Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Roaches

Living in the tropics, bugs are a fact of life. Anyone who is bug-phobic shouldn't live here, that's for sure. While I have friends who battle ants, centipedes, and mosquitoes, my main insect pest is the cockroach. We noticed them as soon as we moved to Hawaii. And who wouldn't........those guys are as big as rats! Well, that's an exaggeration, but they are the biggest cockroaches that I've even seen. Real nightmare sized. 

We knew right off that we'd have to do something to control these buggahs. Outdoors, the cats, lizards, and chickens keep their numbers under control. Indoors, my top gun is boric acid powder. When we built the house, we put boric acid powder behind all the walls before we closed them in. In my kitchen, I've dusted it under the frig, freezer, and range. So far, this seems to be working. I see the occasional adult roach in the house, but that's because one of the cats has brought it inside for fun & games. The cats see the living room as a giant arena for playing with roaches. Geez. 

I don't know if it helps, but our house is built up on piers. So it's above the ground. Perhaps it's less easy for the roaches to climb into the house, as compared to being at ground level on a concrete slab. 

But ya know what my main problem is? My truck....it's got roaches. Actually, it's infested! Yup. I transport livestock feed in the truck all the time, thus its & bits spill out from time to time. It makes my truck a roach buffet. I suppose I could be more careful. Or vacuum the truck out daily. But facing facts, that's not happening. So sigh....the truck's got roaches. 

In the past I've put roach traps in the truck. Caught some, but they never really made a dent in the population. Go out at 8 pm and open the truck door and......egads women, the truck is crawling!!! While I'm really adverse to using insecticide bombs, I'd occasionally set one off in order to eliminate the roaches for awhile. As I said, the traps never helped. 

A friend gave me a trap to other day. Oh sure, I thought. I didn't expect much. I was wrong. On the first night it caught scads! Nice job. 

See, I told you the truck was infested. I've had the trap there for one week and it's totally covered (the above photo was from day #1, not day #7.) So I bought a pack at the hardware store and set out a fresh one. 


It caught a few, so I guess the majority of roaches are pau. I'm quite happy with the results. I just went out and checked my truck tonight and not a roach in sight. Wow. I'm impressed. 


5 comments:

  1. When I lived on Oahu with my aunt and uncle when I was 18 my aunt was a complete maniac about not eating anywhere but the dining room or kitchen and then she vacuumed after every meal. We did alright with efforts like these.

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  2. Yup, I've talked with locals and most are maniacal about food crumbs. And zero food is left standing out on the counters. Dirty dishes and utensils are washed up immediately after meals.

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  3. Roger that. I learned early on to use sliding ziplock bags on all kine foodstuffs, and took to keeping the flour in those bags AND in the freezer. Geckos were very welcome, too.

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