SC - OOP & OT: Now 'Non-paying Boarders' Was Tempera question

[Jim Revells]

Maggie MacDonald wrote:
> 
> There being several different varieties of the little buggers, I'm
> reasonably certain they must have been an issue in at least a few places.
> 
> For instance, the Oriental Waterbugs (those GIANT things) are dang easy to
> kill off and get rid of, but the German ones???? FORGET IT!! (Those are the
> little light brown tiny ones) I am starting to think they begin breathing
> with a racial memory. They are VERY difficult to get under control. If I
> could find a reliable tac-nuke to use inside the house, I would.
> 
> Regards,
> Maggie MacD.
> (with a 50 year old house, and far more knowledge of the little buggers
> than she had ever wanted).

Whist I am relatively safe in Tassie from them (too cold), we learned
_all_ about them in Sydney.  For the larger ones we left out mice
traps (I'm really _not_ kidding here).  For the smaller ones well,
lets say I was sooooooo glad to move back to a colder clime.  

However, a friend of mine _did_ find a solution to the German bugs. 
Now bear in mind her place used to crawl with them.  To cook her
dinner without having additional protein end up in it, she used to set
up a trestle table (the legs of which had been well & truly bug
sprayed) in the middle of her kitchen for food preparation.  Believe
me, making a cup of coffee without having a bug end up swimming in it
was a major challenge.  She had an army of cats (even they got bored
;-)  Plus, when squashed, the last dying act of a cockroa errr
'non-paying boarder' is one of procreation (they squirt eggs or sperm
which remain fertile for 4 hours)

My friend literally tried all the bug sprays/bombs etc, while they
would kill any of the bugs in the house, it didn't kill the eggs of
those in the walls, which just wondered in afterwards.  After a while,
the eggs tend to mutate into bugs that don't get affected at all by
the sprays . . . Mind you, some of _her_ bugs were really scary.  I
remember heating up a cup of milk (on high) in the microwave for 2
mins.  When the microwave had finished I opened the door and took my
mug out.  Unbeknownst to me, one of the bugs had crawled in to the
microwave while I was messing about with my cup on the bench - so it
had got nuked as well.  The scary thing?  It walked out afterwards . .
.

So, my friend bought this electric device.  Basically, it looks like a
plastic inverted saucer. It has a bait inside it which entices the bug
in & then the bug is electrified (preventing spawning attempt).  The
small ones also tend to turn to powder.  For the first 6 weeks my
friend had this new 'toy', there was an almost constant electric whirr
& the smell of burning roaches . . .  

After 2 months the kitchen had become noticeably less invested (no
longer did it move when you walked in at night & turned the light on
;-), so my friend bought a second of the devices for the bedroom.  
After 6 months, the 2 devices reduced the infestation to the
occasional wondering 'visitor'.  It has been 6 years and they have
never been able to get to more than one or two wandering about at a
time.  

I borrowed these things & can also guarantee their effectiveness. 
They take about 2 months to work properly, but after that the
infestation is never as bad.  Of course, you can always move to a
colder clime . . . <g>

Lorix