some of these little boogers.
I've actually gotten used to them and no longer kill them. Well sort of the new apt. has no bugs or rodents of any kind. Some very old spider webs in the basement and what maybe looked like egg sacks but that's it.
some of these little boogers.
I've actually gotten used to them and no longer kill them. Well sort of the new apt. has no bugs or rodents of any kind. Some very old spider webs in the basement and what maybe looked like egg sacks but that's it.
what about dry ice? Drop a 5 pound block in a bucket in the car with the windows up. The CO2 might suffocate them
I've got nothing, but man, that sucks.
I had ants in my car once, and I thought I had it bad.
pinchvalve said:Pittsburgh doesn't have roaches, and for that, I am grateful.
I'm sure Pittsburgh does have them, just like any city on the planet. They're just not at your place.
One of the only benefits of living in an arctic winter hellhole is that we don't have a lot of bugs here. The ones we do have tend to be smaller and less offensive.
My '66 Belvedere is full of wasps. Pretty sure they built a hive in the rear door. I bombed it a few weeks ago and plan to bomb it again come spring, since next year I actually plan to work on it.
I'd keep bombing it and talk to your exterminator when he comes like you planned.
mad_machine said:what about dry ice? Drop a 5 pound block in a bucket in the car with the windows up. The CO2 might suffocate them
I read an article that documented several deaths of people that were carrying dry ice in their cars. I'll consider trying this. Certainly cheap and easy.
German roaches are the worst. We had a neighbor at our old house that used our washer while theirs was broken for a month or so. She brought the little bastards to our house and it took months to get rid of them. If you can see one, there are 1000s you can't. By the time you see the problem it is of epic proportions.
These guys have some good stuff for killing them. Baits seem to work better than poisons. If you don't kill them before they lay eggs, you can't break the cycle, and the baits sterilize them and kill them as soon as they hatch.
nutherjrfan said:some of these little boogers.
I've actually gotten used to them and no longer kill them. Well sort of the new apt. has no bugs or rodents of any kind. Some very old spider webs in the basement and what maybe looked like egg sacks but that's it.
My 4 year old picks those things up with her bare hands. I initially wanted to take them away and squash them but am working on retraining myself - they're kind of cool looking if you turn off the initial gut reaction. I try to see them through her eyes. I still won't pick them up bare handed, but I'll gently pick them up with a tissue and put them outside instead.
House centipedes like that one are insectivores. They're creepy looking, but they'll eat any roach, mosquito, or wasp. Very useful creatures.
nutherjrfan said:some of these little boogers.
I've actually gotten used to them and no longer kill them. Well sort of the new apt. has no bugs or rodents of any kind. Some very old spider webs in the basement and what maybe looked like egg sacks but that's it.
I first saw one of these eldritch horrors this year, in my grandmother's house, and she's deathly afraid of creepy bugs so the creepiest bug I'd ever seen in North America had to die quick. Doesn't help that it reminded me of a tropical centipede. I whispered to the family that I'd seen some unholy spawn of a centipede, scorpion, and prawn in the house and to look out for more so that granny wouldn't want to move into a plastic bubble. Later figured out what it was and felt stupid...comparing a house centipede to a tropical centipede is like comparing a housecat to a sabertooth tiger.
dculberson said:My 4 year old picks those things up with her bare hands. I initially wanted to take them away and squash them but am working on retraining myself - they're kind of cool looking if you turn off the initial gut reaction. I try to see them through her eyes. I still won't pick them up bare handed, but I'll gently pick them up with a tissue and put them outside instead.
They're not aggressive but they do have a sting that's about as painful as a bee sting.
Not in the same league as a tropical centipede which is ultra-aggressive and has the most painful sting of any land animal.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
I've lived in Trinidad, and one of the first nights there swept a 10" long tropical centipede out from under the steps. UGH that was a "welcome to your new home!" moment.
The house centipedes might be able to sting, but they sure don't seem to want to. I've warned her they're capable of biting, but they haven't stung yet. I guess she's super gentle with them. I'll have to let her know it's a sting instead of a bite - she'll like that knowledge.
Here's an update, we had the car treated by the exterminator two weeks before our New year's weekend road trip.
