Cockroaches - What Do You Do ?

[ReMetau]

We've had good luck with Boric acid.

[MichaelC]

Okay, got it. Boric acid, bombs, spray and finally a trip to the pet store for geckoes. And keep your powder ... uh, bilge ... dry. Love these threads.

[boatman61]

Dip in melted plain chocolate then cover with hundreds n thousands, place in fridge to cool...
Serve with whipped honey and cream accompanied with cold Lanson Brut....

(the chocolate stops em running away, the hundreds and thousands take your mind of the shell crunching... whipped cream and honey... it tastes good... and the Brut gets the bitsa shell out your teeth)


Hoi n de Polloi's

[Blue Stocking]

Bermuda's national bird, --and don't forget your dorade openings as entry points

[felixqld66]

thanks for the many options I will try all of the above starting with least toxic to nuclear bombing...may need it if Salt monkey is right about thai roaches being the worst.


Cheers

[savoir]

Careful. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that roaches can survive a nuclear blast. Could be a waste of money.

They be tough little buggers.

[hellosailor]

As an alleged entymologist once explained to me, it doesn't matter what you kill them with, it matters HOW you kill them.

Roaches typically have a 30-day life/breeding cycle. Born today, mature in 30, lay eggs, eggs mature in 30 mature, new roaches 30 days after that, repeat.

So if you kill 'em all today, you'll have new guests within a month.

You need to kill 'em today, repeat whatever works for you in 30 more days, repeat again in 30 more days, and you'll have killed all the generations and stopped the problem. NOTHING works except dumb luck, unless you repeat 2-3x at intervals.

Roaches like to eat the glue (often organic i.e. "the horse factory") in cardboard, and they will nest inside the corrugations of corrugated cardboard, so you need to do a strip-search on anything paper that gets brought aboard, including grocery bags and boxed goods. Leave the cardboard on shore, the bugs stay with it.

Baits work. Motels work. A varmint rifle works. Geckos work. And boric acid works too. Boric acid isn't magic, but when it is dry it is a microcrystalline powder with exceptional static cling properties. The very sharp crystals cling to roaches by static electricity, cut the carapace open, and the roaches literally leak to death. Any attempt to clean themselves ust spreads the cutting particles, which they track back to the nest.

The fog/fume bombs work very well. Here in the US we have "Raid Fumigator" and the version in the blue and yellow packaging (not the orange one) is actually a "smoke" not an oil fog. It provides a 100% kill but leaves no residue and has no continuing effects, it just gives you the "killed anything here today" to start your clock with. IMO, the most comprehensive, least toxic, least messy way to get started.

Damp boric acid? Obviously, becomes a paste and no longer cuts the roaches. presto-chango, no magic there. But boric acid is also not good for humans to ingest, use it with some care. Clean it up and replace it as it gets old, or use the baits, that often contain broci acid.

You CAN get rid of the critters, you just have to "lather, rinse, repeat" and keep it up until you are out of their territory. 90 days out of their territory.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

So if you kill 'em all today, you'll have new guests within a month.

Unless you get them immediaetly they jump aboard.

Thats why I have a welcoming series of accomodation for them Motels, Hotels and spray to wipe their feet on.

[mikereed100]

From the University of Kentucky Entymology Dept.:


BORIC ACID

People have been fighting cockroaches with boric acid for nearly a century. Boric acid is one of the most effective cockroach control agents ever developed provided that it is used correctly. Unfortunately, most people use it incorrectly, and in the process waste their money and effort. Boric acid may be used alone or in combination with the baiting techniques previously discussed.

Properties and Advantages

Boric acid is a wonderful tool for controlling cockroaches in homes, restaurants and other buildings. It is effective in extremely small amounts and retains its potency almost indefinitely provided the deposit remains dry. Unlike many insecticides, boric acid has no repellency to insects and, consequently, roaches return to treated areas repeatedly until they die. Boric acid is deadly to cockroaches, but is low in toxicity to people, pets and other nontarget animals. It is also odorless and contains no volatile solvents.

Boric acid is a white, inorganic powder chemically derived from boron and water. Boron is mined from vast mineral deposits in the ground and is used in countless consumer products, including laundry additives, toothpaste and mouthwash. Boric acid insecticide formulations can be purchased at hardware and grocery stores. The powder comes ready-to-use, i.e., no mixing or dilution is required. Formulations sold in plastic, squeeze-type bottles with narrow applicator tips are the easiest to use. (These containers are similar in appearance to the squeezable mustard and ketchup bottles found in restaurants).

Cockroaches succumb to boric acid when they crawl over treated areas. The tiny particles of powder adhere to the cockroaches' body, and the material is ingested as the roach preens the powder from its legs and antennae. Some boric acid is also absorbed through the greasy outer covering of the insect's body. All species of cockroaches are susceptible to boric acid provided the powder is applied into areas where the roaches are living.

