someone who knows insects: PLEASE tell me this isn't what I think it is

[Bertha Venation]

and if it's what I think it is, please tell me how it got into my house!

:scared:



It was less than an inch long, and lighter in color than it appears here.

:scared:

[LARED]

1. Most likey got in with cardboard

Yes, it a cockroach

[Teddy_Salad]

2. Set a nuclear bomb off near it

If it lives.....it's a cockroach. :nuke:

[spotbird]

3. What you need is Combat bait.

Buy two or three, for roaches, and put them everywhere. Inside two weeks there will be no problem.

PS If you do the Combat thing you'll see more of them before they go away. The bait feeds them, they die, their relatives eat the remains and die also.

[DemoTex]

4. Looks like a German cockroach to me.

Call Toxic-Tom Delay. That's better than the quarter-size black widow spider I found under my eaves this morning.

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Yup

It's La Cucaracha! These critters have many species and shades of brown. Also, the young ones are often lighter in color. Better get your bug man...where's there's one, there's always more. And if any of your neighbors recently had their place fumigated, these ickies will survive to move into a convenient home nearby.

[Career Prole]

6. *Could* be a cucaracha...

...check here, see what you think.
http://www.termite.com/cockroach-pest-control.html

Have you moved some boxes in from storage lately, or something of that nature?

[Bertha Venation]

21. cases of soda from BJ's

in fact, I had just brought the turtle into the office in one of them, brought up from the basement.

FUCK!

[Red State Rebel]

25. Paper grocery bags bring them in too...

They love the glue on those, probably the same with cardboard boxes.

In this case it's better to go plastic instead of paper.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

7. Eeek! A ReBuglican!!!

:scared:

[Fenris]

8. God, where do you live BV?

That's a cockroach. The national bird of Texas.

[Bertha Venation]

19. Southern Maryland

I have seen them (a different variety) around our house but never IN our house.

FUCK!

[leftofthedial]

9. la cucaracha

la cucaracha

what you need is la bomba

[BigMcLargehuge]

10. German cockroach

call in an air strike... preferably napalm.

[kevinam]

11. could be...

a palmetto bug. From what I was told they aren't especially bad. I have found a few in my house (in Georgia). My exterminator said they can't pass disease or anything like that. Not an expert on them but you might look it up. One question...why isn't the thing flattened already???...Kevin.

[Lorien]

15. Not especially bad?

I've lived in the Midwest and the South, and Palmetto bugs are a lot more repulsive than the standard roach (like the one in the photo). For one, they are twice as big, if not bigger (you can hear them when they walk), and secondly-THEY FLY! Ugh!

[Bertha Venation]

20. why not flattened? it got away

I didn't have any bug spray handy so I blasted it with can 'o air. It was on the screen at the time. It fell onto the sill on its back and I thought it was dead. I didn't realized it had flipped over 'til after I snapped the pic, and by then it scurried away before I could get the Raid.

FUCK!

[Philostopher]

12. It's definitely a roach, BV.

But I don't think it's a German one -- they're more silvery colored, and usually have black stripes on their heads and backs. Someone suggested a Palmetto bug -- if you live near the coast, in a sandy area, it could be. Could also be a wood roach (I've seen them called Pennsylvania wood roaches), which isn't a household insect and won't invade. Probably did, as some have suggested, hitchhike in on something you carried in. German cockroaches are less than a half-inch long and have black markings. I think they also usually carry their antennae cocked back, not forward.

I lived in an apartment building several years ago that had hella problems with the German ones, so I've seen plenty. That doesn't look like one, at least not like the ones I had.

[FizzFuzz]

13. one thing I know

its not a fluffyhineylimpetbug

[LTR]

14. IT'S A REPUBLICAN!!!

Just kidding. Only a cockroach.

Many similarities, though.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

16. Don't panic yet...

I occasionally have one come in when I get something shipped in a cardboard box. They also seem to be attracted to those miniature azaleas that you see in grocery stores.

You might want to put out some Combat roach traps just to be sure...

[hunter]

17. I have ants and spiders in my house, but no roaches.

It's my opinion that the spiders and ants eat them all. I'm serious, but I haven't done any sort of scientific study.

My wife and I bought a house full of roaches once, and while we were remodeling we must have wiped out thousands of them, but we were very careful to seal everything up so the roaches couldn't move around behind walls, etc., (we did this mostly for energy efficiency), and the roaches never came back. But they were awful before that -- if you left any dirty dishes out on the sink, there would be dozens of them munching away in the night, and you'd see them scurying off when you turned on the light.

I've never seen a roach in the house we own now. It's sealed up pretty well, and there are plenty of creatures outside, and a few inside, that will eat any roaches that come along.

Currently I have some sort of medium sized hunting spider living behind my computer desk. Sometimes she comes out on the wall to hunt. It's really interesting to watch the way she moves -- all the jerky patterns she makes. If she gets on unsteady ground she'll make a little anchor line of thread, just like a mountain climber.

The other night a small fly landed on the wall, and the spider was out on the wall too, but she didn't go directly towards it, in fact for a very long time it looked as if she hadn't seen it. Then I looked away to my computer, and a few minutes later I saw a swift movement out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up just in time to see her grab the fly and drag it back down behind the desk. It was so cool!

I rarely use insecticides, and my garden is entirely organic, but I can't stand fleas, so alas, the dog does get flea poison whenever she needs it.

We have a small pond in our backyard with fish in it, and if you sit still long enough watching the water, you will see the fish eating any mosquitos that come too close to the water.

I'm rambling a bit here, but I love to watch insects and other creepy crawlies, which is probably why I took so much biology in college.

It's my opinion that if you use too many insecticides you'll end up with roaches because roaches are the critters most resistant to insecticides.

The only practical advice I have is to get a caulk gun, a few tubes of water-based "paintable" caulk (hopefully of a sort that roaches don't eat) and seal up all the passages the roaches are disappearing into.

If you do have to resort to insecticides, I wouldn't fault you. Roaches are nasty, especially if they've been crawling through sewer pipes to reach your kitchen.

[BlondieK143]

18. On the brighter side...

They'll run from you??

When I went to visit my BF at Camp LeJeune, the poor things were in EVERYONE'S room (even if it was as clean as it could be). I hate bugs too, just um, imagine that they're singing ones and then run? :shrug:

[ncrainbowgrrl]

22. My dog used to chase them when she was a puppy.

My parents live in NYC, (a place where those things seem to outnumber even tourists)... When my dog was young, she was confined to the kitchen at night so that she wouldn't um... use the living room rug as her bathroom at night. We'd wake up in the morning and see her wagging her tail as she displayed her 'nightly kill.' Oh, it was so funny to watch her claws on the floor as she tried to get traction to (first torture) and the eliminate the little roaches.

[RebelOne]

23. Yep, cockroach. Arm yourself with a can of Raid.

[Corgigal]

24. Living in the south

I see "things" like that from time to time. I adopted a few cats from the SPCA and now those "things" don't seem to hang around much anymore OR if they do they are found in the legs up position.

Get a cat and those yucky "things" will have met their match.

[LynneSin]

26. BV - see my PM

I had major problems with german cockroaches last year. A year later I never see them. I have a great system to keep them out of my apartment and it doesn't pollute my lungs or kill my cats.

Good Luck!!!