I'll tell you what cockroaches DON'T like...
 

Having the nylon tip of a ƒucking drumstick tapping the surface they planned to scurry across--TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... or maybe, the other way? TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... yeah, ƒucker, I have two hands. And I don't care how quick on your feet you are, that shit ain't gonna work today.

Yes, run into the sink. TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... Nope, not gonna get out that way. TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... Don't mind me while I move the few dishes you were trying to hide behind. TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... Yeah, one-handed. Smash! Smash! Over here. Smash! Smash! Over there, you'd definitely get smashed the hell out of by one of those giant wooden sticks that are just unmercifully pounding all of the visible escape routes you might have a chance to reach. TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA...

Hey, you like water, right? Aren't you called a water bug? Here's some water for you. Does that make it hard to get a foothold? TATATATATATATATATATATATATATA... I figured you might like to escape into some dark, grimy sewer pipes, huh? Just kidding, though, because there's a wire mesh over the opening, so you're kind of trapped, trying to keep your little head above water. Hot water. Rather hotter than you would like? You're kind of flailing about as if you would prefer less scalding-hot water. TATATATATATATATA...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT-TATATA ANYWAY?

You like Star Wars? You know that scene where Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite? Well, I don't have any of that-tatatatata, but let's just try this Comet. Here ya go. I'll just go ahead and bury you in that-tatatatata. In case you're not-tatatata dead aleady anyway, you might-tata like to get buried in a pile of caustic chemicals, there in the bottom of the sink, you filthy bastard. And I hope you can send distress signals out to your buddies.

Be sure and mention that you had no ƒucking chance to make it out of here alive. You came to the wrong house, and wound up in hell. You son-of-a-bitches may think you are the quickest shit around with your little scurry-in-an-evasive pattern bullshit, but guess what? That shit ain't gonna work around here. You ƒuckers. Try it.

so....you have roaches? and you told everyone on the internet about it? pooka is gonna be mad about this.

We live in Texas, dude. And it rained today.

is that part of life in texas then?

like.....regardless?

No, I mean we could poison them, but, you know, kids crawling around all over the floor and what not.

Make damn sure you finish that sucker off, Flint, 'cause if you don't, it will survive and mutate because of all the chemicals and stress homones and stuff, and in about five years time, the biggest meanest truck-sized mo-fo mutant cockroach ever spawned is going to come stomping down your street, smash through your front wall with its eight-foot long mandibles, and go TATATATA all over your weak flimsy endoskeletal body with its twelve - count them, twelve! - hairy, hook-like talons, squealing "Hiiishhhhshhhyaaaa! HHiiiishhhhhhssshhhyyaaa!*".



*Cockroach for "Payback time, Twolegs!"


Finish him. Finish him good. Now.

So....you have roaches and you chose to torment and taunt the roach to death?


Poor little bugger. Running pell mell for cover and safety, every avenue terrifying and deadly.

What was that computer game, where you were a cockroach? I never could get past the cigarette in the street.

Mojo something?

We used to have roaches, back when I was building my kayak in the basement. I found one of them once after it had gotten itself stuck in a drop of epoxy the morning after I was working on the kayak. I really don't understand how it possibly could have done that, but it was alive, with its rear legs frozen in a drop of now hardened epoxy.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1101/...0cabf06eb7.jpg

It lived just long enough for me to take a couple pictures.

And they're a fucking inch-and-a-half long, too. That picture glatt posted? The first time I saw one of those piddly Northern cockroaches, I said in genuine confusion, "Um, that's not a roach... must be, like, a June bug or something."

Well, to be fair, the one in my picture is a baby. It's much smaller than a penny. The big ones are more like an inch.

:: GETS ALL SKEEVED OUT ::

See, LJ, this is why people from Texas are so strong and resourceful. They have to be. We northeastern milquetoasts just can't compete.

I lived in some pretty low-rent places while going to college. All of them had roach problems when I moved in - and didn't when I moved out.

