That's NASTY.

[kiokushitaka]

Our store is just the roach magnet.

[Brightglaive]

You know, I've lived in some places where you can't stop the cockroaches from coming into your house. I even had one take a bite of my eyelid while I was asleep. They couldn't get any food in our place cause we kept it in roach proof containers and in the fridge so I guess they were exceptionally hungry. My eyelid swelled up like I'd been in a boxing match the night before. I ended up with a black eye from it and was teased unmercifully. (BTW, we killed as many cockroaches as we could or could find and kept food put away like I said. It was rare that we saw cockroaches in our place but in a tropical/subtropical country they always seemed to find a way through any netting or screen that you could put up to fill the holes into the house. It was just easier to try and keep a tokay gecko [about 12 inches long with tail] or two in the house. They tended to keep the cockroaches controlled. Don't get me wrong, we still filled the holes we could find with netting or cement. The T-geckos just made it easier to solve the problem. Oh and the spiders.)

However the USA is really not one of the places that this type of thing should happen. Mexico, the Philippines, some of the african nations and a LOT of third-world nations I can see this happening. But where you are in a first-world nation... unless you are living in a dumpster... I don't know how you could not notice loads of cockroaches in your games and game console. And I don't know anywhere where you wouldn't notice a cockroach crawling on your face when you're awake, first, second OR third-world nation.

ICK!!!!!!

[Geek King]

How do you not notice a ROACH on your face?

Maybe he's used to ignoring the fake, drug-induced, hallucinatory bugs crawling on him, so he didn't realize other people could see the one on his face?

[Andara Bledin]

For all you people with bug problems: Sevin Dust.

Unless you live near a waterfowl breeding area, it's the best stuff for dealing with creepy crawlies. It's primarily for gardening, but it works in pretty much most environments, and it works fast. It's also about the least toxic to things without exoskeletons as it's possible to be.

^-.-^

[Leopardmadcat]

Bugs can build an immunity to almost anything...

That's why we have cats... No bug anywhere has ever built an immunity to being chomped and eaten!

[Record Store Tough Guy]

Roaches creep me right the f--- out. It's not a jumpy fear, more of a slow, creeping revulsion that makes me shudder.

Funny story: (which takes place during a pretty serious drought, lest ye think I live in squalor) back before I moved I was in my bedroom one night, on the WoW, when I hear what sounds like a Huey chopper flying through my door. I turn around and see a giant flying shape heading toward my bookcase.

I think "Oh my, how did a bat get in the house? I should leave immediately, lest I contract rabies!"

Then it landed.

It was not a bat. It was the biggest damn roach I had ever seen. It looked at me as if to say "Yeah, I'm a giant f---ing roach. What the f--- are you gonna do about it?" then sauntered down the bookcase and into my closet.

I went downstairs, and relayed the information regarding the size of this mammoth insect to my dad, who asked "Did you kill it?"

"Hell no I didn't kill it!" I replied. "I didn't have a gun!"

"You could have hit it with a shoe."

"If I had hit it with a shoe, that sumbitch would have pulled a knife!" Or thrown it back.

Spiders, though, I have no problem with. Mostly because they eat the f---ing roaches.

[zzapp the witch]

When my parents lived in Texas they had a cat. Then one day they didn't. My mother swears to this day that the roaches got it.

Two weeks ago I had a contractor here for an estimate on the roof I need replaced. Went outside and noticed roaches crawling around under his truck.....thought to myself dear lord, where has this man been working. Few days later had to go out of town, and when I came home and opened the dishwasher there were roaches in it! I have never, in my life, had a house with roaches and I'm not starting now!

On the other hand, Monday I found out where the roaches REALLY came from.....this contractor had lost his license from the last time he did work for me, was spun out on meth and living in a hole.....so yeah.

Anyone remember that story about the gal on here that worked at one of the major video stores.....opened a VHS case and it was full of roaches? Oh yeah, that's one that'll stay seared in my memory for a good long time.

[SteeleDragon78]

heres a guy making a non toxic edible roach killer http://www.newson6.com/Global/story.asp?s=8274320

javascriptlayVideo('2454375', 'Man%20Works%20On%20Edible%20Roach%20Killer', 'v', 'News', '156167', 'Search%20Results', '', '');

[AdminAssistant]

My previous roommate was a slob, to say the least. Liked to keep dirty dishes in her room for weeks at a time, you could usually never see the floor in her room - I basically had a path of cleanliness that went through the main areas of the apartment. When she moved - well apparently a small family of cockroaches were living in her stuff and suddenly they didn't have a place to live anymore.

My NEW roomate moves in, and I have sanitized the place as best I can. Her first night in the apartment, I wake up to high-pitched girly screaming. Roaches are crawling around the office and living room. Between the both of us and the roach spray we killed them. I got roach bait the next day and that more or less took care of the problem.

*shudder*

Now the mice and bounty of spiders that live in my basement...well, that's the basement and I only have a couple big Rubbermaid bins down there. So as long as they can stay down there I will allow them to live, since I only have to venture down to do laundry. However, spiderwebs built over the washer will be destroyed without discretion.

[kiokushitaka]

Thanks guys, I'm itchy all over. I've never seen a roach in my life, and I hope to keep it that way.

Blech, just thinking about it is giving me the jibblies.

o______o N-never? Lucky!

[mattm04]

Ever seen Verminators on discovery. some of the places they visited I was shocked people could live in that. A 3rd world slum looked less inset infected than one house I saw.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/verminat...rminators.html

[Gravekeeper]

Never seen a roach in my life either. Never lived in the climate or the required amount of filth for it.

As for the original topic I can only offer this old bit of wisdom:

Kill it with fire.

[edible_hat]

Kill it with fire.

If only I could do that to some of my customers.

[crazylegs]

If only I could do that to some of my customers.

*panicked look*

Why did noone tell me that wasn't what you're supposed to do!

[kiokushitaka]

NEVER! But we DO have cicadas at the moment. They only come around once every 17 years, thankfully. We've been at my current address for 10 years, and the house shell is only about 14 years so before that it was all woods where our property is. I had never even heard of a cicada before they had a thing in the paper about this year's brood.

These things are an inch or more long, size of a quarter in girth, and have creepy RED EYES and giant wings. When they molt, they leave their nymph casings behind, leaving us all to crunch on them when we walk outside. After they mate, they die. Leaving us all to squish on their bodies when we walk outside.

And the buzzing... OH MY GOD THE BUZZING... It's the creepiest sound EVAR.

Yeah, we get cicadas here too. We had some last year, in our fig tree.