Not as buggy as I thought
Saturday, 4:34 pm
Jun
28
2008
After turning the household upside down over cockroaches that the lad and I thought hitched a ride home with him from school, I now believe that we over reacted a bit. We’re not dealing with regular house roaches.
I haven’t seen too many over the last week, but the other night one FLEW at the light on my dining room table. And I saw one clinging to the outside screen near the light. Yesterday, I snagged one that was near the back door, crawling up by the ceiling. I took that one over to a bright light and examined it closely. It was a plain light tan. Definitely a roach, but not a house roach.
So back to the internet to find out what other kinds of roaches inhabit places in the northeast. I now discover that we also have outdoor roaches that don’t breed in or nor live in houses. They like to live in the mulch and places like that. They are very light tan color and they are small...usually in the 1/4-1/2 inch range. Like mine. They are attracted to light and will try to find ways to get to the light, even in the house. And they do fly. Once in the house, they don’t know how to get out, but they don’t take up residence in the house. They’ll tend to cling to screens and hang out by the windows or light sources instead. Until they curl up their toes, I guess. But, when disturbed, they’ll run really, really fast...like most roaches. Still kinda creepy.
Coincidentally, I had a big load of mulch delivered a few days before I noticed the first one.
I went out to dig around in the mulch this morning. Lo and behold. That’s where they’re coming from. A free gift from my mulch guys. What a bonus. I’d like them to be gone, but haven’t come up with an appropriate way to do that yet. I’m not at all in favor of spraying poison all over everything outside. And boric acid isn’t a good outdoor solution because it’ll kill my plants. This is a new one on me. Have never had to try killing outdoor roaches before. I could have happily lived without the experience. On the other hand, the skunks might make themselves especially useful in this case. They have been rooting around in the mulch the past week or so. One could hope that nature might actually take care of it for me.