Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cockroaches

Ew. This is not the type of roach I thought you'd be passing.

numinous — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:58:26 -0800

Joe's-Apartment-Filter: Advice and anecdotes on how to best roach-bomb our place? I'm moving and want to obliterate these monsters!

We’re moving! After two years of terrible management, university take-over, neighbors predisposed to frat parties, and a slew of other issues, I have finally reached the end of my lease. Praise be! Very recently, I’ve discovered yet another reason why this move is so opportune: roaches. I’ve had the good fortune to have never before lived in a place with roaches. So, when I tell you that one recently crawled over my foot while I was in the bathroom (shudder), you’ll understand that I'm absolutely horrified. Horrified and disgusted and just EW YUCK WTF GROSS GET THE HELL OUTTA MY HOUSE OMG.

As I’m so totally new to this (horrifying) game, I don’t know where to start when it comes to extermination and prevention. I’ve already bought roach traps, and set them up in various places, and have already reduced the number of roaches encountered to maybe one every two weeks. BUT! I really, really, really, really, reaaaaaaaaaaally don’t want to transport any of these beast during the move and inadvertently introduce them into our shiny new abode.

Based on advice culled from previous AskMe’s (one, two), I’ve decided that roach bombing our apartment is our best bet for complete roach annihilation. I’m inclined to go with the Raid Fogger, as it’s widely available and not too pricey. I have already purchased a big box of Borax, and have sprinkled it in various spots throughout our current apartment. But this is not enough to soothe my mind and quell my fears that they are still lingering just behind the bookcase, or in the couch, or wherever. I want not to live in fear. I want peace of mind. But most of all, I want to kill with extreme prejudice. So here’s the part where you offer all of your anecdotes and sagely advice!

Do these bombs/foggers actually work?

If I use these foggers, do I need to activate one in each room of our apartment?

How toxic is this stuff? Is it dangerous to humans? (e.g. if there is residue left from it, and it gets on my hands and I rub my eye or pick my teeth, is there a potential for harm?)

What stuff should I move before initiating the fogging mechanism? (Flatware? Kitchen utensils? Sealed food? Electronic equipment? Specific textiles?)

Will food left in the fridge be safe for consumption after the fogging?

How long should we wait after activation to return into the apartment? (Raid suggests 3 hours, but that seems rather short. Is it?)

Is there anything that I've overlooked? If so, please feel free to supply me with that advice, too. Thank you (seriously).

Help me keep a chinchilla without cockroaches.

Brainy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:19:44 -0800

How do we keep a chinchilla in an apartment where roaches might be present without killing the chinchilla or attracting tons of bugs? My girlfriend wants to bring her chinchilla to our apartment and I would like that too. However we've seen more than a couple of roaches (including one gigantic one in the sink the other day*) I'm worried we'd pretty much be bringing a roach attractor into the apartment.

The cage she currently has is homemade and constructed of wood and wire...something roaches would have no problem getting through. There are solid plastic cages, but air holes = bug holes. Are there any bug proof cages out there?

What about rodent food that wouldn't attract roaches?

Will we have to be more careful with the insecticide, is the chinchilla in more danger because of his size?

My girlfriend and I (and Kirby the chinchilla) thank you!

* Bonus question. we sprayed Raid Roach Max into our sink to kill it. What's the best way of cleaning this poison out of our sink?

How to avoid unwanted roach passengers in a move, and the ethics of informing potential tenants

yellowbinder — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:50:56 -0800

2 questions about cockroaches and moving house, one practical, one moral. All right. So our apartment has cockroaches, we've lived there about a year and they have been a fairly constant presence. It's not a full blown panic now infestation, but it's not nice. We see one or two at least 3 times a week. We've used boric acid, roach gel, and found and removed a major food source. (Who the hell leaves a giant, open bag of rice in a roach friendly furnace room???). Regardless, they're still around.

My man and I are both finally working full time and bringing in enough money to move to a slightly nicer place. Target move date is in two months.

So the questions are:

1) How do we make sure they don't move with us?
2) Judging from how I found the place, it will be my responsibility to list and show the apartment. Should I disclose the nasties to prospective tenants?

