Help needed.
Dear Bloggers,
Help! My house appears to have become an entomological nature reserve. After finding 25 cockroaches under a plastic shopping bag from Lidl on Saturday, I decided I really had to so something. The entire kitchen is now in a greater state of carbolicised sterility than the average operating theatre. Every nook and cranny has been filled with plaster to prevent access. The result? A team of ants moved in on Sunday to show solidarity with the oppressed cockroach community.
Having almost poisoned myself to death with spray, I began searching for a safer way to eliminate them. After a fortunate experiment, I discovered that pure alcohol kills cockroaches as well as any spray. I am a peaceful vegetarian and do not like killing things anyway, so I decided that, if you gotta go, what better way than to drown in a sea of pure alcohol? Imagine strolling around the Acropolis and suddenly seeing a giant hand appear from the sky. It dowses you in a vaste outpouring of ouzo. You descend into a sweet vortex of oblivion and next thing you know, you're wearing wings and playing a harp. So today, I send a few of the little buggers out of this world with a blast of booze. Unfortunately, a small accident with a lighted cigarette also saw me set fire to the coffee pot, my washing up liquid, the sink and the bottle of alcohol itself. I could give up smoking, I suppose, but let's not be unreasonable. Does anybody out there know how I could just reason with these visitors and get 'em to move out?
Many thanks, bloggers,
Kalhnyxta se olous, good night and nos da i chi gyd.
James
posted by ronanj @ 10:27 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
Brrr. If an Orwellian Room 101 existed for me, it would have to be roaches. I'd confess to *anything*.
Living in a 250 year-old house with open windows to the equally ancient neighbourhood nearly all of the time, i am familiar with the quest against cucarachas.
Their claim to my quarters is not entirely unjustified, they have been around far longer than I have. After some seasons of hysteria and self-poisoning, I reduced my reactions to a spraying once or twice a year in early summer with the non-smelly stuff (the genocidal one, which supposedly sticks to their leggies, they carry it back with them, killing the whole clan in its hideout). Must be efficient, haven't been seeing many of them since.
Adjusting tolerance levels also helps. Last summer i came face to face with one - I could swear it actually *looked* at me, sizing up my courage - and then we both turned around and carried on with our lives. The step from domestic pest to pet I'll leave for my next life.
Ants, however, I discriminatingly perceive as *nice* insects. That's what watching kid movies with insect stars does to you. So, they may live with me until their numbers escalate into scary. Then I flush them away and out with water, pretending they'll survive the flood and live happily somewhere else. >:)
(btw, what was in that shopping bag. still on the lookout for substances that attract roaches. up to now I've heard about empty beer bottles and cantaloupes)
helion
Hi, Helion,
Thanks for mail. I agree with your judgement about the ants. Thanks to yet another of my accidents, I remember I once sprayed toothpaste way up high on one of my bathroom walls. I decided to clean it up some time "in the future". Anyway, a couple of days later, I noticed a line of ants leading up to the toothpaste. They cleaned the whole lot up for me in two days without even leaving a stain. I tend to ignore them, unless they come into the bedroom or multiply uncontrollably.
The roaches are definitely more cogent. It's as if they think about where they can position themselves for maximum disgust factor. I found one on my toothbrush the other day. Boric acid powder is supposed to be good. Thanks to the static charge it sticks to the little buggers legs and they then tread it all around the nest.
The shopping bag was empty, by the way. It was just providing the roaches with somewhere protected to sit and think about their next move.
Good luck with the roach wars. I will keep you informed from the front line.
Cheers,
Ronanj
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