Aughhhhhhh!

I kept hearing little clicking/rustling noises and assumed it was the cats or someone was doing something outside my apartment - but then I finally identified the sources of the sound and found -

A TWO-INCH LONG WINGED COCKROACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Auuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I tried to direct Youngest Cat in its direction, and he did finally see the monster, but sadly it scuttered back under the bookcase.

Wait, no, it's out again! Youngest Cat is on the prowl! (And Middle Cat is there to lend backup, although she tends to have the mind of a scientist and just observes rather than takes action.)

Okay, now I'm really squicked out (like I wasn't before?) because this thing has taken refuge in a groove in my computer's (separate, currently not attached to the computer) CR-ROM drive!

Damn, this sucker moves fast. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew!

Note to self: BUY ROACH SPRAY. No, wait, that would poison the cats. Orange-oil household cleaner kills ants - you think it would do much to a roach?

Oh, I am so grossed out... thing is, too, that this simply amps my moving mojo, which has been working pretty well recently, and makes me want to CLEAN and PACK and ANNIHILATE THE SCUM-SUCKING INSECTS. When what I NEED to amp is my essay-finishing mojo, because this essay's been a monkey on my back for way too long.

Ugh. Happy Monday morning.

Comments

[squadratomagico]

Why is it that cats have such rich fantasy lives -- mine sometimes bat in the air at nothing at all, or they act all aggressive about huge crows outside the windows, as if they actually could tackle a bird that big -- but never eat a disgusting insect that is specifically brought to their attention?

[meg]

Does it make you feel better to know that it is almost certainly a palmetto bug, rather than a cockroach?

The good news is that palmetto bugs -- despite periodic incursions -- really prefer the outdoors, whereas roaches, well, not so much.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

ACtually, meg, you know, it does! (I figured that out myself with a little googling, but it's nice to have it confirmed.) Granted, I'm still not thrilled about having this huge thing darting around my apartment, but it's nice to think that it's more of a lost soul, not really here to set up shop. And Palmetto Bug sounds so much cleaner than cockroach! ;-)

squadratomagico - I KNOW! We used to get the occasional centipede in one of our apartments, and the cats just looked at them respectfully and wouldn't go near them. I mean, what am I feeding them for??

[Dr. Moonbeam]

EWWWWW. Even if it is probably a palmetto bug rather than a roach. Personally I feel that something that large ought to pay rent, and if it's not, then DEATH is its fate.

[Fifi Bluestocking]

I don't know about Palmetto Bugs, but one good way of killing roaches is to douse them in washing up liquid - really! Simple yet effective.

[Mon]

Ewwww. From the description of the sound--it does sound like a "Palmetto Bug" as folks my way like to say. So sorry you had to deal with that this morning. I have a hard time getting back to work after seeing/hearing any kind of a bug--but especially big ones. I hate big bugs!! (Which is one of the many reasons why I'm glad my better half is home for the summer!)

[Jeannette]

*shudder* horrible flashbacks of living in the deep South...

[Bardiac]

When I was in the Peace Corps, we had this HUGE spider in the house. I threw the cat at it, but the cat ran away, so I had to push it out of the house with a broom.

I'd think a bug spray with malathion should be okay with cats, but check with someone who knows? (Detergent sounds way better!)

[kaineas]

Um, I was under the impression that "Palmetto Bug" is just a nicely euphemistic Southern term for "cockroach."

All the same, who wants something that big scuttling around in the house? You've got your own personal Gregor Samsa.

[Rebecca]

Boric acid, my friend. Non-toxic to felines, completely toxic to roaches! (you can buy it in powdered form as Borax.)

[ppb]

I'm sure the kitties were just about ready to get him......:-)

[Seeking Solace]

I would have loved to see the kitties in action!!!!

[phd me]

I loathe, loathe, loathe bugs, especially the large, scuttling kind. I have been known to screech like a little girl and empty entire cans of bug spray in my quest for a bug-free home. I can't even rid myself of their disgusting dead bodies without gagging (seriously, it's that bad). Damn, now I'm having flashbacks of my life in the deep South....

[ianqui]

I've been told about boric acid too, though I've never used it.

When I lived in Charm City I used to aim windex or some other powerful cleaning agent at them and squirt until they drowned. If you can get them once, they usually get stunned and then you can keep squirting until they die. You kill the bug AND clean your floor at the same time!

