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I'd much rather find 10 spiders in my house than 1 roach. I hate roaches. We had some this summer, and it took me a while to figure out where they were coming from. But I eventually figure it out, and caulked extensively! They were coming in around a skylight. I kept seeing them on the ceiling, and rarely anywhere else...those great big black palmetto bug sized ones!
We lived in Wilmington when I was a kid. We moved away and rented out our house. After a year, we went in to clean it up and prep it for sale. The renters had just moved out. We discovered that the kitchen was full of roaches. They were all in the cabinets and drawers. I can;t imagine living like that.
While living in Daytona, I left my windows on my car open once and it rained hard overnight drenching everything inside and left me a musty stinking interior. Had to keep the windows open in hopes the car would air our but this was Fla in the summertime. Soon after, on a late night drive coming home from Orlando, I felt a number of tiny critters dash across my barefeet. Naturally, I screamed out loud like a girl and swerved violently back and forth across I4 at about 70 mph. For an instant, I thought it would be a good idea to speed up and run myself into a bridge abutment in order to destroy the cockroaches. Instead, I hurried back home and the next day set off two bug bombs in my passenger compartment and trunk. Didn't drive the car for a few days and have any didn't have any more problems with cockroaches attacking me in the car.
We knew all about roaches from living in New Orleans but one apartment in Raleigh even blew us away.
Apparently there was a sewer leak under the slab and we were deluged with all sizes of roaches. The exterminator came every week with no results.
Sealing openings in the walls for pipes/wires stopped the big ones that were dropping out of the HVAC vents in the ceiling. The little ones kept coming in waves.
The incompetent manager said roaches take months to be controlled. I said Bullfeathers since my late uncle ran an exterminating company in Florida.
We finally threatened a lawsuit and were released from our lease.
One of my cats still swats the wall when she sees a shadow thinking it's a roach.
One tip. A Miele vacuum is powerful enough to suck in and instantly kill any roach on the ceiling or high up on the wall. Sad way to have to learn this, eh.
You weren't kidding when you said cockroaches almost killed you!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghengis
cockroaches almost killed me...
While living in Daytona, I left my windows on my car open once and it rained hard overnight drenching everything inside and left me a musty stinking interior. Had to keep the windows open in hopes the car would air our but this was Fla in the summertime. Soon after, on a late night drive coming home from Orlando, I felt a number of tiny critters dash across my barefeet. Naturally, I screamed out loud like a girl and swerved violently back and forth across I4 at about 70 mph. For an instant, I thought it would be a good idea to speed up and run myself into a bridge abutment in order to destroy the cockroaches. Instead, I hurried back home and the next day set off two bug bombs in my passenger compartment and trunk. Didn't drive the car for a few days and have any didn't have any more problems with cockroaches attacking me in the car.
Does everyone from Wilmington have a cockroach story? haha Mine isn't as bad as everyone else's, but I thought it was until I read these!
I used to live in Wilmington too. My first place there was a little trailer on the outskirts of town. We called it the Roach Motel because there were so many roaches (the smaller, dirty kind). We carried around cans of Raid the whole time we lived there like people do cell phones now. We kept them by our beds at night like flashlights. You know how in an older mobile home, some of the walls have "seams" that are kind of coming apart? We had one of those all around our living room, and every night all the little roaches would watch tv with us. We could 1000's of antennas poking out from that seam. They were there when we moved in - we were very clean and even cleaner knowing we lived in the Roach Motel. Thankfully we were able to move out after a couple of months to a less-infested apartment in town.
As for the palmetto bugs, I had never seen one til I moved there, and some nights the sidewalks would be crawling with them! I also noticed a ton of them at the Carolina beach jetty at dusk on several occasions. You do not want to be sitting on those rocks then!
Ya'll know the giant ones can fly, right? In Wilmington I used to have big hair, and sometimes they would fly in my hair and get trapped there next to my ear! It makes my eyes tear up to this day just thinking about it, lol.
Never walk under a muscadine grape arbor at night in Wilmington.
TRUST ME ON THIS.
The stuff of nightmares. Things flew at my face.
So, those big ones are generally thought to not infest - they only make their way in from outside. I am here to testify that they certainly can have babies in your house if they feel like it. They found their way into the duct work (apparently because the former tenant's cat moved into the crawlspace and I assume put holes in the foil ducts, which were never fixed).
I held up a bag of baby cockroaches for the exterminator to see and he proclaimed them baby oriental cockroaches, though I thought they were smoky brown ones.
On an unrelated note, my exterminator there thought it was silly that I was so worked up over cockroaches - but he was afraid of frogs. He told me that he goes crazy if he sees a frog. MY EXTERMINATOR.
I had a roommate that was 6' tall and 260 pounds, football player. About the ONLY thing he was afraid of was spiders. He'd scream like a little girl, and jump up onto furniture if we saw one in our apartment. I'd REALLY freak him out by picking them up, and walking them to the front door where I'd proceed to throw them back outside! He'd be screaming and yelling "don't do it"...like I was grabbing a rattlesnake or something, It was funny to see. I'd probably have a similar reaction if someone grabbed a roach!
Now, as much as I hate roaches and silverfish (although I think that silverfish may be misunderstood), I used to have those cute little tiny spiders that could jump like Superman, and I left them alone. They were so cute....
Now, as much as I hate roaches and silverfish (although I think that silverfish may be misunderstood), I used to have those cute little tiny spiders that could jump like Superman, and I left them alone. They were so cute....
I never knew they existed until I moved here. They freaked me out more than roaches. They seemed to be a cross between cricket and toad. They, too, had personalities.
They are breeding in my shed. I have to take down all of the shelving and get them out of there, but that means entering the shed to do that, and they will jump in my face.
I found out that they are called "spider crickets" in Japan, which seems apt.
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