I am still awake tonight. First of all, a mother thunderstorm kept me up. Then I felt a bit hungry, so I walked into my kitchen to find my cat batting at a cockroach by the fridge. Sigh.
I left him to it, hoping that the Mighty Cat’s supposed killer instinct would take its natural course. Naah. Eventually he tired of the game and left the cockroach to me.
I have never knowingly shared my abode with one of these creatures. Except for the time I took an entomology course, and had to keep one as a pet. That was a controlled situation, however.
I am used to crickets and spiders and those roly-poly things that used to congregate in the corners of my previous ground floor apartment. Generally, I say live and let live. I’ve even shared my shower with a spider. But a cockroach is a bit more than I care to deal with, especially when it’s directly in front of my food supply. And I’m generally a hungry woman.
I did try to get him to crawl onto a piece of paper so I could release him outside, but he didn’t cooperate. Eventually I had to kill him with lysol and use my vacuum to dispose of the carcass.
I realize that eventually the cockroaches will win and will be eating my dust, but for a brief moment in time I’ve triumphed. Except for the fact that I’ve lost my appetite.
OMG, you’re in Indianapolis. I didn’t know cockroaches happened that far north. I’ve always been happy I live so far north (up by Minneapolis) in regards to cockroaches, and most of those other nasty bugs that get indoors. I would seriously freak if I found one in my house.
Cats - my cats will get bugs, but they rarely kill them. I don’t know what is up with that. Cats are supposed to hunt, kill, destroy. I have a feeling your cat is like mine, all they want to do is play.
My SO worked in pest control for a while when he lived in FL, so if any do invade my house hopefully he’d deal with them quickly.
You have my sympathy, I guess I’d call someone to exterminate them if I were you.
Well, you handled it better than I would’ve in your situation. Firstly, I’d scream like a total wuss. Then I would lock myself in my room until someone comes home to deal with the creepy bugger.
My chihuahua, who is only marginally larger than a cockroach himself, doesn’t actually kill them for me, but he’s an excellent hunter when you’re panicking b/c you can’t find the cockroach that ran away and you can’t do anything else until you know it’s dead b/c you have nightmares about it showing up in your bed or in your salad or perhaps your countertop or shower…
Okay, I’m a little paranoid about those nightmarish creatures. But my dog never loses their scent, so even when they run away, he knows where they go, and he finds them for me so that I can mercilessly kill them.
When I first moved down here, I still had the habit of keeping an open can of soda on my bedside table.
Waking up thirsty and looking over and seeing a roach perched on top of the can waving his antennae at me, as if to say “Come on, I OWN this can of soda now-- just try it, you fool!”, Well, I stopped leaving open cans around.
What is it about cocoroaches that we don’t like? They’re just beetles, after all. Is it that we’ve been brought up to think of them as representations of dirt? Or do they look grosser than other insects? Or do we dislike them for evolutionary reasons? (Though when my brother was 1, and we moved to Texas, he used to crawl round the house, biting them in half like candy bars, so maybe not evolutionary reasons.)
Ugh, roaches. I honestly don’t know what it is about them. No other form of vermin imparts such a vehement form of disgust in me. I’d rather have my house infested with wailing, tortured spirits of the dead than deal with those bastards.
Cheif Crunch summed it up very well. No one I have ever talked has admitted to liking cockroaches. Remotely. They are disgusting. ::shudders::
Darth Nader, I might have your soda story beat. A few months back I walked into my bathroom to brush my teeth. Perched on the head of my toothbrush was -that’s right- a giant evil cockroach, twitching his vile little antennae at me gleefully. I jumped, the cockroach scuttled across the counter and shortly thereafter met his Maker by way of the toilet. The toothbrush was tossed in the garbage. I felt creepy for the rest of the night. What if he had been secretly visiting my toothbrush at night before? :eek:
Boscibo, I left a message with my landlord about the infestation. (Can you call one cockroach an infestation?) Hopefully an exterminator will be notified immediately.
green_bladder, that thought did occur to me. Unfortunately I live alone. If I had waited for someone else to take care of the situation, I’d have been waiting a long time.
Audrey, I had those same nightmares.
Darth Nader, what an image! That was really funny. Not your experience, of course, just your description of it. And thanks, Searching For Truth. This wasn’t enough to do it, but your story has put me off toothbrushes forever.
I’m going to have to disagree with Chief Crunch, since ghosts are much, much more terrifying than cockroaches. Not that I believe in ghosts.
Anyway, what I can’t figure out is how I got this thing. I am not an extraordinarily dirty person. Messy, yes, but not dirty. I live on the second floor with apartments above and below me. Maybe one of my neighbors is living in filth.
