Battle of the Roaches

I had not seen a roach in this place in the first few months I had been here. My landlady left roach traps around the house, so it was good for a while but then I started to see a roach here and there. I ordered roach bait and then I started seeing more of them. I think I was seeing more of them because the roach bait was weakening them. I would kill 3 a day. I am getting a little less squeamish but if they are over an inch long I don't think I could deal with guts flying. I have had to cut them with scissors and then they are still alive. SO GROSS!!!

I have been extra clean and I have decided that I need to keep my toaster in the fridge because I am sure that the roaches LOVE my bread crumbs and I can't completely clean out the toaster every time I use it.

I heard that you could catch roaches by baiting them with a banana peal and then slathering the jar with vaseline so they couldn't climb out. Well, I left the jar out for days and I guess my bait wasn't too enticing but I didn't get a single roach. I thought I could get it in the jar and then vacuum seal it and kill the roach in the 40 minutes they can live without oxygen.

Then last week there was a 1 inch roach on my curtains and I didn't want to kill it on the curtains, so I grabbed a jar and found out that this roach had wings. It flew away from me once and I was surprised I was able to catch it.

 I vacuum sealed it and I thought it would be dead in an hour or so but it is still kicking 6 days later. Roaches aren't supposed to be able to live more than 40 minutes without oxygen or more than a week without water. What is going on with these mutant roaches?

Then later I spotted a roach on the wall in the kitchen below a hole in the ceiling. I didn't think that the hole was very deep but I wanted to see if the roach ran into it so I slapped my hand on the wall a foot from the roach and sure enough it ran into this hole. I realized this is probably one of their favorite points of entry. I taped some roach bait over the hole.

I was going to remove the tape because a maintenance man was supposed to come and patch the hole today but I saw this antenna moving around behind the bait. I decided to leave the tape on. You can see the roach droppings stuck to the tape. Then later that day I saw that the roach had made it's way around the bait but was stuck on the tape. I got some more packaging tape to keep it from getting away. This one had wings too!  GROSS!!

I gotta get these guys under control soon because I have friends coming to visit! I am so glad I live on the 5th floor and that I live in a cinder-block apartment. Otherwise I am sure it would be MUCH worse.