He said it would be 3 weeks to eliminate the roaches, but my wife wanted to take the van on our trip, so I opened it up and pulled the spare tire out to fill it.
there were a couple of dead roaches underneath the spare and a couple of live ones. I pulled out some spray that I had in the garage from when I owned my practice, a combination of insect growth inhibitor and insecticide. I went through the car with that, closed it up and we went on our trip. the exterminator had also used in insect growth inhibitor / insecticide combination.
Since we got back we haven't seen any live roaches. After my wife drove it for a couple of weeks she went ahead and put her stuff in the car from the old car.
We're driving it now, haven't seen any live roaches! I think we're okay!
I'd remove all the seats and the carpet to shampoo the hell out of everything. Maybe wipe the whole floor down with bleach based cleaner. It can't be good to be sitting in all that insecticide. Now that the roaches are dead, it's time to clean out all those chemicals.
TGMF said:I'd remove all the seats and the carpet to shampoo the hell out of everything. Maybe wipe the whole floor down with bleach based cleaner. It can't be good to be sitting in all that insecticide. Now that the roaches are dead, it's time to clean out all those chemicals.
That's a valid concern. Fortunately, Permethrin insecticides break down rapidly, and the insect growth inhibitors work by inhibiting chiten production.
Chiten forms exoskeletons and insect eggs, so chitin inhibitors have no effect on mammals or birds.
I'm still going to shampoo the carpets and seats.
When my wife resigned to stay home with the kids we brought all the stuff from her office home. Except the building had roaches. SO we looked up how to kill them. Bug bombs and all that garbage, sure. OR you can freeze your stuff below 0 for a few days straight or get the temp over 200 for a couple hours.
We loaded it all into the minivan, cranked up the heat on recirculate and put a space heater in it too. Eight hours later we came back home to find it NOT burned to the ground. We've had no roach problems.
How we will do that again when we pull everything out of storage to move into our new home is anybody's guess.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the temp got up to at least 230 if my memory serves me correctly. 250 is my real memory but that seems too high
I have no advice, but I'm just curious what the car in question is - I didn't see it mentioned previously.
In reply to irish44j :
2014 Mazda 5. The mini-mini van. Love it.
I read someplace that boric acid will kill roaches. It’s a powder that you sprinkle around and roaches pick it up on legs and kills them. Probably the exterminator route is the most effective.
In reply to pirate :
Boric acid has been used for many years. While most people used the 20 Mule Team brand that was made for bleaching laundry, I did sell a commercial product made for this purpose when I had my clinic.
There are rare reports of severe inflammatory reactions in infants that had extended periods of contact with the carpets after treatment.
There is another site that also provides spammy information about this. You should paddle on over.
In reply to Floating Doc :
Any updates? Were your treatments successful?
I'm fighting the German roach menace in my new to me Transit Connect. I started to pull everything out to get the carpets out because they stink and found roaches under the passenger area (front cab area) carpet. Along with poop. So much poop 
. I bought a pack of Raid aerosol bug bombs. I just set the second one off tonight as there were still a few that were still moving from the first treatment.
Everything but the dashboard has been removed. I plan on vacuuming the bodies and filth up before scrubbing everything down with a bleach solution. I hope that does it.
I took the carpet to the carwash and powerwashed the hell out of it. It got a lot of the funk out. Its been sitting on my back patio for 2 days in the hot Florida sun drying. It still stinks. I hung it up in the garage and hosed it down in white vinegar. When that dries, I'll properly shampoo the carpet. Then another round with the vacuum. I started scrubbing the seat bottoms with carpet cleaner. The scrub brush was brown when I was done . This whole van is filthy. Luckily, its the cargo version so everything comes out pretty easily.
Can number two. I noticed dead roaches everywhere from the first one. The problem is that they are up under the jute underlayment under the dash and up the firewall. You know, where its almost impossible to get to . I'm hoping that the second bomb will get the stragglers.
Is there anything else outside of an orbital strike that I can do to kill these berkeleyers? I want to turn this van into a micro camper slash utility vehicle so roach cohabitation is a no-go.
Chlordane. Oops, that's been banned. DDT. Oops, that's been banned too. That Pyrethrin stuff. Spray the inside down with it, spray up under the dash and everywhere with the tube on the nozzle. Bengal brand works well and is in an aerosol can, no water. Get something with the insect birth control stuff and spray that too. I think Bengal Gold has that in it already. Put boric acid down when you put the carpet back in. Roach Pruff brand has a good reputation. Paul Harvey used to peddle it.
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