# Most humane way to kill roaches **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 25, 2002, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457 "2002-08-25T05:01:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/61 "2012-10-05T16:12:15Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I do. Have doubts that is. > > There are certain plants with leaves that curl up when touched. The plant is responding to a stimulus to move its leaves away from a threat. Is that fear? > > And when a roach is on its back wriggling its legs and slowly dieing from nerve poisoning, is it in pain? Or is it’s nervous system so messed up from the poison that it believes it is moving, foraging, mating etc. > > My point is that I know if I were being attacked or I were dieing like that it would be horrible agonizing situation. But I question whether an animal with incredibly simplified brain functions understands its situation enough to be distressed at all. It has some basic instinct to eat, move, avoid, rest and reproduce. > > Think about it this way. We could program a small toy car with sensors that tell it to speed up and swerve when objects come near it. Is it afraid? We could also smash one of its wheels and damage it’s program so that it just spins around in a broken wheel circle till it’s battery dies. Is it in agony? We say no it isn’t because we know that the car experiences no emotions. > > We can assume from observation that higher thinking animals experience stress, agony, joy etc but at what level of brain capability is a roach operating? I would be much more likely to at least agree that you might be right if not for the fact that most insects demonstrate a fear response and will flee from light, humans and predators, and most especially by the fact that they will run away frantically from a heat source or upon coming too close to a hot burner on a stove. For example, we used to unknowingly get June bugs under the stovetop and they would begin buzzing furiously trying get away once we turned on a burner. And occasionally a small flying insect would land on or near the stove and once they began to get close to an area that was hot they would immediately turn away. As far as stress and emotion go, I got a surprising lesson in that once when I was painting the trim around my parents house. A few feet away from where I was working was a small wasp’s nest. The wasps were gone and I pulled it down and rusumed painting. I was working about six feet from it when the mother or father wasp returned to find the nest missing and was amazed to the see the degree to which the poor thing freaked out, frantically flying around back and forth and up and down all around the area trying to find its lost offspring and continued to do so for a good ten to twenty minutes. It didn’t seem to connect me with what had happened and in its stress didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me at all, and at the end of the day it was still hanging around that area of the house as if waiting to see if its nest would somehow show up. I was astounded. I’m not saying insects feel pain or emotions as humans would, but I most definitely think they feel pain, stress and suffocation or nerve damage via bug spray. Consider also the fact that they have much less physicality relative to their brains and nervous systems than do humans, so the fact that those are both so relatively underdeveloped compared to us doesn’t mean that they aren’t sufficiently developed to allow for a certain amount of pain, fear and complexity of thought for their own physiology. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/62 "2012-10-05T16:53:55Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Insects are _ **NOT** _ chordates. You, however, are one. > > [Chordate - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chordate) Well, I never. Me, a chordate? Pistols at dawn, sir. Fine, invertebrates, then. Insects are invertebrates and therefore words like “thought” or “emotion” don’t apply to them. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/63 "2012-10-05T17:21:35Z")
Many years ago, we moved into a very old house. I had sealed my moving boxes with duct tape. When I awoke in the morning, I found the duct tape covered with cockroaches. That night I put out 30 pieces of 6 inch duct tape through out the house. In the morning, I counted over 150 cockroaches stuck to the tape. Apparently, they were attracted to the glue on the tape, then couldn’t leave. I kept putting out duct tape, until there were no cockroaches. Very effective and no chemicals. After you gather them up, you can dispose of them as you see fit. ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/64 "2012-10-05T21:31:57Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I would be much more likely to at least agree that you might be right if not for the fact that most insects demonstrate a fear response and will flee from light, humans and predators, and most especially by the fact that they will run away frantically from a heat source or upon coming too close to a hot burner on a stove. For example, we used to unknowingly get June bugs under the stovetop and they would begin buzzing furiously trying get away once we turned on a burner. And occasionally a small flying insect would land on or near the stove and once they began to get close to an area that was hot they would immediately turn away. > > As far as stress and emotion go, I got a surprising lesson in that once when I was painting the trim around my parents house. A few feet away from where I was working was a small wasp’s nest. The wasps were gone and I pulled it down and rusumed painting. I was working about six feet from it when the mother or father wasp returned to find the nest missing and was amazed to the see the degree to which the poor thing freaked out, frantically flying around back and forth and up and down all around the area trying to find its lost offspring and continued to do so for a good ten to twenty minutes. It didn’t seem to connect me with what had happened and in its stress didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me at all, and at the end of the day it was still hanging around that area of the house as if waiting to see if its nest would somehow show up. I was astounded. > > I’m not saying insects feel pain or emotions as humans would, but I most definitely think they feel pain, stress and suffocation or nerve damage via bug spray. Consider also the fact that they have much less physicality relative to their brains and nervous systems than do humans, so the fact that those are both so relatively underdeveloped compared to us doesn’t mean that they aren’t sufficiently developed to allow for a certain amount of pain, fear and complexity of thought for their own physiology. Neither of those anecdotes demonstrate fear or stress. What they do demonstrate is anthropomorphism. A bug sensing potentially fatal heat and moving away from it doesn’t prove any emotion whatsoever. It doesn’t even prove emotions when people do it. I know the times that I have touched something as hot as a stove it wasn’t fear that caused me to jerk my hand back. It wasn’t even what I’d call pain. I didn’t even feel pain until seconds later. It was a purely reflexive response to the heat. In the case of your wasp, you could say it was stressed if you mean that its environment has changed in such a way that it is apparently having difficulty adapting. But it’s a far leap from that to saying it was freaked out in a way that has even the slightest relationship to our experiences. It’s probably pretty easy to demonstrate that insects feel some sort of pain (though even then it’s pretty easy to think of things you could do to a bug that will only cause it to pause for a moment or two but would invoke a crippling sensation for a human). A sensory input that causes an animal to move in response is one thing. That in no way supports a claim that it feels fear or most relevant to this thread, suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Dano83860](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a4c791/32.png) [@Dano83860](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dano83860)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/65 "2012-10-06T01:16:12Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > It’s a longshot, considering how old this thread is, but I’d really like to hear from **David Simmons** whether this is a whoosh or not. If so, it’s one of the cleverest bits of sarcasm I’ve ever heard, but if not… > > And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe insects have the neural capacity to suffer or feel pain the way we do. But I wish they did! David Simmons past away four years ago. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/66 "2012-10-06T03:40:51Z")
> [@Dano83860](#): > > David Simmons past away four years ago. ☹ I think that the other two people that mentioned this above have this point fully covered. ---
**Author:** ![Dano83860](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a4c791/32.png) [@Dano83860](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dano83860)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457/67 "2012-10-06T15:08:24Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I think that the other two people that mentioned this above have this point fully covered. I replyed from the question and did not see the other two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-humane-way-to-kill-roaches/125457.md?page=3)