Pest Control Fail – Madagascan Cockroach
As the Experts in Pest Control we like to report on and respond to situations where pest control is a problem. However, there must also be loads of instances where people try a DIY solution and it goes badly wrong. Without naming any names and protecting the innocent (read: naive) here is one such story – and no, before you ask, it wasn’t me… I have already admitted to my cockroach and milipede on holiday stories! There is also a ladybird one to follow too.
“My first year at uni, my roomie and I were diligently studying (or possibly reading trashy gossip magazines) when we looked up and saw a giant cockroach, two inches long and black as a starless night, on the wall.
We reacted like the empowered young women we were, dashing into the bathroom screaming. We begged the girls in the adjoining room to slay the beast, but they refused, then locked us out of their room.
As we turned to face each other, we realised that – despite only knowing how to call on our daddies in this type of situation – we would have to face this ourselves. So we set about figuring out the best way to kill the hellbeast. We discussed whacking it with a shoe, but that brought up a few issues:
1. Who would clean up the resulting ickiness;
2: who would actually get up close enough to whack it; and
3: what if IT DIDN’T WORK?
Dismissing the latter thought, we decided that I would whack the bug using one of her heavier shoes. We re-entered the room, and I grabbed her shoe, but the cockroach wasn’t where we had left it. It had climbed further up the wall, just out of my reach.
Eventually, I had a massive brainwave that went a little something like this:
Q: How do you kill cockroaches?
A: Spray them with bug spray.
Q: What if you don’t have bug spray?
A: Use whatever spray you have to hand, which in our case was aerosol hairspray.
Thinking the aerosol would either suffocate the roach or stun it so that I could balance on a desk and whack it, I grabbed the hairspray, and with my roommate squealing behind me, I inched nearer the abomination, raised the can, aimed carefully and sprayed for my life.
Which only resulted in the massive, evil cockroach curling up in anger and hissing at us like a rabid cat. So we did the only other thing we could think of. We ran away.
Lesson learned: after many years of wondering, I finally put our victim’s mind at ease and told her it was a Madagascan “hissing” cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) that she and her friend had had a close encounter with.
Do you have any pest control fail stories to match or better this one??
Brig:
Crickey! I would not have run just into the bathroom…i would have run straight out the house! Cockroaches turn my stomach. The last time i saw one was in the girls toilets in primary school – didn’t think too much of it at the time. I think i would be more frightened now if i came across one! Here’s hoping i never will.
January 26, 2010, 1:54 pmCara:
That was just ONE cockroach, but what if they are so many and they are at almost every where in your home? People try DIY for various reasons, (1) save costs (2) save costs (3) save costs… and this is the major reason why people would rather do this themselves. But they have not taken in consideration the risks in handling this themselves.
a) What if they accidentally swallow/inhale/hurt their eyes/etc the chemicals while handling it?
b) What if pets or children got in contact with the chemicals while they are handling it?
c) What is the right dosage?
d) Have the end-users been trained to handle it?
e) And if anything were to happen to themselves, do they know what to do?
f) Are they willing to do the Dirty Work themselves? Have they thought of removing dead rodent by themselves? Will that make people wanna puke?
g) Or in this case, would you want to whack the cockroach with your branded and favourite shoes? And ruin the carpet with the “juices” of the cockroach? Or waste the whole can of hair spray aerosol to chase after ONE cockroach? Or ruin your manicure in the midst of chasing away a pest?
Don’t it sound rational, cost effective and smart to engage a pest control operator to do this for you?
February 3, 2010, 1:10 am