How to Kill a cockroach

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

This post is in refernce to 1983 posting:

Is this still the best answer, considering it’s over 20 years old now? I live in Colorado & have NEVER had cockroaches, but yesterday I found a cockroach in my house. It crawled into my coffee-maker. GROSSSSS! I went right out and bought some bug bombs & set 6 of them off this morning (3 upstairs, 3 downstairs, 1200 square feet each floor). When I came home after fumigating, the roach in my coffee maker had fallen out of the crack it ran to & was still alive, but “dazed”-acting. I put it in a sealed container with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball & after it died, with the help of the Internet, I identified it as a German cockroach.

The student who rents a room from me said, “It’s just one,” but I’m thinking if there is one, there are probably more. Who’s right? Also, several places in answers at the previous link, instructions were to the affect “seal all holes & cracks” in your home. How could that POSSIBLY be possible, considering these bugs live & move through the smallest of spaces?

I am totally disgusted that I have this uninvited species in my home & where I live (in Colorado), cockroaches are considered a sign of filthy living areas. My house has never been filthy. I even mop my floor once a week. Food spills are cleaned up immediately. It’s very clean.

I think this critter might have come here with one of the student renters I have. The last 3 were from either Texas or Arizona & I was told that cockroaches are a normal part of homelife in those states.

So, is the info at the referenced link still current? Considering I only found the one dazed roach, I don’t think the bug bombs are going to irradicate a possible infestation. Help?

2

As someone who’s had a cockroach infestation, I have to agree that 4 parts borax, 2 parts flour, and 1 part cocoa powder will indeed kill them off. I even mixed it up with sugar instead of cocoa powder because I had no cocoa (lol) and that worked as well. It does take a few weeks, and you have to be liberal in it’s application. Get it everywhere that roaches will go to hide. I put it under the toekick, behind ALL the appliances and under them (microwave too!) along the back of the countertops. The kitchen will look like the Montana residence, it goops up like shit when it gets wet but your lil friends will kick the bucket. As you put it down you’ll notice your lips feeling dry and shrinking, much like Looney Toons when they would eat Alum. Now imagine that feeling all over your carapace, drying and cracking your joints… Yes. It works.

I also think you’re a tad overreacting. Filling and coating the house with poison for one bug? There’s many many bugs living in your walls at all times, roaches included. Most of the time they never venture out, sometimes they do.

3

FYI, sometimes roaches only come inside for water, so even leaving a bit of water in your sink can attract them.

Having a neighbor who is dirty can have a nearby home for the roaches, you may only be seeing scouts.

Sealing all holes means trying to find where particular ones enter, then seal those. Then find the next entrance they use, and seal those. This may involve looking under the counter top by the sink (sometimes there’s a space there), behind the cabinet shelves, etc. Then get the sealant of your choice (depending on the hole size, location, visibility, this could be spackle, wood glue, or something else) and seal it up.

It’s easiest to work on ants this way. In a house I used to live in, they had a home in our next door neighbor’s back yard and had a trail that came in to our kitchen to drink water from our sink. They came through a tiny hole behind a cupboard. After sealing it, they came through a tiny hole under the counter top. After sealing it, they came through another one. Etc. Eventually, their path to our water source was so long they went to a different source, which is fine by me.

4

The fastest way to kill a cockroach when you see it is to squirt a little Lime-away on it. Lime away is a decalcifier and the bugs are mostly made up of calcium so it pretty much desolves the little bastards on contact… works faster than RAID

5

What does it take to kill zombie cockroaches?
:smiley:

6

<mod>

A silver pin through their little roach heart?

Zombie closed.

</mod>

7

<mod>

On second thought, let’s let the little buggers run wild.

Heaven help us all.

Re-opened.

</mod>

8

It should be said, then, that cockroaches, like all living things, are made up mostly of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a bit of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, and only trace amounts of calcium, sodium, iron, and other elements.

Lime-Away is basically just hydrochloric acid, which of course isn’t too great on contact with anything living, but there are other substances which are much more damaging to tissue (insect or otherwise).

