roaches to roll a new joint. That would have been way cooler. Mods, can you kindly change the OP?
Sorry, there’s still dust *inside *the walls, and dust is made up of (among other things) dead skin cells. And I wager the painters had skin. And perhaps even lunches or snacks while they were painting.
You’d be surprised how hardy cockroaches are. Among their more interesting points:
They are omnivores and consider lots of things good eatin’ that we couldn’t imagine, including, but not limited to, the glue from a postage stamp or book bindings (which are generally derived from animal proteins, and may also contain starch), dead skin cells – in fact, pretty much anything organic. They can scrounge food from just about every nook and cranny in a building – young roaches can crawl through spaces as thin as a millimeter.
They can live for up to a month without food (though they can’t live without water for more than a week)
They can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes
They can slow their heart rate when they rest to conserve energy
They can live for up to a week without their head (though of course they can’t feed so they eventually die)
The female can lay up to 8 egg sacs (ootheca) in their lifetime, with each ootheca containing up to 100 eggs that themselves contain 3-4 offspring, which means each female can sire as many as 3,200 roaches.
Not that I’m fascinated by roaches. I hate them. But they are the one of the hardiest insects on the planet – that old saw about them being the only creatures able to survive a nuclear holocaust is not without merit; they are 8-15 times more resistant to radiation than humans. It’s not surprising them that even in a house that has not been occupied for more than 3 months you’ll find roaches.
Is it a good idea to put out both bait and boric acid? The bait draws them in, sure, but there’s no way you’re going to kill every single roach that is lured by the bait. So wouldn’t it be better to focus on keeping them out and killing whichever ones come in?
I know that there’s no way to avoid roaches, especially livin in an apartment as I do, but I figure I can do everything possible to keep them out and maybe they’ll bother other, easier targets.
