Walked into the bathroom this morning and when I turned the corner there it was!!! At fucking eye level no less, scuttling down the wall and I totally screamed!!! – kind of like the scream you hear in cheap horror films. Raced out of the bathroom and got my hero Noggin to grab a shoe and smash it to smithereens.
Bit of history. I live in a very very old apartment building in the centre of Seville. And of course everyone knows that these horrid creatures are living in our walls, floor/ceiling spaces, etc. But they don’t usually come out. Talking about the massive two-inch-long American cockroaches that also fly! (my worst nightmare).
During the more than 12 years I’ve lived in this apartment I’ve only ever seen one or two of the fuckers annually – usually during the summer. And when Lua was alive she made very short work of them – I only knew they had been there cos I’d find their sorry corpses on the floor the next morning.
But last September they started showing up in the kitchen and bathroom on a regular basis (gaaaa!). Then after a couple of weeks they disappeared again. At the time a lot of people in the neighbourhood had been complaining about this and they put it down to all the recent road works – disrupting the nests? But then I found one in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago (when I went to get a bottle of cold water in the middle of the night – gaaa!) and then again this morning in the bathroom.
I honestly cannot cope with them at all. I mean, I know they’re way smaller than me and not life-threatening or anything. But it’s the gaaaaa-factor, you know?
So it looks like I’m going to have to find some sort of ‘not terribly toxic’ way to control them. Because of the cats I can’t spray or put down other toxic stuff. I’m told boric acid powder is very effective but I’m not sure if it would harm the cats. Also, I once read that putting down silica sand is something that gets attached to their bodies and later when they groom (roaches groom???) their insides get ripped to shreds.
I just don’t understand why after so many years without any problem with these most horrible things that they are suddenly showing up in my home . . . help?
[photo by Catherine Chalmers]
casa azahar 
*shivers*
That´s one of the reasons to stay in the Icy North – the lack of horrid and scary living thingies… OK there are some adders and nasty millipedes but they´re usually not deadly.
I´m afraid I´ve nothing to suggest in ways of getting rid of them buggers. Hmmm… a good flame throwing down the sewers..? That always works in the horror movies anyway.
When I was a kid I wanted to be an explorer of foreign lands. When I realised that jungles and deserts are full of snakes, spiders and scary bugs I gave up that ambition. It´s better to stay in the armchair and read about other peoples adventures:)
…and I still get the creeps when remembering the occasion the hatchlings father forced me into the reptile building at the zoo in Perth, Western Australia many years ago. Brrrr! No cages are safe enough for me.
However once I´ve touched a python, or maybe it was a boa constrictor. I survived. All the hatchlings had the snake around their necks, supervised by the caretaker, and to keep my position as the grown up I had to touch that goddamned creature… I refused to go near snakes ever since.
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Snakes don’t bother me in the slightest. In fact, a boyfriend of mine once had a small boa constrictor called Alice and I would happily have her draped around my neck. It was interesting to discover that snakes aren’t slimy at all, in fact they are very very dry to the touch.
Mice also don’t bother me, though I don’t want them living in my home – when we had mice in Bristol we had various ways of getting rid of them. The best one was my boyfriend trapping them in his hands and then tossing them out into the front garden.
He also used the same technique for disposing of the massive spiders that constantly showed up in our flat – make no mistake, these were enormous huge hairy fuckers! Almost as big as the mice.
I need my Lua!!! She was amazing. I remember when I lived in a ground-floor flat in Salamanca with a patio and during the night massive roaches would almost pour out of the drain hole . . . and she would massacre them all.
And I remember one morning sitting with her in my bedroom and suddenly Lua got all twitchy – nostrils sniffing – and she raced out of the room and totally plastered a huge roach that had made its way into the kitchen from the patio. I mean – she could smell the fucker from two rooms away! Amazing girl.
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Fortunately, I’ve not (yet) needed to worry about serious insect control- leastwise those (gaaaa!) enormous flying ones. I do use a poison-free ant & roach killer around the house (the primary ingredient is mint oil, which apparently clogs insect’s breathing holes), and a spray made with orange oil. Never tried either on a roach, and I don’t know if they’re available, or affordable, in Sevilla.
However, I just wanted to mention that while boric acid and Borax are of very, verly low toxicity levels to animals and humans, boric acid somtimes contains trace amounts of arsenic which can make cats sick in the stomach, so you might just want to check for other ingredients before you buy.
