Roaches

Greetings all,

I'm a little embarrassed to be writing about this, but I'm not the first person to experience this problem. I've had roaches in my first apartment. I don't think it was a huge problem as my ex-roommate saw 1 once and I had notified the supers and they immediately had pest control come in. I know if you see 1, it means there are more as they tend to hide. We had to - I should say (since my ex-roommate was a lazy bitch), I ended up emptying all the kitchen cupboards and in the bathroom.

All the pest control person did was put powder in the cupboards and on the stove, etc. I decided that if this roach problem happened again, I would fix it myself. I had felt violated because they could have worked around the stuff we had. There really was no need to clear everything.

When I moved into my current apartment, I had been cautious but it's hard to know if there are roaches. I know you can search online for places that have bed bugs. I should hope they do the same for roaches. When I was getting my tour, the super had said there were no roaches. She probably could tell by the way I was looking into cupboards and stuff.

It turned out she was wrong, but I think she was just lying. I started noticing roaches about 4 months into living there. I told her and they had pest control come in but I refused to empty my cupboards as requested. I don't think they ended up coming into my place.

I had started to keep track of the roaches I found. Some I killed and a few got away. I had researched online about roaches when I first had them and I found a recipe for sugar and baking soda. The sugar attracts them and the baking soda I think gives them gas. They can't expel the gas so it kills them.

I decided I'd try something else as I wasn't sure how effective it was. I ended up using boric acid and peanut butter and mixed equal amounts. I spread it directly on the counters or wherever I thought they should go. The next time I did the baits, my mom said I could use wax paper since you need to make fresh bait every so often and it wasn't easy to clean up.

I found it worked. I had put a fresh bait in my bathroom and the next day there were a whole ton of roaches, many babies. It took me 30 seconds to realize they were all over my bathroom. I was getting ready to take a bath and I noticed a few around my sink and then I opened my curtain and one started to crawl on my arm. It was a baby one so it was cute and small so it wasn't grossing me out. I noticed a few around the faucet and then I noticed a whole army of them on my loofah. Since they like moisture, I could see why they were attracted to the loofah. I had to put the loofah in the sink and I drowned them bitches!

I threw out that loofah after I had thoroughly rinsed it out.

I credit my bait for attracting them. The next day there were a few more and after about 4 days I found none. This was back in October. I ended up seeing one, a baby, in there yesterday so I made some traps today and put them out.

I saw one in my kitchen a few weeks ago for May 2-4 weekend as I was leaving for New York. This was an adult one. I've noticed a few are sneaking into my freezer. There is a tiny gap in the door insulation so they are going in that way but they end up dying. The ones I've seen there have been babies.

The adult roaches are disgusting and I don't like to talk about this problem to others. There is a taboo about them and although I am not the most cleanest person in the world, I am neither the messiest. It does make me feel a bit dirty.

The good thing is that I am taking care of the problem and I am mostly seeing babies, with a few adults. It means that the baits work. The baby roaches are cute I must admit. But I know what they turn into, given a few months so I mercilessly kill them anyways.