[profgrrrrl]

Even the cleanest house in the south gets 'em from time to time ... doesn't make 'em any less creepy, though.

[What Now?]

In Small City, folks called them "water bugs," which also made them seem so much cleaner. They were still gross beyond all accounting, but I still felt a little better.

Plus, here was a horrendous discovery I made one night: THEY CAN FLY! Or at least some versions of them can. One night I was reading in bed, with D. sound asleep beside me, and I heard a rustling above me and this hideous water bug flew overhead and landed on the headboard. My scream probably woke the neighbors, certainly woke D., and apparently stunned the bug such that I was able to squash it and then wipe up all its guts dripping down the headboard. Shudder. I did not get to sleep for quite some time that night.

Goodness, what a disgusting trip down memory lane that was! Anyway, sorry for your invasion this morning, and I hope the critter is gone by now.

[Terminal Degree]

I have the exterminator service on speed-dial. They come to my house once each month and spray the place for roaches. Lovely way to fill my house with chemicals on a regular basis, no? But I've decided that given a choice between chemicals and roaches, the poisonous stuff is the lesser of two evils.

[trillwing]

Ewwww.

My parents used to have a Siamese that would sit in the middle of their street, reaching his paw down through the holes in a manhole cover in order to pull out roaches.

More bad news: I saw a recent news article that said termites are actually members of the roach family. Wood-eating roaches, teeming by the thousands. Now there's a lovely thought.

[Lina]

Oh my God that is horrific! Urgh, I can imagine it clacking with it's nasty little feet.

[anonymous-for-now Grad student]

Just chiming to second (third) the boric acid suggestion. When I was a kid we lived in a few different places with roaches, and we used boric acid. You sprinkle it along the baseboards and in nooks and crannies. It's harmless to cats (and humans). My dad told me the roaches would get it on their feet, then go back to their nests where they would then clean the powder off, thereby ingesting it, where it would bubble up in their insides and kill them. Also, they'd spread the powder around their nests, killing future generations. No clue at all if this is how it actually works.

Hopefully yours is just a lost soul, not the harbinger of more to come.

*shudder*

[Rudbeckia Hirta]

Boric acid and borax are different, I think. Closely related, but not exactly the same.

You can find boric acid in the "eye care" department of decent pharmacies. Probably in other places, too. I think it kills the roaches by dehydrating them, but I'm not sure.

Have your new place pre-emptively sprayed so that you don't have to worry about any uninvited beasties tagging along in your boxes.

I doubt that roaches and termites are that closely related. Termites are social insects in the order isoptera; they're like ancient ants (related to hymenoptera). Once you know you have termites, they're not that hard to treat. Young termites are born without the ability to digest cellulose and need to have the bacteria transferred to them by the adults. A good treatment will kill all the adults; if any remaining eggs hatch, the larvae will starve without the bacteria. Roaches, on the other hand, are in the order blattidae (not sure how it's spelled), which is relatively close to the orthoptera (grasshoppers and locusts).

Why do I know this much about insects? Not sure. And it could all be wrong. :)

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Thank you for the sympathy, all! The Palmetto Bug has vanished so I'm crossing my fingers that Youngest Cat ate it or that it at least escaped to freedom somewhere OTHER than my apartment. I know Palmetto Bug is the same as cockroach - and in fact, it's a honking HUGE cockroach - but you know, it's almost better bigger rather than smaller, because it's so bit it's almost like a small animal, and therefore seems less disgusting than the little cockroaches! The little cockroaches REALLY gross me out. Yet oddly, teeny ants are less gross than big ones.

Ick!

[Phi (Nic McPhee)]

When we lived in Austin, TX, we used to get tons of those, often coming up into the tub through the drain. We'd wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of the cat doing laps in the tub chasing some big-ass roach.

You'd like there in the dark trying very hard to not think about the fact that they could fly...

Good luck with your not-so-little problem! At least it's not a dead bat that's glued itself to a nice hardword bookshelf. :-)

[Jan Lin]

Is borax detergent as equally effective as boric acid in eliminating sugar ants?

[nickie]

I was sitting on my couch last night and out of the corner of my eye saw this BIG ASS bug crawling into my bathroom
It was brown and like 2 inches long it was horrible. I hate palmettos !!