I sprinkled boric acid around the perimeter out on the back porch before I moved in four years ago, and Herman’s been out there sniffing and exploring numerous times, to no ill effect. And I’ve only ever seen two roaches in here- both when tenants had moved out and remodeling had been done downstairs.
If I saw one of those big fuckers, I would probably drop dead on the spot.
Snakes and mice don’t bother me, either, though I agree I wouldn’t want them roaming loose in my home. Herman’s not much of a hunter (too wobbly), but he does catch the occasional slow-moving centipede. Gaaa! to those icky things, too. I have a couple of house plants that appear to be infested with millipedes (both came from the same store, so I assume the soil had eggs in it). They’re harmless as far as plants go, but it gives me the willies just thinking that they’re in there… once a week I sent K off on Millipede Patrol and make him dig around in the soil, fishing the little fuckers out and squishing them.
Spiders are pretty creepy, too. Never had any big hairy ones, so I usually see to it that they’re released outdoors as opposed to dispatched by squishing.
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Oh Az…I feel your pain. Our apartment building here in New York is the cockroach center of the universe. Lorelei has actually mastered ways to eradicate them. Our cats do nothing but look at them, and our dog could care less. We have also been told that all the recent renovations to various apartments have disrupted them, but I know it is a bunch of BS…they just live in the building and I depise them. When Lorelei returns from work I should have her give you some advice, but I do know she has discovered a really effective gel. Roach motels also work. I have to say that the “new York” roaches do not fly…only the “Floridian” roaches. Good lcuk, and we can give you some advice when we see you next month!
xoxo
ss
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Yeah well, I hate to say it, Sofia, but you and Lorelei might also be dealing with these fuckers, being just next door. And you *know* when you’ve stayed here before that there was never any problem with them. That’s why I’m so freaked out now. It’s never happened before.
And yeah, they are the big flying fuckers like they have in Florida. Of course the plus side is that these ones don’t tend to get into *absolutely everywhere* like food cupboards, etc – they mostly just scuttle around on the floor trying to scare half-asleep chubby women who need to get up for a pee in the wee hours. 😦
Sunny never notices them and Azar thinks they are cat toys – if he finds one he’ll frolick with it for ages until *my hero* gets up and murdelizes it with his trusty shoe.
Anyhow, I hope you won’t see any during your stay. Perhaps bring some of that gel stuff just in case? Along with the popcorn. Um, in separate bags please … 😉
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I’m assuming these are the same creatures that I got to know in Ecuador. Hideous things. You have my sympathy.
Ecuador was where I learned that cockroaches that live in a fridge are quite pale – presumably because the light is usually off.
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Or they might be related to the huge flying yellow cockroaches they have in Cádiz? Have only heard about these – and there was a story about them that also included a fridge. Hmmm…
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Yellow? That’s disturbing. And wrong.
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Read this the other day. I have to say that the idea of ‘luring’ roaches out of hiding is not a very attractive one to me, but maybe if someone else was there to do the stamping …
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1805332,00.html
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Insects and arachnids don’t much bother me (although I accept that a house full of roaches might be taking the piss). Snakes, though…shudder. It’s entirely irrational, I know. A couple of times we’ve taken the kids to events where they’ve been allowed to handle snakes. Adam is a little wary, but Sophie will happily wrap a python around her neck. I take the precaution of leaving the room while this is happening. I’m afraid I might freak out and start throwing heavy objects at it. And once on Corfu a big pink motherfucker crawled out of a wall and plopped to the ground right at my feet.
Would adopting a Gecko help with the Spanish roaches? I’ve spent many a happy holiday in Greece with a gecko running around the ceiling. Inevitably we end up calling them Gordon.
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I sympathise. Spiders always freak me out and I always kill them when I see one in my flat, even though I feel stupidly guilty about it. But imagine if they flew that’d be so much worse. I remember as a kid being terrified of giant flying stag beetles in our garden.
However much I tell myself I’m being irrational, I just can’t conquer the terror when I come across one of these creatures unexpectedly. I wonder why we’ve evolved to be so scared of these things, as most of them hold so little actual danger to us?
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I’m not much of a fan of cockroaches, but most insects and other crawly things don’t really bother me. I’m told that bicarbonate of soda is an efficient, though icky, way of getting rid of cockroaches. One will eat it, the stuff expands in its innards, making it essentially explode (ick) after a while. Then the others come and eat the body (ick) and the cycle continues, so that you end up with lots of exploded cockroaches. It may be a myth, though, and I’d hate to see it in action.