Full text here:
Cockroach Elimination | University of Kentucky Entomology

Mike

[SabreKai]

Try this one on for size. Its certainly less toxic. Find the local supplier for Dry ice. Pick up about 10 lbs of it. Place it in the boat at floor level. Leave the boat with all hatches and other access points closed off or taped shut. Leave only one hatch open at the highest point on the boat, usually one of the overhead hatches. Open it up. Leave the boat for 24hrs and let the boat fill with carbon dioxide gas as the dry ice sublimates.

When you come back stick a shop vac hose down into the cabin until it hits the floorboards and turn it on. Leave it running for an hour or so. When you go to enter, roll up a long taper from newspaper and light it. Hold it lower than you waist as you go down the companion way steps. If it goes out, leave and run the vac some more.

CO2 gas kills everything that lives by displacing the oxygen. Even eggs have to breath.

Lot of people I know use dry ice as a packing material when storing food in plastic pails. The CO2 kills all the bugs, and also acts as an anti-oxident, keeping the food in better shape.

Another thing to do is mix in diatomeceaous earth in with your stored dry foods. Any critter eating it will crawl off and die. Meanwhile its perfectly harmless and non toxic to humans.

Sabre

[Minggat]

What HelloSailor said.

Had so many they were putting together a petition have us kicked off or have us pay rent on their boat.

Bombed several times. Once we got off the boat for 10 days. I set off 3 BOMBS at the same time. Came back to find many many dead bodies. Some not yet dead but belly up with legs still kicking. But before I even got that far, when I open the sliding hatch I saw some SCURRY BACK INSIDE THE BOAT. THEY HAD FOLLOWED THE TRAIL OF FRESH AIR !!!!!

They finally got off when my wife had to go back to her country for a year. No cooking on the boat for a year. Among other things, I guess they really loved the grease that was a part of her style of cooking. Unfortunately I didn't loose any weight in the process.

Anyway, now we are more in the prevention mode, witch is kind like avoiding parenthood by practicing the rhythm method.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by mikereed100

From the University of Kentucky Entymology Dept.:


BORIC ACID

People have been fighting cockroaches with boric acid for nearly a century. Boric acid is one of the most effective cockroach control agents ever developed provided that it is used correctly. Unfortunately, most people use it incorrectly, and in the process waste their money and effort. Boric acid may be used alone or in combination with the baiting techniques previously discussed.

Properties and Advantages

Boric acid is a wonderful tool for controlling cockroaches in homes, restaurants and other buildings. It is effective in extremely small amounts and retains its potency almost indefinitely provided the deposit remains dry. Unlike many insecticides, boric acid has no repellency to insects and, consequently, roaches return to treated areas repeatedly until they die. Boric acid is deadly to cockroaches, but is low in toxicity to people, pets and other nontarget animals. It is also odorless and contains no volatile solvents.

Boric acid is a white, inorganic powder chemically derived from boron and water. Boron is mined from vast mineral deposits in the ground and is used in countless consumer products, including laundry additives, toothpaste and mouthwash. Boric acid insecticide formulations can be purchased at hardware and grocery stores. The powder comes ready-to-use, i.e., no mixing or dilution is required. Formulations sold in plastic, squeeze-type bottles with narrow applicator tips are the easiest to use. (These containers are similar in appearance to the squeezable mustard and ketchup bottles found in restaurants).

Cockroaches succumb to boric acid when they crawl over treated areas. The tiny particles of powder adhere to the cockroaches' body, and the material is ingested as the roach preens the powder from its legs and antennae. Some boric acid is also absorbed through the greasy outer covering of the insect's body. All species of cockroaches are susceptible to boric acid provided the powder is applied into areas where the roaches are living.

Full text here:
Cockroach Elimination | University of Kentucky Entomology

Mike

Well, well... something from someone that actually knows something about the subject... not just another anecdotal spew (like mine, above!).

Interesting and informative. Thanks for posting it.

Cheers,

Jim

[allanpeda]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

Try this one on for size. Its certainly less toxic. Find the local supplier for Dry ice. Pick up about 10 lbs of it...
Sabre

"Try this." ? Exactly the type of useless tripe I hate seeing on these boards. If you used this method, then fine. Also one would need to scale the amount of dry ice to the size of the boat. Most importantly the roach eggs will not be affected in such a short period of time. It seems tried and true boric acid is recommended here.

Also, roaches have been knocked back quite a bit in NYC by the insect baits like Combat. I thought Combat relied on Insect Growth Regulator hormones (IGR), but I may be wrong there. IGRs are good because they are not true poisons. Instead, they disrupt the insect's maturation.

[senormechanico]

From the profile comments:

allanpeda has not made any friends yet

Now we know why.

[allanpeda]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

From the profile comments:

allanpeda has not made any friends yet

Now we know why.

More useless pontificating in lieu of posting information.