9

Nice username :smiley:

10

As a 3rd generation Texan (and very happy transplant to the Pacific NW:D) I have WAY too much experiece with roaches!

Boric acid has never worked all that well for me, maybe I didn’t use enough of it. :confused: But then, I tried the “diatimatious(sp?) earth” solution for fleas once, too, supposed to work on the same principle…LOLLOLLOLLO…sigh…NO. Now, the flea traps made of a gallon plastic water or milk jug and a nightlight and sticky paper? EXCELLENT!!! :wink:

The only things I have found that really worked for roaches were those traps/baits and or sprays (I always avoided sprays) which contained a hormonal ingredient which sterilized the critters. You set them out and after a while you start to see roaches with withered wings and other deformities…soon, all gone. Not sure what the ingredient was, but it was in some RAID baits I used to buy. Don’t even think it killed them, just rendered them sterile.

I admire roaches, I really do. They are amazing critters and they have their place in the universe…it is just not in MY HOME! :mad:

I despise the big flying ones, but they always tended to be less of a problem wrt infestation. They would come in, esp. during fluctuations in the barometric pressure/thunderstorms, and fly around, freaking me out, and then as suddenly retreat back to the great outdoors.

They are hardy buggers, though…I once stepped on one while walking on a Houston street one night, after doing my best to avoid doing so, and the damn thing SQUOZE right out of its skin and continued running around skinless, a white cockroach…EEEWWWWW!!! :eek: I’ve also witnessed headless ones go on living for days.

But, the OP mentions GERMAN cockroaches, the much smaller ones, and THOSE are the fuckers you gotta come down on hard…they will infest your digs like zombies in a brain factory (yeah, yeah, I know, terrible, whatEVER, I’m making an important point here :rolleyes:) The big ones have a bigger ick/show factor, but it is the smaller ones who really pose the threat.

Even living in climates where they are not common (Colorado, Portland, Or) you see them from time to time. They come from other areas in boxes and other items, often as eggcases, and proceed to infest their new digs. They move readily from apartment to apartment, house to house, and if your new neighbors are from florida or texas or mexico or any other area where they are ubiquitous, be vigilant.

Rule #1: KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY!!! Seriously. If you have to break every dish in the kitchen to do it, kill the little fucker when you see it. Do NOT let it escape to breed/eat again! Since living in this apartment (3 yrs) I’ve seen only 3 or 4 and killed them all…they were NOT, I expect, expecting ME when they crept in looking for a snack. :smiley:

Rule #2: Leave NOTHING out for them to eat. They are drawn to scraps or even unwashed counters like a magnet to steel. Seal all your food up in glass or plastic or refrigerate immediately (something I got used to in Texas, since sometimes the damn things would rush out and try to grab something while I was cooking/cutting it and certainly within a few minutes of the kitchen being vacated.)

Rule #3: If you see more than a few in a short time period, get thee to the store and get some sort of poison or trap to set out. Don’t wait.

My sis-in-law once moved from Texas to Portland to live with us for a while…within a month of her arrival (boxes, etc in tow) we were completely infested with German Cockroaches. I walked into the kitchen late one night, turned on the light, and the white floor was covered with little brown, fleeing bodies. :eek: Had to fumigate the house TWICE to get rid of them. AND be vigliant about killing any strays we saw for months.

Just a word to the wise, if you see a German cockroach in your home, regardless of where you live, kill it if you can and take precautions immediately or prepare to have a much bigger problem on your hands soon.

11

i live in new mexico, Cockroach International HQ of the Western Hemisphere.
was overrun with the nasty little and BIG GIANT boogers. finally got hold to some gooey stuff megaroachkill and put down a few places just to see. crap! roaches dyin left and right, all done in a few days.
i only came here to post because saw one of Cecil’s columns on roaches and some replies- too funny. but he’s right and others too about the boric acid but has to be in some stuff they eat RIGHT NOW and that stuff did it. can get instructions to make your own too.

12

okay, when i do the google does not find it but that was sure the name of it, saw on the label from guy i got it from some green gooey stuff.