My great fear is crocodiles and their chums – alligators, caiman etc. Evil, evil creatures that scare me, whether on TV or in a zoo. If I saw one in the wild, I’d probably be paralysed with fear. Hateful things.
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Well, at least it makes sense to be afraid of crocodiles, etc, David. What doesn’t make sense, as Fanny pointed out, is feeling absolutely terrified of something about the size of your thumb (or smaller).
Interesting trick with the bicarbonate of soda – wonder if it really works.
Edward, we sometimes get these cute little lizards in the flat – not sure if they’re geckos or not. I’d be quite happy to have them living on my ceilings but somehow they always end up dead on the floor with no tails. 😕
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I’m terrified of slugs. Which makes even less sense. They don’t even scuttle or anything. But I can’t go near one. I remember once being trapped in a bathroom after a shower for 20 minutes because there was a damn’ great slug lolling on the threshold. I could NOT step over it with no knickers on.
That’s Freudian to the point of EWWWWWW. I am so shutting up now.
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Hey is this your new website? I like it. I really do. I love the picture, especially as it reveals the Nog in profile for a change. His eyes seemed quite keen and focused and intent on the bestower of Liff. Much preferred to the usual beagle eyed indifference he gives when faced toward the camera lens.
Sorry to hear about them roaches. I too have been having a variety of infestations this year. It has been quite damp in Nova Scotia and the biting flies are relentless and even the giant ants are moving to higher ground.
~jwf~
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PS:
Not having my own home computer I can’t save any bookmarks or favourites or links. I got here today from the link in the Gallery thread at h2g2, but god knows if I’ll ever find my way back.
~jwf~
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Well, there is a link to here on my h2g2 PS final journal entry. 🙂
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“…beagle eyed indifference..”?
Do I really?
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Not at all, honey – fearless roach killer that you are! You’re my hero. 🙂
————
Yesterday evening Nog saw one walk in off the balcony! 😮 Obviously flew up as we are on the 3rd floor (4th floor US/Can). Anyhow, it was soon an ex-roach but doesn’t it seem so unfair that these horrible things also FLY???
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Eeeeewwwwwwwwwwww. Well, Gaaaaaaaaaaaa, too, actually.
I’m going to be housesitting for a friend this weekend until Wednesday or so, and she has some seriously large water bugs which troop out of her hallway around 11:30-ish in the summer. I *LOATHE* bugs. Very afraid of them, panic attacks, the whole bit.
She claims she and her family have never seen them…I just don’t see how she could *miss* them!
I told her that I’d only do the job, if she lets me bring a large can of bugkiller!
*shudder*
Diane
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Are you bringing the cats with you? They might make short work of them.
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K found one of those “Gaaaa!” fuckers- albeit one of the smaller, non-flying urban variety- in, of all places, the silverware drawer this morning. Guess who’s running the dishwasher tonight. Twice, maybe. Ugh!
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*shudder*
Not 100% sure but I think all dem fuckers can fly – it’s just that the smaller variety don’t usually bother.
Our friends (S&L) visiting from New York very kindly brought us some ‘goo in a tube’ that apparently doesn’t kill the fuckers on contact, but it can wipe out a whole *shudder* nest of them once the infected one goes home.
Which sounds great to me, but I’m still concerned about the ‘coming out to die’ thing that roaches often do – which could be a result of the *shudder* colony kicking them out once they become sickly. My main concern being that Sunny might eat a toxic dying roach – he’s such a DOG that he’ll eat just about anything, that one.
Even though S&L have a dog and a couple of cats in their place and say this goo is great, I’m just too nervous about poisoning Mr Piggy-guts.
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Happy to report that in the past month there have only been two sightings … one late evening I found one semi-scuttling (almost sauntering) down the hallway. I went EEK and Nog came and smashed it to smithereens with his trusty killer sandal.
A couple of weeks later woke up to find a dead one in the kitchen sink. Dead! Like, just dead and lying there in the sink. Weird. Not to mention totally gross.
So, not the same scary infestation we had last September – mind you, it’s still not September …
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Dead? Suicide, maybe, to avoid the Killer Sandal?
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Possibly, but usually when there’s one in the sink Nog uses the killer paper towels ( shudder ).
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*squirms* Oh, that’s worse than the sandal. Such direct involvement…
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