Fluffy Musings

Best way to kill a cockroach:

1. grab a *large* wad of toilet paper
2. using wad of tp, pick up roach without having roach touch you
3. *squish* roach within voluminous tp bundle
4. flush down toilet

In this manner no germs are transfered, and you do not run the risk of leaving behind cucaracha eggs. That's right, if you squish one, then whatever you squish it against stands a fair chance of having acquired eggs in the process. Which will hatch.

Sticky roach traps are also good.

If you see more than one at a time... Not good. You're a roach hotspot!

There are also many different varieties of roach. Some fly, some do not. San Jose has many from the Phillipines. All are icky, since they carry disease and stuff. I don't care how smart they are, they're still icky, and anything that can continue to function without its head is creepy as well.

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Flushing it down the toilet? It's common for me to just pick it up by hand and throw it out the window.

As for considering yourself a "wuss," I'm not too sure how or when that term should be applicable. I've seen tough, seemingly intimidating "guys" cower behind their girlfriends and mothers in fear of spiders and roaches. I don't know what the big deal is. I figure, "It's alive, it's not poisonous, and it's shell is the same material as my hair. It's dirty, but I can wash my hands. No big deal."

Maybe I'm too stupid to be creeped out by an insect.

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They're also quite resistant to radiation.

Or so I'm led to believe. I've been fortunate to not really encounter them in any real capacity in my neck of the woods, although I'm sure they around.

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I hate cockroaches a lot. They're… icky. I have found that (in my opinion) these
weapons work the best:

· Shoe
· Electric Fly Swatter

Pros: Shoe

· It dies fast
· It doesn't keep moving (as long as you smash it as hard as you can, several times)

Cons: Shoe

· You have a temporary mess (of roach) on your shoe…
· …the mess smells bad.

Pros: Electric Flyswatter

· It kills them without leaving a mess (unless you count the roach itself)
· You don't have to worry about them moving around (with or without it's head)

Cons: Electric Flyswatter

· It smells, really, REALLY BAD!
· It takes about 3-5 minutes for it to die (a fit punishment, full of SUFFERING! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! >_> <_<) Fortunatly for me, I haven't seen any signs of roaches for about one or two years. ^_^

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I am fortunate in my current living situation that my landlady has all the buildings sprayed and checked by Terminex every two months, keeping us infestation free.

In my few encouters with them in previous living situations, I have developed my own method of dealing. I do not like the toilet paper method myself, and I a) freak out when it is moving in my hand and b) and hugely grossed out by the crunchiness of the squishing. I prefer either making someone else kill it for me or coving it with a paper towl, then squishing it(thus protecting whatever is used for the squishing), then using the dustpan to scrape it up, then flushing it to make sure it's dead, then mopping and disinfecting the area it was squished to kill anything left behind.

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As I have lived for short periods in Japan during the summer, I have come across many, many roach problems. Even in the cleanest and finest house, you would find a roach in Japan.

The average axiom upon seeing a single cockroach is, there are more behind the walls.

Thus, a preemptive strike is neccesary for the correct handling of roaches. Roach motels placed in and around dark dank areas like the bathroom, and around places where food is plentiful. Check the traps every week and if there are roaches in them, the best thing to do is to call a specialist to make sure of everything. Of course, this may get expensive, so the general act of keeping one's living space clean will help greatly in reducing the risk of infestation.

The aforementioned toilet paper method works well on a one on one method, the fly swatters work equally well in some cases. I have seen one of my mother's friends in Japan say "excuse me for a moment" and slide her slipper off to smash a cockroach that landed on a window with little effort. These all work very well.

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oh yeah, and I got to read this just as I was eating lunch....

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Heh, hope it didn't get too spoiled. I never especially liked the toilet paper method myself either, 'cause… ICK! Besides, more fun to slam a shoe on top of it! >:)

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Maybe you have a hard time "logic-ing" your way out of it because your a human, with human nature, rather than a robot? XD

I hate roaches too. No matter what logic I apply, its still gross, covered in germs and creeps me out. Same with spiders, cept minus the germs and add in not knowing if its poisonous.

My mom pays terminix to come out each month and spray. I LOVE it. We get some spiders here and there, but not really any menacing ones. If its not a daddy-long-leg, I kill it, end of story. I know the daddy long legs cant hurt me; the others.. I dont know enough about. We dont have too many ants, no roaches, no termites and small populations of spiders and other garden bugs (beetles and things)

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While I don't claim to be an authority on the subject, I did grow up in New York City, and the roaches we had there liked to do things like pick up the roach traps, throw them in your face, and call you a pansy for not facing you, mano y cucaracha.