I was working at Sears part-time and got this advice from an old-timer. Boric Acid and sugar. Both are powder. Mix some together and put some behind the fridge on a piece of cardboard or something. Pull out the bottom drawers of your cabinets and put some on the floor underneath. These are places your kids can't get to but the roaches will.

I've never tried this on southern roaches, but it has worked everywhere I've tried it.

when we fixed the sink in the basement so it no longer leaked on the floor down there, it got rid of their water source and our roach problem went away.

OH yeah, Bad Mojo.

Thanks Shaw, that was bugging me.

Or if you really want to avoid the poison route, some friends of mine bought two geckos from an exotic pet store and released them under the sink in their kitchen. Never saw another roach. On the other hand, the house was extremely old with spaces between the boards everywhere, and they knew the geckos would be living in the walls, not stuck under the kitchen sink.

got any tricks for these buggers?:

http://oldcoyote.files.wordpress.com...pg?w=300&h=240

I would do that, but i think Dennis might be interested in tasting lizard.

I never see more than one or two of them in a year, so I've never bothered looking into it. Do you have lots?

Mrs. Dallas used to take great pleasure in listening to the little beasties run around in the Roach Motels.

only during summer months and after a heavy rain. we have a hella old house, and the basement is ...interesting.

Bullshit, both Tuft's University (MA) and Westinghouse Steam Turbine Div (PA) had 3 inch roaches in the steam tunnels.
Boeing (PA) only has 1.5 to 2 inch roaches, though they do have brown squirrels. :cool:

Yes, YESSS. That's it, exactly. The intention was to inflict maximum psychological terror (if possible, or applicable) not just quick death.

Does this make me a sociopath?

This isn't a living thing that is of the class I feel empathy towards. I killed this thing the same way a flu virus kills a little African kid--viciously, horrifically, and with no remorse. In this case I was taking revenge for the psychological terror that these things inflict upon me, with their incompatible nervous system sending out it's creep-vibes, making me shudder. I know they do it. They're alien. They're not life as we know it. I feel perfectly justified in regarding them as an enemy that needs to be terrified, tortured, and disposed of in the worst way possible. And I sincerely hope that they send out some kind of distress signal, notifying any others nearby that a hell of unimaginable magnitudes is what they will find in my house.

Boric acid, in a weak solution (~1.5%) is a common eye wash. It's pretty benign.

Remember, if you step on a cockroach you'll be tracking eggs everywhere you walk, so clean the bottom of your shoe. :yelsick:

Sticky traps work well, but only if you don't let your cat(s) down there.

Click on this post at your own risk. Heeby jeeby warning.

I recommend beheading them, and posting their heads on toothpicks in your windowsills.

Beheading doesn't kill them, they'll keep laying eggs like the energizer bunny until they starve to death.

I'll never forget the time I was on the floor at my apartment in Charleston, SC, watching a movie in the dark...I reached for my can of soda and noticed that the carbonation was especially noisy...thank GOD I picked up on that because I turned on the light and there on top of my can was a big fat roach. Ah, the south. I don't miss that about you.

We do have a leaky basement, though, and have had a few unwelcome guests this spring as a result. Nasty.

Okay Bruce. You just made me throw up in my mouth a little.

No roaches here, but wow. What a Spring.

Normally I find ladybugs quite endearing, but not when your airspace is invaded by them:
http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-ladybu...,3028100.story

BLECH

The world after the nuclear war...

http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen...roachanson.jpg

They did that on Mythbusters.

oooh yes! we get them in the pottery studio! we deal with them by smushing then into a piece of clay and firing it. makes awesome fake fossils.

Jim, Monnie, what the hell is that thing? It has far too many legs. Love the fossil idea though.

the pottery teacher knows the full latin name. he has it stapled to the notice board where we hang all of the specimins. it's right next to the sink. Sort of like a warning...

it's a centipede. nasty, messy to squoosh, they can jump, and they run fast.