I’m surprised I could sleep last night. Today I keep feeling nonexistent creepy crawly things on my skin.
The thing is, irishajo, there’s never just one cockroach. This is not to say you have an infestation, but from my experience they never travel alone.
I’m also now completely skeeved by the mental picture of jjimm’s brother biting roaches in half.
ONce I saw a giant FLYING cockroach. I was about the size of my hand and wsas flying around the room. We used this poison to kill it. (I am not insane in the middle east flying cockroaches do exist)
We’ve got flying cockroaches in Florida, too, Prancing puppy. Ugly motherf*ckers. And BIG.
I’ve sprayed them before, but then you have to put up with them dancing about in their death-throes, which is never pleasant to watch. I prefer smacking them with an old shoe, or whatever heavy, blunt object is handy.
However, don’t ever smack this guy, the Florida woods cockroach. Easily my least favorite kind of roach. They don’t fly, but they’re HUGE and armor-plated. Worse thing is, if you do squish them, they release the foulest odor you can imagine. They’re just disgusting and one more reason to question the existence of a just God in this world.
irishajo: What you should have done is yell at your cat like Sergeant Hartman yelling at Joker in the bathroom scene of *Full Metal Jacket *. “Why are you not stomping that cockroaches guts out??”
I was the summer house manager of my fraternity house (capacity 27 people), and since we had skittish varieties of both genders inhabiting the house during the time i was in command, I was charged with the genocide of both roaches and mice. Good Times.
Skopo and PP, I thought we just had regular roaches in the house, but then I saw one fly clear across the basement. Unfortunately for him, on the next pass, I punched him in the face, and he fell to the ground twitching, at which point i stomped his guts out. I eventually bought super packs of the Raid roach control jobbies, which did a fair job; however, it didn’t help when people (truth be told, the girls were worse) left their dirty dishes out.
I’ll hold off on my rodent genocide stories for I fear that many present would be offended by my blatant lack of respect for “creatures” that take dumps all over my clothing.
I saw one the size of an aircraft carrier going down the hall a few weeks ago. Since one of my parrots was also in the hall I commanded the bird to attack. “Get it! Get it!” I yelled, while pointing at the bug. The parrot looked at me, walked over to the roach, looked at it, looked back at me, and then walked away.
Perhaps it was too large for him to take on, or possibly he was just in one of those perverse moods that parrots frequently exhibit. Anyway, Mr. Cockroach then was introduced to Mr. Boot heel and was soon visiting the great garbage heap in the sky.
Living in an apartment is the worst. You’re at the whims of your neighbors. And if they ever do decide the flush them out of their apartment you just might get infested. I’ve already had to destroy several nests in my kitchen. One in the between the boards of myliving room coffee table?! And another bunch living in my dresser?!?!
That and I live next to a canal which has large populations of the B-52 variety. About every 3 months I’ll have to deal with a large flying creature that scares the bejeebus out of me. If I could I would wish cockroaches out of existence. In an instant. With no second thoughts. shudder
Irishajo, I’ve heard they don’t actually like filthy dirty places. Don’t need the filth anyway, since we’re dirty enough for them even when we’re trying to be clean. My mom insists they can come into the house as babies in cardboard boxes, like you get at fruit stands and such. I have no cite to support that, but it can’t hurt to be careful.
I never had to deal with roaches growing up (I was in college before I saw a live one), but somehow managed to pick up a deep fear of them. On tv a couple of nights ago a show had someone discussing the cockroach bites on a body. They bite?! Y’see, I knew there was a reason besides asthma and ooginess to hate the things.
I once inadvertently moved into an apartment that had cockroaches. What a nightmare. It took 3 fumigations to get rid of the bastards, and each time I had to find someplace where the cats could stay for the day, cover everything with dropcloths, etc. Three bloody times! But after I woke up one morning to find a cockroach standing ON THE ALARM CLOCK, I was gleeful at the thought of fumigations.
My advice? Call your landlord daily until he does something about this problem. Ewwwwwww.
Cockroaches are fucki** nasty. I never had any until I bought a mobile home infested with german cockroaches. Those are the big black flying bastards. If you see one, you might as well assume there are hundreds more. I used to kill several a night. I’d watch one fly from the closet to my dresser , then turn on the light i the kitchen and see a few scurry away. I hated them. I used to be so paranoid i’d wake and be covered in them like on that creepshow movie.
The coolest thing I saw was one day I glanced at the wall and a black furry spider had caught one of the larger types and was eating it, just sucking away on it. I video taped it for the longest time. I happily watched it suffer.Now I’m in a new place and have seen none since. I hope my luck holds out…death to them all…
