I just came across a bug/insect in my kitchen that freaked me out. Not due it’s size or anything…it’s the size and shape of cockroach (about 1/3 of an inch long) with a bright orange body and grey/black(blue) striped legs. I discovered it near the trashcan and fridge…It freaked me because we had a slight cockroach/waterbug problem at our previous place and were very carefull not to ‘move’ any of them with us.
Does anybody know what kind of bug this can be?? I tried various websites to identify it but none were really helpful…thus I came to this trusted source of knowledge…
I can’t ID your mystery bug, but I am interested to know how you stopped cockroaches migrating from your old place to the new one. My wife and I have had german cockroaches hitching a ride with us to two new places now. Little bastards!
I also shake some of this powder under my sinks, along the wall and pipes.
Never leave dirty dishes. Try to vacuum around your eating area often. Keep your tables and countertops clean. Keep your sink drains clean. For sinks and bathroom places I use a bleach-based cleaner, kinda toxic, but effective.
If you have pets, don’t leave their food out. Make sure everything in your cupboards and countertops is sealed. If you have kids, that’s a tough one, kids are really messy.
Well unfortunately I squashed it, so getting a pic is impossible…
As far as moving with ‘pets’ - we spent 2 full days moving. We only packed one box at a time, examining everything to make sure no bugs we’re hitching a ride. Still though 2 seem to have eluded us, so ended up ‘bombing’ our new place on the second day after we moved in…
The bugs in our old place weren’t our fault…we had various vists from pestcontrol who told us that they were coming through the drainpipes and cracks in floors/ceilings/walls from neighbouring units…so if you live in an apt building, it doesn’t matter whow clean and meticulous you are…it only takes one slacker in the building to ruin the fun for everybody.
If you can describe it a little more accurately, I can probably hunt it down.
When you say “bright orange body”, do you mean the carapace (shell) or the abdomen? Were the thorax and head the same bright-orange color? Were there any spots or was it solid bright orange? Compare the orange color to something else (a road sign, a type of fruit).
You listed the size as 1/3 inch long; what was its width, and were the legs spindly and long, or close against the body? Was it most similar to a roach, a ladybug, or some other kind of beetle, or was it more like a cricket or an ant?
Lastly, you list its legs as “grey/black(blue) striped”. Do you mean long parallel stripes, or lots of short rings? Describe the grey, black, and/or blue colors.
I managed to identify a spider this way (micranthea gracilis) and I’d love to take another shot at hunting something down using Google and a loose taxonomy.