There are many surprisingly good ways to kill them using simple household items. The world's best way I found was using something you might have laying about: hairspray. That's right: give that little beggar a good coat of Final Net, and he'll be doing the clutch 'n' gurgle in no time. The spray will also work on flying roaches, as it will clog up their wings as well. Best of all, he's solidified, so you can scoop up the corpse using something like an idle piece of cardboard, and incinerate it in the method of your choosing. No fuss, no muss, no guts, no eggs, no stench.

Another decent way to do it- if you're a little brave- is to use a sandwich and/or freezer bag- but only the ones with the quick-zip sealers. The trick here is to get it open, wait for him to get in, and then zip it up REAL quick, before he has a chance to get out. Using this method, he's entombed there. You may incinerate or even simply stick him in the trash (assuming you feel comfortable having your kitchen trash bin be a roach grave).

Really, any sufficiently large and sealable item (that you don't mind disposing of) will do in this regard, including tinfoil (just be a powerfully fast folder). Once it's completely and firmly sealed away, it and its germs, eggs, feelers, wings, and chitinous shell are held at bay for you to deal with at your leisure (or at least long enough for you to hot-foot it to a dumpster/incinerator).

A brave way to do it is to use boiling water. Roaches may be hearty, but they do not react well to 200-plus degree anything being spilled on them. Of course, the problem here is getting it on _you_ as well. But it will kill the roach. Toss a live roach in a boiling pot, and you can rid yourself of the roach and most of its germs, but at the same time, you've left yourself a mess (and a pot you probably won't want to use any longer, on principle). But that'll work, too.

A creative (but messy) way to do it is to use a pellet gun or air rifle. One good blast from any decent pellet gun will kill a roach, or cripple it to the point where a second shot will finish the job. It will also leave Roach Ooze (tm) all over whatever surface you clipped the roach on, but it can be immensely satisfying, especially in the spirit of your original document. ;)

Best of luck in your efforts. :)

Stone.

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I am a master of Roach Eradication no Jutsu.

My technique for dealing with them brings about a swift and efficient death.

It's kind of a combination of what Amber mentioned, and an ancient ninja technique, passed down from generation to generation by the indigenous people of South Florida.

Basically, I grab a paper towel, wait silently, without motion or sound, for it to waltz right out into the open, suspecting nothing... and POUNCE! I fall with my hand upon it, faster than gravity alone could accelerate me downwards, and nail that friggin' roach with the paper towel... then safely dispose of it in the nearest waste receptacle.

Everyone in my house, including myself, is allergic to most chemical insecticides, so those are so totally out of the question. Boric acid bait is fine, though... but I can't tell that it does anything to the roaches. Do they ever eat the stuff? Hrmm.

Roach Motels used to be da bomb - they used to be made by some other company, I forget which one. They were about three times as large. Now they're made by "Black Flag" and are small, the adhesive isn't as good, and the bait in 'em is a roach pheromone lure that smells... uh.... delightful. (Yuck.) They seem to work for only one variety of roach - the German cockroach - and not the native 'roach' here, which is also known as a 'palmetto bug'. (Perhaps roach is a misnomer?) One of these days I'm gonna go back into the past on FnordTran and buy up a few cases of the nice old Roach Motels. (Apparently, the only way you can get the modern Roach Motels now is by the case (24 units/case for ~$35)... but if you've got German roaches, this may be quite well worth it.)

Sometimes I luck out and find one in the kitchen sink... oh, it's so CRUEL, yet fun, to flush a roach into the running garbage disposal with the spray hose. (Yes, I know, this is utterly WRONG, but for a roach? Eh, no big deal. I mean, again, probably a quick and relatively painless death, if they're even capable of feeling pain... which they probably aren't, considering the kind of crap they can happily live through.)

But yeah... EW. You encountered the FLYING roaches? I feel for you. I've dealt with them from time to time. Hell, I accidentally caused a small infestation of them in my house - I was working at Fort Lauderdale Airport for a while, in the international terminal... some evil roaches that flew and HISSED came over (I guess in someone's luggage?), and a female made it home in my backpack somehow, only to lay eggs in my house somewhere... OH DEAR ERIS, THAT WAS EVIL. One of them actually bit me after I nearly stepped on it in the bathroom in the dark! @.@

(I only figured out this is how it happened after seeing similar roaches back in the airport terminal. Eventually, many moons later, when I took a flight out of there, they were completely vermin-free... hooray for glue traps!)

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