cockroaches

I once found one in our last house, I didn't even realise what it was till OH saw it. We had no idea where it came from and never found another one so hopefully its just found its way in and is the only one. Must admit I was paranoid for weeks afterwards.

Hi cazzajen. What part of the world are you in my dear

Oh sympathy cazzajen.
The first cockroach I ever saw was at Manchester Royal Infirmary, during a tutorial with the Dean of the Dental School, a terrifying man.
Everyone in the small group, except for the Dean who was in full flow and oblivious, saw it progress across the floor and no one dared to speak, lift their legs out of the way or take any other avoiding action.
Years later when we lived in Hongkong they were everywhere. I loathed them and never got used to them, wouldn't use insecticide because of the children and had to resort to little traps which, once the roaches had gone in after the bait, you then had to submerge in water and drown the wretched things.
Hope you don't get any more!

At one time my MIL's flat in central London was infested with cockroaches. If you switched on the kitchen light in the middle of the night hundreds of them rushed away into the corners. The Council eventually managed to get rid of them.

The first one I saw was in an apartment we lived at in Belgium. I was heavily pregnant taking an afternoon nap and woke up to find one on my hand . Saw a very similar bug outside my SIL's but on closer inspection it wasn't. I have a real bad heebeejeebee terror about them. You can spray around the outside of the property or could get your landlord/housing society to treat the home

Try living in Darwin or Sydney urrggghhhh. There is something that kills them, they even take it back to the nest and it kills more. It does work, it's safe and you just sprinkle it behind cupboards and dark places. It's Powdered Borax and is inexpensive, I buy it at the supermarket for around $A5. Apparently it is an old fashioned remedy that seems to have been forgotten but I found out a major pest eradicator uses it in Sydney, I was so happy, I can't stand the thought of a cockroach in my home. Thirty Little Known Uses For Borax.

We used to have them in Jamaica and I hated them. They crunched horribly if you trod on them. Great big ugly things nearly 10 cm long. Yuk.

The very mention of them sends shivers up my spine. We had huge ones in Singapore and they seemed to be almost indestructible - when DH hit them with his army boot they would get up and run away! They were called 'the great leveller' because everyone was plagued by them, from the High Commissioner down! Hope you only have the one, cazzajen, and get rid of it quickly!

I used to work in a large mental hospital that had once been a Victorian workhouse. In one part of the building you had to put the light on and wait a few minutes to go into the bathroom. If you went in, in the dark, your feet crunched on the cockroaches. I have never seen one in any of the houses I've lived in. I do have silverfish, but they are confined to the downstairs loo.

So sorry cazzagen that you've seen one. I also experienced them in the old hospitals I used to work in. As they're nocturnal you might not have seen all of them. . Best to have them checked out -some councils will exterminate for free, but otherwise try Rentokil and similar firms.

We had some in our holiday cottage in Wales. We moved out! But a lovely little man did come to deal with them and he said they wouldn't come back because he did a thorough job. He used smoke bombs, to bring them all out, and then killed them all. He treated all the drains as well.

If you can afford to, I would get pest control in because they can tell where they have been. We had to throw all our food out - there was even one in the fridge which we hadn't seen! They are horrible and contaminate everything they touch. He also said "Everyone's got cockroaches at the moment" so maybe it's been a good year for them.

When I worked nights in an old hospital they had big signs on kitchen wall " DO NOT TURN OFF LIGHT " one night so ebody did and we had a room size moving carpet.

If you are lucky your household insurance may cover cost of vermin eradication.........let's hope you don't need that.

Don't feel that having one move in is a reflection on your hygiene. Your home being spotlessly clean doesn't deter them - they actually prefer clean surroundings, and are very fastidious about their own cleanliness!

I brought one back from a holiday in Turkey. My daughter had lived abroad for a while and I remember her saying not to squash a cockroach in case it has eggs inside!

As I opened the suitcase the cockroach seemed to jump up into the air. I screamed and my husband came running upstairs. I was shouting 'don't squash it' and you can imagine the reply!

'How can I ....... kill it if I can't ........ squash it. I think he was in a bit of a panic too but was trying to be manly.

cazzajen, Faye
They are everywhere in NQ too, horrible things!
We rented a beach property when we were there once, the owners had obviously used an insecticidal bomb before we got there, but they were still dying in the shower, in the sink. Huge ones!
I couldn't deal with them, but DD did as she is used to it.

They move very fast, I remember one coming into the kitchen but it shot under the fridge before the dog could catch it!

We were waiting for a lift in the lobby of a very upmarket American hotel in Florida and a huge cockroache strolled across the floor, in the middle of the day. It was 4" long and appeared quite unperturbed until my husband, with (then!) lightening reflexes jumped on it. There was a loud crunch and that particulr beastie was no more. Thank goodness.

Have just remembered another cocky incident.

Asleep in the bedroom of a holiday apartment in the French Alps, I awoke during the night to find several of the little darlings on and in our bed - one crawling over my husband's hand.

First thing next morning we stormed off to the letting agent who, in a very gallic manner just shrugged and said we were imagining it.

Well, you don't mess with us, so next night we harvested the liitle and not so little blighters (including one running round the seal of the 'fridge where it was trying to work out a way to get in!).

We took our jar of beasties back to the agent the following morning and politely reiterated our story. Another gallic shrug, we were imagining the whole thing......

At this point we emptied our jar on to the countertop in their office. As I said, you don't mess with us!

We were 'rehoused' within a few hours!

Incidentally, there was a very musty smell in the problem apartment and we now know what it was, so if you are on holiday and smell an odd unusual musty smell, check in the middle if the night that you don't have any unexpected guests!

Ooohhh!!!

I was a day pupil at a convent boarding school. There were only a handful of us day-bugs as we were known and our coats were on hooks in the basement at the far end of the building and accessed by an unlit subterranean corridor which ran the length of the building. From November to March it was pitch black down there at 4pm home time and apart from the terror that there might be ghosts of long dead nuns, we crunched on cockroaches all the way along.
I wish I had heard of Borax as I would willingly have spent all my pocket money on it, though it wouldn't have helped with the ghosts.

I feel for you.
I once worked in an office where they were in the false ceilings & wall panels! They would drop on us , it was horrifying ?
We were paid extra to come into work during the eradication process. My collegue found one in her home made sandwich, it had managed to get in the clingfilm!
Good luck sorting it. Fingers crossed it's only one ?

I don't think I've ever seen a cockroach in real life so would be a bit freaked out if I found one in the house. I am however mortified that we found mouse droppings under the sofa on Saturday when we moved it to take the carpet up. In defence the sofa is huge and impossible to move on my own and the mouse in question had been brought in by my outdoor cat some time ago and 'escaped' from him - he lay in wait for it for hours until it dared to come out and of course met it's fate. Hard to understand how all these droppings were actually under the foot of the sofa though!

Have you had a takeaway recently? Worked for Environmental Health & they are a lot more common than most people realise in these establishments!

Mice can get into anything bigger than the diameter of a pencil, Willow500. Under a sofa is a doddle! When I kept bees, we had to put mouseguards over winter and the holes were smaller than a pencil...