Maybe it is just the angle, but it doesn't look like a regular centipede to me. Oh well, maybe I am just used to the giant venemous centipedes Down Under...

I was sitting on a log around a campfire once and got bitten on the arse by a centipede. It had massive mandibles. Nothing like that. It got fried along with the log it was inhabiting.

eta: yes it was very funny how high I jumped

http://faunanet.gov.au/wos/images/fa...full/f103a.jpg


It was one of these suckers that bit me! (or one of its cousins)

This is the largest native Australian centipede, growing to 14 cm long. The Giant Centipede is a member of the scolopendrid family, which includes the largest centipede in the world, Scolopendra gigantea - a 30 cm centipede from South America that is able to eat mice and lizards.

Scolopendrid centipedes live in logs and sheltered places and, like all centipedes, the first pair of legs behind the head is modified into a pair of fangs, which contain a poison gland. A bite from the Giant Centipede may cause severe pain that could persist for several days. However, no deaths have been recorded from the bite of any Australian centipede.

That's only because people die too fast to say what bit them.

Well obviously it didn't kill me, but I had a lump on my bum for days.

We don't need to hear about your boyfriends, thanks.

:bolt:

If that's a centipede, I'd hate to see what you Australians call snakes!!

Let's not talk about snakes or how on the same camping trip there was a swimming hole up around the bend where we'd go to have a wash in the evenings, but that was also the times the snakes would come down to drink too. Once or twice they decided to cross while we were in the water. Kinda scarey, but awesome in a way too. They didn't care about us. Just went round as if we were a log in the water.

So I was going to contradict you, but apparently here there are three different insects commonly called centipede and that one is a "house centipede". what i know as a centipede is a "garden centipede"

That freaky thing LJ put up there gives me nightmares. 12 years ago, I lived in a very old apartment whose bathroom had these coming out the vent. I had to go across the hall to get my neighbor to kill them for me they scared me so much. For some reason spiders don't do much for me, though. While some people find the need to shriek and in my stepdaughter's case, bring her feet up stomping on the dashboard while I am driving the vehicle, I am not afraid of the spiders. Just wrecks.

House Centipede

The house centipede, Scutigera coleoptrata, is the only species capable of reproducing in homes and is often seen in and around homes where dampness occurs. The house centipede is active at night, moving about in search of cockroaches and other insects. Although centipedes rarely bite, are seldom dangerous and are beneficial because they destroy other insects, most people have an aversion to their presence inside their homes.


http://dorindmikey.files.wordpress.c...-centipede.jpg

they're like big bushy old man eyebrows running up the wall, though.....

fuck that noise

Another tid bit on the house centipede;

Cockroaches love meteorologists. Not funny haha... funny queer. :eek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD6ME346RBo

Awww, Merc...that makes me want to vomit, or detach something. *shudder*

lizards detach their tails. That's grosser if you ask me.

Wonder what that feels like for the lizard. When it sheds its tail. Often wondered that.


Disturbs the hell out of me the whole shedding limbs thing. Soo alien. Dropping the little legs also has creep out factor bigstyle. *suppreses a slight shudder*

probably feels a bit shorter...

And off-balance, like when you cut your hair from really long to really short.

To set the record straight... we have only had 2 roaches make their way into our house since we bought it 3 1/2 years ago... we see them outside during a good rain... and I'm sure that's how it made its way in... I was needless to say... horrified... in Texas if you live near trees or water... you have em... doesn't matter how clean you are.

I haven't seen a roach since I moved here five years ago. Probably gets too cold in the Pacific Northwest for them.

One of the (many) reasons I'll never live in Texas again. :D

Stay away from Georgia palmettos if you can't stand roaches. They own the domain. And will make you aware of it, too. If one gets up on a wall, use a long weapon to oust him. He will almost surely fly right in your face. Bestids.

Yea, we keep a whole host of Gekos around, that does a damm good job around our place. And we are 5 miles from the ocean, 150 yards from a major tidal river.