Bugs in the Building
A recent bug infestation caused our neighbor, and then us, to have to bring in Pest Control. It’s been a real inconvenience. Don’t let this situation get out of control in YOUR apartment.
The Clean kitchen
I have finally got our kitchen put back together. We had a problem in our building that became evident last month when I killed a small bug that I saw running along the backsplash of the counter. It was …a cockroach! That’s not good!
Cleanliness is next to …impossible!
The common cockroach is almost universally associated in people’s minds with filthy conditions, garbage and squalor. But roaches can be introduced into a clean home as well, riding inside of second-hand housewares, yard/patio furniture brought inside for whatever reason, camping gear, etc. ‘Rummage sale’ items of furniture are very bad for this.
-Even from empty cardboard boxes brought home from your local grocery to be repurposed for say, moving or storage, are all highly suspect. Roaches are everywhere. They are one of the most successful species of life and earliest living organisms on the planet. Wherever you are, they can be as well.
I read once that spiders are also everywhere and that no matter where you are, -even right now sitting in your computer chair reading this, you are never farther than six feet from a spider! No matter where you go! Think about that for a minute… six feet away (or closer!)
Anyway, I would find & kill a second roach, and my wife would kill one and over the next week or so she said that she had seen two more that escaped. This was getting out of hand.
Time to report and get help
As I was leaving our apartment the other morning, I heard the Superintendent’s distinctive voice from the other end of the hall, so I decided to chat him up about our recent discovery. He was talking with …a pest control worker! This pest control worker had just finished a spray-job in the apartment next to ours and was ‘reporting back’ on the finished deed.
I relayed my tale, and he said that the apartment next to ours had a new tenant of just over one month, and that they apparently had inadvertently introduced cockroaches. Their apartment was the source. Their apartment had just been ‘sprayed’ or ‘treated’ I guess is the more “pc” term.
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Published in: Apartment Living
Ancient Aspie | Oct 7, 2008 | Reply
You could have avoided all that hassle, plus now living with the residue of the poison, if you’d used somewhat slower but healthier methods of getting rid of the roaches. I spent a good deal of my life in Florida, where roaches are part of the scenery, but rarely saw any in te house after I learned how to control them.
First, always keep roach traps where the little buggers travel — dark, damp places, insides of cabinets, behind pipes, etc.
Second, buy plain boric acid at the drug store and sprinkle it along their pathways, back of cabinets, behind stove and fridge, etc. Always make sure it’s where children and pets can’t get into it. Every few months, vacuum it up and put down fresh.
goodselfme | Oct 7, 2008 | Reply
My grandfather was meticulous and he had the buggars in his suitcase when he came to live with us, as he became older.Roaches are sneeky. I wondered where you have been. Guess now you were fighting the bugs and getting your life back together. Good info in your article. Welcome back!
thestickman | Oct 7, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, -still working on the Soviet stamp collection article. Not sure how to approach it, as I know very little about the stamps or the program itself. The majority of my stamps are non-space subject..
“text-based” articles get more ‘views’…
I’d like to just ’show’ the stamps and not have to ‘write about’ them/their meaning. But I want the article to be “article” and not just image/s for Picable, -you know?
I used to have a pen-pal that lived near the Comosdrome Space Centre, where (”Blizzard”) the Soviet Space Shuttle was launched/housed. This was still ‘Communist’ USSR but very early into Gorbechev’s “Glasnost” (”openness”), -I was hopefull to get first-hand review (and possibly a postcard or real photograph of it.) -Would not happen.
I asked pen-pal Andrew about the Booran and his reply, -in broken English, was a forboding ‘… caution if what to write on me or in say to letter for mail to me received in open state… -Clearly, the provost was still opening, reading and possibly censoring postal mails. He was afraid of retributions if I asked about ‘military’ or ‘government’ matters, so we stayed the course and discussed only matters of jobs, and science fiction, etc, avoiding political, religious and military/scientific issues…
I think that Booran shuttle was only launched once or twice… they (USSR) probably could not afford to continue using it. About 1/3rd smaller, it looked *exactly* like OUR Space Shuttle… -coincidence?? I think not.
Rod | Jan 20, 2009 | Reply
Didn’t go thru all of the replys on the bug issue. I currently live in an apartment and skeptically bought and tried the RIDDEX plug-in bug chaser. I have had it now for 5 months. I saw a season change with it installed and can say that IT WORKS. The one or two roaches I have seen were so dazed you had no trouble catching up with them and disposing. Its the best money I’ve ever spent
RS Wing | Aug 1, 2010 | Reply
Yikes! What a nightmare! I’m sure you’re more than dancing to have gotten rid of these swines. Good luck exterminating the entire domain. A massive infestation like this can take a very long time before pest control prevails. I Feel sorry for their ‘new’ neighbors. Yuck!