I saw the biggest prehistoric looking roach ever crawling on my wall. It’s not the typical black small roach. This thing is brown, has wings, and is way bigger than those black roaches. I saw another one and tried to step on it, but those things are too fast. I’ve never had a roach problem before. Can anyone give me tips to get rid of these things. I bought roach bait things that have peanut butter in them. They are for the larger roaches. I used all 8 in one room. I hope that’s okay. I have 4 cats so I hid the traps in places cats can’t get them. Will the smell of peanut butter attract more roaches into my room, and do these things really work? I used spray on the inside and outside of my windows. I now have a fear a roach will crawl across my face into my mouth while I’m sleeping. :eek:
It is my understanding that those large bugs are actually outside pests. They wander inside sometimes, usually because it just rained really hard or something. The good news is that they dont cause an infestation in your house. When you see one, it’s just passing through.
The little ones… if you see one, you have millions!
In my last apartment, I’d get the big ones regularly. They tended to show up in or around the sink. I found that you can drown them with Ronsonol. To me this was preferable to crunching them.
In the last month, I’ve found one dead or dying one each week, on its back, in separate rooms of my house. Haven’t sprayed areas, just the bugs. Must have starved. Bizarre.
Close the drains when you’re not using the sink or bathtub (etc) and see if the city can get around to spraying the sewer around you. You also may want to forgo propping the door open when you have a lot to carry in for a month or so, opening and closing every time may be a hassle but you won’t get bugs. They shouldn’t cause a house infestation.
If you want to catch one you see and don’t want to take time to lure it get a large paper towel or something and throw it over it, the roach will be blinded and then you can smoosh it without:
- Seeing it directly.
- It seeing you and running away.
- Touching it.
And then you can just throw away (or flush) the wadded up paper towel.
You wanna freaking bet? It probably depends on location - here in South Carolina we call them “palmetto bugs” because “my house is infested with GIANT FLYING COCKROACHES” is just too nasty. They will most absolutely hang out in your hood.
I found that I was feeding roaches passively, because they had chewed open granola bars. Check to see if you are possibly feeding them. Otherwise they have no real reason to hang around.
I also got glue traps at the dollar store, and that really cut them down. At 50 cents each, you can put out a lot, and it the places you see them the most. Do both, and I think you’ll do a lot better.
I’ve encountered these critters too, and at a time I had cats. You mentioned you have four, so put them to work! I’m serious, one I used to look after loved them, and although it was a bit gross at first I used to love watching the way he’d trap them with one paw and then crunch them down. The bugs used to wake me up at night with their scritchy-scratchy sounds, after unsuccessfully trying the drain- blocking route and finding games of catch-n-squish tedious at 3 in the morning, whenever I heard one I’d just summon kitty cat… he got a snack, I got to sleep.
where do you live, BaconAndEggs? In south Georgia we had them, and they’re not really ‘roaches’ in the sense that they live in the yuck under the kitchen cabinets. The ones we had were called ‘water bugs’ (no idea why) and came from tree branches draping over and touching the sides and roof of the house - we cut the branches back and they were gone.
Train that cat! Cats have been raised for centuries precisely for this reason, and they are the best roach traps around. They’ll get the suckers even when they get into tight spots.
I haven’t had any luck with my 3 cats and catching bugs. I get those millipede-thingys and all my cats do is watch them. One cat will occasionally catch a moth, though.
Anyway, just recently had this conversation with some other cat-owners and the consensus was the same - Boric Acid. No need to make whatever concoction the Great Cecil described. Just plain boric acid in a neat line along walls, behind furniture, backs of cabinets, etc.
The best benefit of this stuff? No harm to the kitties! Boric acid is not poisonous to animals.
My cats just ate one last night. Since I’ve had three (really since I’ve had two) I haven’t been having my bug people spray inside. They just do outside and termite treatment. I mean, the cats are going to eat the roaches anyway, so they might as well be unpoisoned roaches. No challenge in just eating the ones that are flopping around on the floor, even if the poison is as safe for my cats as they tell me.