The girl who showed me the place mentioned "a few bugs" when I asked if there was anything wrong with it. Didn't realize that meant creepy crawly roaches. The apartment is otherwise not that bad, nothing special but dirt cheap.

Photo cleaning, not Photoshopping

Cog — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:20:20 -0800

What is the safest (my health comes first, preserving the photos comes second) way to clean photographs contaminated with cockroach eggs and rat droppings? A two part question...

Today I got sick of having a 3 car garage that only fits one car. So I pulled everything out and left it in the backyard for later sorting and dumping. In the process, I found old negatives and photos from the 60's to 90's that my parents stored in cardboard boxes. This stuff I'll keep. The negatives are in very good shape within their sleeves. The photographs are in worse shape, being covered in roach eggs and rat droppings. The roach eggs are stuck to the photographs but the rat droppings fall out with a hard shake.

While I'm not squeamish about handling these photos, but I'm wondering about any possible health hazards with handling rat droppings and roach eggs.

So my two questions. What should I used to protect myself from getting sick from the dropping? And what is the best way to clean them off the photographs?

What is NYC doing about pests?

Drohan — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:43:08 -0800

[NYCFilter] What steps has NYC taken to deal with vermin? And what isn't it doing that it could? What city initiatives exist to deal with pests in NYC apartments? Like the NYC Rodent Academy? Are there similar initiatives for bedbugs, cockroaches, assorted other vermin? And what are some things the city could/should do that it hasn't to address bug & rodent problems? I heard about some legislation introduced last year to forbid the sale of reconditioned mattresses as a means of preventing bedbugs spreading but I don't know if it ever got passed.

Cockroach/bug situation in Buenos Aires?

Ashley801 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:23:15 -0800

Does Buenos Aires have a lot of cockroaches? How many/how big? Are they avoidable in your apartment/building? I'm deciding between several cities for study abroad. Having lived in cities with a lot of cockroaches I'd rather not repeat the experience.

Is Buenos Aires more like Seattle, where you will only find cockroaches in squalor, more like NYC where they are unavoidable in any large apartment building but rare in single-family houses, or more like Miami, where many people have them even in a single-family house (and they're huge and fly)?

Also, how large are they? And, what's the bugginess factor like there in general?

Buenos Aires seems to have a temperate climate, so this is unclear to me...

Cockroaches!!!

unreasonable — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:13:48 -0800

I moved into an apartment that is infested with cockroaches and i don't want them to follow me to my new place. I am moving out of the infested apartment in a few days and was wondering if the cockroaches could somehow hitch a ride in any of my things and infest my new place. Do they lay eggs or hide in mattresses, blankets, books, or anything else I will take with me? If so, what can i do to kill them without ruining or throwing away all of my things?

Cockroaches in my dishwasher. Ewww!

calistasm — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 19:11:22 -0800

I have cockroaches in my dishwasher. Help me kill the little bastards with extreme prejudice. Due to some little beasties hitching a ride in boxes that were mailed to us, we have a cockroach problem. It seems to be mostly under control now (after two sprayings, a bombing, baits, glue traps, and roach gel), but I cannot for the life of me figure out what to do about the ones in the dishwasher. They seem to be living in the door. There are droppings along the top of the door, and I have seen them crawl into the body of the dishwasher from the air vents. I have considered spraying through the vents with Raid, but it seems unwise, since I actually USE the thing. What suggestions do you have?

Relevant: I live in an apartment building, I don't want to move, I am unsure if replacing the dishwasher is feasible, and in any case I want to see if I can do anything about it first. Thanks.

Boric Acid (roach killer) safe to use in my cupboard?

bingwah — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 06:49:14 -0800

I'm Using Boric Acid for a cockroach problem - is it safe to put it in my cupboard next to plates and cups? I don't have a huge roach problem but enough to make it a nuisance and me and my wife are pretty disgusted by them. I usually see about 1 or 2 a week in the kitchen only.

I've read this thread:
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/15936 and I'm using three different roach "killers". I layed down boric acid, Combat roach Gel and have put out Raid Roach traps. I don't know how long this stuff is supposed to take to work but it's been almost a month and we're still seeing them.

