I'll start. Apt next door is having a cockroach infected. 4 days ago, I was playing sims on my laptop, wearing my eyeglasses. Right lens got blurry, took off, huge cockroach was crawling across inside of lens. While I was wearing them. Freak out ensued.
Life Pro Tip
A really cheap and effective way of getting rid of roaches, without even using poison…
Get a medium to large metal coffee can, or any old metal can I guess. Make sure it's cleaned out and dry to start with, and is not rusty.
Then get some spray cooking oil and a few scraps of bread. Spray the inside of the can with cooking oil, then drop some bread scraps in there.
Now you have a roach trap, set it near where the roaches are generally at their worst, and they'll crawl out of the walls and into the can to get their munch on, but won't be able to crawl back out.
Check it every couple or few days or so, eventually the roaches will start piling up and most of them that have been in there for a bit will end up dying because they're covered in the cooking oil and apparently can't absorb oxygen.
Take the trap as necessary and either dump it in the toilet and flush them away, or if you have access to a bonfire burn pile, bag the little demons up and burn them. Then clean the can out and reset the trap as necessary.
Even with the worst infestations I've ever seen, this tends to eliminate over 99% of them within about two weeks, if not less.
A few thoughts about the different approaches between my trap vs poison…
If you poison them, then they just go back into your walls and die, further stinking the place up, is more dangerous to people and pets, and honestly isn't even nearly as effective as people would hope.
But roaches are simple and stupid. They're really easy to trap, and why the hell would I want them going back into the walls in the first place? Especially when I can just flush them instead?
What is the reasoning behind the not rusty warning?
The whole method of operation of the trap is to make sure the roaches can't crawl back out after they get in. So you need a totally smooth surface plus the cooking oil so they can't climb back out.
If by chance you were to use a rusty can, that would give them a textured surface to grip onto and likely manage to crawl back out, which would defeat the trap.
Edit: It probably won't hurt if the can happens to have only a couple or few small spots of rust, as long as it's not so rusted as to give them a brown brick road to crawl back up and out. Any which way, the goal is to make sure that once they get in, they can't get out.
Greatly appreciate the tip
That its more slippery and not rough
Thank you for passing through to read my advice. By all means please share the advice to anyone that happens to need it…
I also read your post, and I can fully agree from the Gulf Coast of the USA, that swamps can be rather nasty and have lots of weird bugs and slimeys, but usually not quite as bad as you described.
Maybe lay off the shrooms and smoke some green instead? 😂🤣
Haha shrooms just need space, and I didnt get the meaning of "setting" back then. Living in a tight space with parents downstairs and a very hot night is simply not a good idea
Was gifted a lightly used Keurig machine. Partner started noticing little roaches everywhere in the kitchen. She was halfway through a cup of coffee when she opened the water reservoir and spotted a few floating in the water. I opened the machine and the machine was full of them.
Roaches can lay up to 32 eggs/week, and I think a roach mom had at least one good week in the Keurig.
Friend had said he didn't want it because it was attracting roaches. He claims to not have known it was carrying them.
I was 7’ish, living in Florida and spotted something shiny in my black bean bag. Reached down, grabbed it with my hand then screamed as it wiggled its way out. I am almost 50 and still traumatized by it. Mind you this is ginormous Florida cockroach /palmetto bug bigger than my child size hand.
oh fuck that would've just killed me, thats horrifying
I was going to reply to OP with "They aren't cockroaches, they're palmetto bugs."
Like, I absolutely get that these things exist and will be a part of life in Florida. But when we're staying in your fancy hotel and complain about the bugs scurrying away from the light in the bathroom, you have to do a little better than argue semantics with me.
They're literally cockroaches. Even Wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_woods_cockroach Fuck that hotel, lol
I was laying in bed and trying to get to sleep. I kept hearing this tapping, or scuttling, noise coming from somewhere in my room, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Decided it was just old house noises and tried to ignore it. Then something fell from the ceiling and landed on my face. Shouted, slapped at my face, and heard something fall on the floor. Flipped on the light and saw the roach trying to scurry away. Hit it with a book until it was dead. Maybe not the most horrifying, but it was one of the worst experience I've had with a roach, so far at least.
I'm sorry, I'm going to one up you. Look away now if squeamish.
I woke up with one climbing into my ear. I ran to the bathroom, bashing into furniture and walls because feeling it wriggle around in my ear threw my sense of balance off so badly. And also, you know, panic. I jumped into the bathtub fully clothed, dropped to hands and knees to put my head under the faucet, and turned the water on full force to flush it out.
This was during college years, during a gap between semesters and I didn't have an apartment. I was couch surfing at a friends. After that night, I left and lived in my car for a couple of days instead. There was no way I would be able to fall asleep again in that place.
Oof. Advice, coming from experience actually…
If you get a roach crawl into your ear, you can kill it almost instantly by pouring rubbing alcohol into your ear. Now getting it out is a different story, but at least the little demon is dead and gives you time to go see a doctor without it trying to chew through your eardrum.
From my understanding, roaches cannot crawl backwards, so when trapped in such a way they'll try chewing their way forward…
Don't ask how I know this, but yeah rubbing alcohol apparently kills them instantly.
The only thing that kept me from trying to claw it out of my head was the fear of the roach tunneling harder as it died. Oof, not sure I would be able to pour alcohol in, worrying death would be any less than instantaneous. And I hope I never have to figure it out.
Allz I can really say, without getting into a rather disturbing story, is that indeed rubbing alcohol will kill roaches practically instantly, when drowned in it anyways.
