I woke during the night to a squeal like a little piglet that has had its tail pulled, followed by bash! bash! bash!
I jumped out of bed to discover LTSH (Long Term Suffering Husband) emerging from the bathroom, fly-swatter in hand.
LTSH: “Bloody cockroach!”
I asked, “Did you get it?”
LTSH: “Yes! The mongrel ran over my foot!”
So, that explained the little piggy squeal.
I burst out laughing and asked, “How’s your foot?”
LTSH mumbled something about could I clean up the mess, shuddered a few times and went back to bed.
I walked into the bathroom and there I found it… or what was left of it… do you remember the old saying about ‘cannons to kill cockroaches’? Hmmmm…
If you’ve encountered the occasional cockroach in your house – apart from piggy squealing and chasing it with a fly-swatter, here’s some environmentally friendly ways to deal with them…
- The most obvious one is super fussy food storage. Make sure all of your containers are well sealed (including your compost bucket) and put your rubbish out before going to bed (or have a well sealed rubbish bin). Cockroaches love seed, so if you have pet birds, clean their cages out regularly. If not you may discover cockroaches lurking under the paper on the bottom of the cage that emerge at night to munch on the birdseed. Urrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh… If your pet birds have ever had ‘night fright’ it’s quite possible there’s been a cockroach in their cage scaring the hell out of them.
- Get rid of Cockroach Hiding Spots. Clean up any rubbish piles. Push cupboards flush up against walls. Fill gaps in timber, around skirting boards, etc. with sealant.
- Stop cockroaches from entering your home. Install tight-fitting flyscreens on doors and windows.
- Use some Cockroach Deterrants. Rub Tea Tree Oil over the shelves in your cupboards, or leave the ends of cucumbers in your cupboards until they shrivel (there must have been some ancient battle between the Cucumber and Cockroach Clans that their descendents continue to tell of, even today).
Make a Cockroach Trap. Fill about a quarter of an old bottle with red wine, beer, or sweet sherry. Add a tablespoon of cooking oil. Grease the inside of the neck with oil as well. Put the trap somewhere you know cockroaches like to hang out. The cockroaches will climb in and won’t be able to climb out. Yippee… A much nicer alternative to LTSH’s splatter bug technique.
I’m not real keen on those sticky paper thingies – we used them and only caught a couple of cockroaches… but also caught two gecko’s – poor things, and a little mouse (who ended up being the next door neighbour’s kid’s pet mouse who escaped and decided our place looked like a good alternative. As I tried to ‘unstick’ her, she bit me on the thumb – ouch!)
And of course, forget spraying – it doesn’t always stop the cockroaches anyway, and they just develop a resistance to the pesticide so you have to continue spraying. Hmmm… I can only begin to imagine what that must be doing the environment… and remember that food chain.
Good hygiene and traps are the best alternative – for both you and the environment. If you have any natural insect repellant methods for controlling cockroaches, please share.
just an FYI so no one else needs to get hurt trying to peel a pet from a glue trap. Poor cooking oil on the trap and the pet or rodent will slide right off the glue. No killing required.
Try spreading cucumber slices where they nest