I purposely avoided my cupboards because I didn't want toxins near my plates and cups. Today however I saw a roach in my cupboard.

Is it really bad to put down boric acid in my cupboard? Obviously I'd wash any plates or cups before using.

Poisoning the roaches not the pooches.

xetere — Sat, 13 May 2006 07:35:09 -0800

If the exterminator comes to kill roaches will they kill my pets too? I live in a NYC apartment that has been relatively roach free. I have noticed a few petits amis crawling around my kitchen. The landlord has an exterminator come once a month. I'm usually never home and have never needed them, but now I'm seriously considering having exterminator come in. Especially since if my neighbors have him come in, then my apt will be a roach refugee camp. But I have a dog and a cat, should I try to put them up with a friend for a week-end? (Exterminator comes on Saturdays) Will they be affected to the point of death? Exterminator has limited English knowledge or I'd ask him and Google only comes up with advice like don't let pets eat Combat traps.

PS , I notice that my cat does absolutely nothing with any stray roaches, thereby putting lie to the notion that cats are great roach protection. Hence I don't think he'll die from dead roach consumption.

Cockroach genocide?

loquacious — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 03:30:28 -0800

GAH! Cockroaches! Please help! Short story: I want your cockroach eradication knowledge. It can be anecdotal, scientific, folk lore, whatever. It can be poisons or traps or advice on how to seal up the apartment to keep them from getting in and moving around.

Long story:

I've moved into a new apartment with my GF. The new (oldish) apartment came with a bunch of roaches. The previous tenant was (literally) a filthy crack-ho pig. Well, meth-ho, more likely. Seriously. I met her and her posse when we were visiting the apartment 4-plex and checking it out. She was seriously one of the most offensive, assuming, and demeaning people I've ever met, and I've been around the block a few times and lived in some pretty screwed up places.

The neighbors in this four-plex are visibly not that clean, but they're mostly nice and I really don't want to be that sort of new neighbor that makes life hell for everyone.

Plus, at least two of the three neighbors have physical/medical/age issues - to the point that once I get settled in here I'm seriously considering going down and helping them clean up a bit. I do not enjoy cleaning. At all. But they can probably use the help. And if it decreases the roaches here by reducing them there, even better.

The landlord is a state away in California- and seems like a nice guy. He knocked our first months rent almost in half, after a previously agreed upon free half-month, for our patience with the hassles.

Short story on the hassles: The temporary folks he hired to clean the place before we moved in bailed out on him. We moved in three days after he said it'd be ready to find out that literally nothing had been cleaned. Not even a partially vacuumed carpet. The cupboards under the kitchen sink had a layer of roach droppings in it like a fine mulch. There were dirty dishes still in the dishwasher.

We've been sprayed - and it sucks. I can still feel and smell the fumes and outgassing. We're being extra clean. I've put down roach discs and a handful of glue traps (the kind for mice and rats, but cockroaches stick to them even better)

I could "live with" the roaches - if by "living with" we meant "terminating them with prejudice, keeping extra clean, keeping foodstuffs sealed and put away, but not generally freaking out about them and letting them run the place."

But my girlfriend can't. She's terrified of them and totally disgusted by them. I can understand that. If this place was crawling with spiders, however harmless, I'd be pretty upset.

We want to keep them to a minimum and/or eliminate them before they mature to the legendary 3-6 inch long mature ones that Phoenix, AZ is infamous for.

I'm open to any and all suggestions except for "move" and "sue the slumlord". This apartment is a frickin' huge - totally ginormous - two bedroom for under $600 a month, a welcome change from a tiny, ill-configured studio in totally ghetto LA for $800. The location and proximity to workplaces is awesome. Trader Joe's is fifteen minutes away. And the landlord seems nice - which is a huge bonus in a world of megacomplexes with faceless bearaucrats for management.

Killing Roaches

muckster — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 05:47:50 -0800

What's the most effective, least toxic way to kill the hordes of cockroaches that have infested my kitchen? I don't trust that the usual Raid stuff won't hasten my own death, especially if I have to keep spraying it near my food every night. It never seems to have any lasting effect beyond killing the single roach it's aimed at, anyway. What's the best poison (or method) to keep the bugs at bay and my kitchen healthy?