Only warning I'd tack onto that is that if you happen to already have a hole in your eardrum, then rubbing alcohol probably isn't going to feel too good. But then again, neither is a roach burrowing into your head, so choose your battles wisely.
For real though, as long as your eardrum is still intact and doesn't happen to have a hole for whatever reason, rubbing alcohol in the ear doesn't hurt a bit and will kill a roach in a matter of like 3 seconds or less.
Wise choice though, I wouldn't want to sleep in a roach infested place either. Have you read through the rest of the comments for my Life Pro Tip on how to get rid of the demons cheaply and without poison?
A few years ago my partner and I lived in a slumlord-owned apartment above a crack dealer. We had a storage unit in the basement. For some reason, the only light switch was at the end of a really long and creepy hallway.
When a hurricane hit the area, the whole neighborhood flooded horrifically. The sewers were backed up with trash so nothing drained. There were cars floating down the street. The basement oozed with mildewy dampness for the next few days.
Let me ask you a question. Have you ever watched Cloverfield? Do you know that scene where they go down into the subways and turn on the camera's night vision, only to see a wave of alien creatures rushing at them?
Well, the next time we went down into the basement was exactly like that. That moment felt like a Lovecraftian nightmare as we ran past at least a dozen cockroaches crawling on the cold concrete walls, each one the size of my palm, all lit by the glow of our phone flashlights. Their antennae were like toothpicks. These were the single largest roaches I had ever seen. It was unreal. I have had nightmares about that moment.
Never again.
Giant cockroaches. Why did it have to be giant cockroaches.
First time in Singapore I saw a cockroach sitting on the floor, I went to kill it and then discovered there are flying roaches. Hilariousness of course ensued as a fled out of the apartment, screaming like a terrified little boy.
I stayed in an apartment that was infested with roaches and they followed us when we moved out. They started to try and establish a colony in the new house we were renting but we waged a war on them. We bombed the house with bug spray, foggers, and diatomaceous earth but it was still a struggle getting rid of them all. At one point my computer was getting dusty so I decided to clean it out when I noticed that a pregnant roach had kamikaze'd head first through a case fan. Her upper body was completely torn to shreds but she had managed to make it inside and laid her egg which hatched and dozens of babies lived in my computer. I was equal parts horrified and impressed.
Removed by mod
Spending a night by myself in one of mexico's shitiest hotel. Wake up in the middle of the night because weird noise. Hundreds of cockroach on the wall, inches from the bed. Leave lights on. Cant sleep for the rest of the night so start to write a story about me meeting and becoming friend with a french cockroach that got lost in Mexico.
I want to read that
Seconded.
A flying cockroach. Need I say more?
Yeah, I've experienced this one. It was huge and flew right at my head.
I'm an emt/firefighter. I've gone in places during the day. With the lights on. Where the roaches were so bad that you could still see a hundred of them. Including the ones that fall from the ceiling onto you.
At that point, you might as well give up the rescue, call everyone back and seal the poor soul inside. 😖
Firefighter? Those are the type of cockroach-condemned places that are best burnt down. I'm not kidding. Were you there to burn the place down?
It's usually a med call for something that isn't an emergency situation, but something ignored/abused so long that they need to see a doctor, but no one there has a car so they dial 911 for an ambulance ride.
I used to work for a computer repair place long, long ago and I was on the laptop repair line.
I went to unscrew a laptop but for some reason my screwdriver wasn't catching the screw… a coworker took the screwdriver and put more force into and there was sickening crunch that wasn't hardware…
He removed the screw along with an impaled dead baby cockroach…
But this isn't the end. Oh no.
When that screw came out with its buddy they had friends.
A lot of friends.
Flooding out of that tiny screwhole like something from a god damn horror movie.
We bagged that up and sent it back to the customer. It did not get repaired that day to say the least.
Cockroaches exist. Sometimes I see them. That's horrific enough for me.
Unfortunately, I had one crawl on me while I was driving a few nights ago.
Fuck. That. Shit. Forever.
Worked at Office Depot back in ~2012-2014. Was the lead tech, and was the primary hardware fix guy. Had a guy bring in this old dell clamshell case PC with an xp sticker. It and him already smelled…off. After discussing some issues (no power) and finishing the paperwork, I cracked it open. They came spilling out. Dead, alive, and various sized. All the droppings too. It was one of the first machines I refused to work on. The guy had no choice but to leave with it. Didn't really say much after that.
The only other PC that came close to that were those of chain smokers. Where the tar buildup was actually sticky to the touch, coating everything, outside and in.
Crazy how these loungs look like. Its so disgusting, and its not even like peanut butter, that tar is actually carcinogenic
Yup. After my first tar PC, I refused them going forward.
Also, the cheap incenses (the ones that light instantly) can cause a similar scenario. I guess the moral here, clean your computers!
I would add "be happy we dont need open fire to heat anymore and stop smoking your damn house"
One of my closest friends, whom I often shared a roof with, loves insects. One day she found a cockroach and decided to make friends with it and give it its own area. Convincing her to get rid of it required jumping through tedious mental hoops on the basis that "a cockroach never killed anyone" and "he has as much a right to stay in the house if he follows the rules". His stay in the house ended just short of her successfully teaching him to do tricks. Thank god.
Ok. First off, the precipitous decline of insect populations scares me more than any other climate related catastrophe, but oh my God if I never again see a mating swarm of palmetto bugs, it will be too soon. That is something that hopelessly scarred me for life.
Yeah most of the cockroach species in my part of the world are harmless beings who just want to process dead wood for us and don't actually live in the house.
When American cockroaches turn up and fly around that scares me though.
