Two things give me the jitters. Heights and roaches. Heights I can live with as long as I avoid rollercoasters. Roaches are going to be present en masse come y2k, I think.

Bug spray only goes so far. How do we keep vermin from eating some of our precious food supplies and destroying the rest?

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), March 19, 1999

Answers

Eeewwwhhh, Leo, now this scares me. Roaches, yuck...

-- housemouse (jgj@nevermind.net), March 19, 1999.

Wow, when I saw "vermin" I thought we were going to discuss our fellow humans.

I've seen how people behave when things are good, so I'm filled with loathing at the thought of how they'll behave when things are bad. THAT's what scares me, not little bugs.

As for roaches, isn't that how Papillon stayed alive in his Devil's Island cell (after his fellow frenchmen stuck him in solitary for several years)?

-- I've (seen@them.drive), March 19, 1999.

Remove food from prepackaged containers that can be eaten into by vermin; put foodstuffs in, plastic sealable containers, old coffee cans with lids and such.

Roaches are counted as part of the population in S. California,...a fact of life. As a matter of fact, aren't bugs and such a fact of life on planet Earth. Get creative. :-) Hope this doesn't bug you too much! (wink, wink)

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 19, 1999.

Didn't the orginal Australians find insects a delicacy ?

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), March 19, 1999.

Simplest solution to roach control: boric acid powder.

Sprinkle it along the baseboards in every room including closets. (Behind furniture only, to prevent access by children and pets.) Don't forget behind the stove, and around the back of kitchen and bathroom cabinets.

Roaches try to keep themselves clean and spend a good bit of time licking off any foreign particles on their bodies they can reach. The powder sticks to their legs. Boric acid is toxic to roaches in quite low concentrations. Case closed.

The effects are noticeable in 3 or 4 days. Roaches affected by this are disoriented and lack coordination, and often may be found in lighted areas they would ordinarily avoid. They are easy to catch then, but if you wait a couple of days they'll die by themselves. (Always with their legs sticking up in the air-- why?)

When boric acid powder is present, any hatchlings from legacy egg cases will have no chance of living more than a day or so.

The only roaches I've had experience with are here in North America -- but it sure is worth a try in AU. Boric acid powder is available here in pharmacies -- it should NOT be on open store shelves as it is toxic to humans too. (But it is not a controlled substance.) The advantage of using powder is that it's hygroscopic and quickly absorbs enough moisture to keep it from flying around the house.

Long story to tell -- short shrift for the roaches.

Years ago our kids had (simultaneously) a cat, a ferret and a turtle in the house. All these could crawl under furniture, and the ferret could (and did) get behind or under practically anything. This was before we learned about boric acid. But we didn't have a roach problem either.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 19, 1999.

Get a biiiiiiiggg shoe.

Leo, you are one weird due.

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), March 19, 1999.

Come to Florida where you will get very used to them and you can buy my book titled "101 Ways to Cook Palmetto Bugs".

-- Sue (deco100@aol.com), March 19, 1999.

Food and garbage: Cleanliness, seal stuff up, keep garbage way away from food prep areas. I repeat, cleanliness (People nowadays are real slobs compared to 40 years ago).
Body: Air bedding if you can't wash it. Alternate sets of bedding weekly. Keep head and body hair shaved, well trimmed, short. (Shaved pits and pubes don't hide lice.) Keep "fifi" and "bowser" out of your frickin' bed -- even better -- out of the frickin' house/apartment/cabin altogether. Ever heard of dog houses?

-- a (A@AisA.com), March 19, 1999.

Sue - born and bred in the great Sunshine State of Florida I have yet to get used to palmetto bugs (or roaches in general for that matter!). Diazinon and Dursban work great in the yard to kill those pests and a good home pest control will take care of the inside.

There's actually a cookbook for these bugars?? :-)

Ever notice that smell when ya smash a palmetto bug? Talk about a natural defense system! S-T-I-N-K ! ! !

Deano - who figures the only good roach is a dead roach unless you can load it in your pipe and smoke it.

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), March 19, 1999.

Save and sterilize all of the glass jars that you can get your hands on for storage.

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 19, 1999.

Aren't there some kinds of lizards or geckos that eat roaches? Maybe you could get a couple of these.

-- y2kbiker (y2kbiker@bellatlantic.net), March 19, 1999.

Leo,

The boric acid powder tip is spot on for the house.

DE (diatomaceous earth) is another contact killer on all sorts of crawlies around the house and has the addional advantage (if you get the consumable stuff and not the swimming pool filter kind) of being useful for food storage as well. It'll keep fleas and ticks off the dog when suspended in water and sprayed on (best not to dust on dry- not good for people/animals to inhale too much of any kind of dust). It'll take care of internal parasites when consumed. It has a very long history of these uses- just check out DE on your favorite search engine.

-- (li'ldog@ontheporch.com), March 20, 1999.