global warming's hitting home: anyone else with increase in large cockroach visitors?

I don't know anyone without a cockroach invasion--all people who manage to keep them at bay throughout the year.

I'm talking the 2 inch "American" cockroach. The one that shape shifts, darts at three feet per second and FLIES.

We're in central NC, where the heat index has been between 105-110 on several days over the past few weeks. . . I imagine it must be worse further south.

Is anyone else seeing an unusual number of these uninvited guests?

I actually think beetles, especially stag beetles, are cute. You can put a pencil or key down near their horns and they'll try to grab it. They're slow, and they don't morph. I don't go into clinical panic attacks with spiders. But "Palmetto Bugs?" I grew up with serious infestations in our coastal home that were never treated. . . on the walls, floors, everywhere, 24/7. I have a hard time feeling one-ness with these bugs. When I spot one, especially if it's moving, I shriek like I'm facing on oncoming car. That's how awful these things are to me.

Rising waters and drought and famine are tragedies with which I can sympthasize (not empathize, not having been there), but GiANT, RELENTLESS COCKROACHES are an aspect of global climate change that had not yet occurred to me and is a huge motivator to finally get me off of my ass to volunteer more, as pathetically middle-class as that is.

Not to come out and kill your bugs (unless you want to go that route), but rather to find out the answer to your question. One that has been in business for a long time can tell you if things are really on an upswing, or are more cyclical.

I learned a lot about what science knows about how rain at different times of the year affects mice populations, simply by calling one of these old-timers a few years ago when the dogs killed a mouse inside for the first time ever.

so I can totally relate to your panic attacks to the airborne cockroaches. My mom kept an immaculately clean house and still the roaches would pop out from drawers, climb shamelessly up the walls and fly kamikaze style. I currently live in the mid-Atlantic region and can happily report that we do not have ANY of the big flying roaches of the south. Probably just lucky though... can't imagine that no one in this area has them. :scared:

I resolved to cover the trash at night, take it out every single morning, clean up dishes 'as you go', leave no food scraps or oil on kitchen surfaces - just be meticulously clean, no organic substances left out in the open. Some combat placed here and there. And you know what - after about six months of that, I would see a small roach once every two or three years.

But I know sometimes, it's completely not you - it's your neighbors, and sometimes it's even your property's vegetation which attracts bugs. A cat can be useful, too.

I guess that's supposed to sound more genteel than "roaches."

How does that old saying go? Too small to be a country, too big to be an insane asylum?

could be they haven't been here since the dinosaurs blew town and things got so cold.

Here now though, and people don't recognize them until they wonder what the hell happened to their homes.

I've seen way more of them this year as well. I thought they were coming inside looking for water.

But while these suckers fly, at least they don't talk back, like the hissing ones. :scared:

dg

other than seeing one scurry across the driveway at night, but never in the house..

BUT, about 2 weeks ago I saw one run out from under my washing machine :scared:

Our front security door is not a tight fit, and i have taken to leaving the door-door open at night, so I suppose they could come in that way and then hang a right, into the laundry area, but..sheez.. I don't like having them inside..one bit:(

I have only Hawai'i and California for comparison, so I could be wrong. I grew up in Hawai'i and lived there until my own kids were born, before relocating to coastal California. I also lived 3 years in a high-desert region of California when in college.

In humid, humid Hawai'i cockroaches were a fact of life. Disgusting, but there was little that could be done about it except drench the place in poison, which my appalled mother did. When I grew up and lived in an apartment, sometimes the housewives in whatever building I was in would get together and have the exterminator in all on the same day, so the damn bugs wouldn't just run someplace else. That would be good for about 3 months. (Those were the smaller German roaches; the big flying suckers lived outdoors. Mostly.) Tupperware, re-used glass jars, and the like were indispensable for food storage. Even postage stamps weren't safe--I saw more than one woman take a grain of sticky rice out of the pot and use it to glue a stamp to a letter, because the original glue had been eaten off.

I moved to California and haven't seen one since. Not in the high desert (where summer temps easily soared past 100), and not here in the Santa Barbara area. In SB we are on the coast and it's beautiful, but we have recurring droughts. Humidity is nothing like Hawai'i. No roaches.

Global warming is indeed expanding the range of all manner of species that used to be blocked by severely cold winters. Certain mosquitoes that carry tropical diseases have now expanded their range. Why not gigantic cockroaches? :scared:

Believe me, you have my sympathy.

People from many cultures eat insects. A little olive oil and basil.........

They get fed by the neighbour's dog food then migrate over to my flat when they're big. Also, not too wary of humans, making them easier to smack with my hand. I prefer to avoid pesticides. Luckily, word of my deadly hand has spread amongst the cockroach grapevine, so not many come over any more.

They are half dead, however, when they come inside to find water. I can usually manage to step on them before they get away.

Re: wood roaches (the ones that fly and look like big roaches) - I have not seen an increase.

I have had 3 tick bites so far this year. Only one last year.

Ants - everywhere they did not use to be. Spiders - same thing.

escape from Asian ships in our seaports. They nest in the cardboard boxes goods are imported in and multiply in the warehouses they are stored in until delivery. I now live in a cockroach free place. I live in the country and although I have had cockroaches arrive in cardboard boxes in stuff I receive from UP or FedEx, they are gone in 48 hours. It's because my yard is full of spiders, lizards and other predators that love bugs. So if you want to keep your cockroach population down, encourage your spiders. I know you don't want them in your house. I discourage them in my house with cleaners that are made from citrus, particularly orange oil. Otherwise I use no pesticides or chemicals in my yard and gardening area so I have lots of spiders, lizards, birds and other bug eaters that eat them up faster than they can breed.

And our weather is similar to yours.

In Oklahoma. My wife came out of the bathroom the other night shrieking at the top of her lungs, grabbed the broom and damn near destroyed the house trying to kill a "flying cockroach".

I've lived in Oklahoma most of my life, since 1968. I lived on the MS Gulf coast for a couple stretches so I know what a "palmetto bug" looks like. Never, and I mean never in the 40 or so years that I've lived in Oklahoma have I seen one up here....until now.

:D

But, yeah, I do notice that they have to bend down to ring the doorbell now.

;-)

hee hee :+


Seriously, though...there are no cockroaches where I live. I don't know why.

But we are seeing a big increase in the field mouse population.

;)

I keep my kitchen clean, and have cats.

They're big and I mean REALLY big. They're fast. They can fly! They're in the grass, on trees, crawling on the patio and brickwork and they make a really crunchy sound when you step on one.

They sometimes hitch a ride or creep their way into your house, UP your drain pipes and into your sink and bathtubs and for some reason there are plenty of them this year.



EEK.

Is a 12-gauge slug sufficient?

:hide:

But since the advent of global warming we've acquired an enormous cockroach of the political variety.

I have never seen so many, mostly outside. I opened the door the other night and one was standing right in front of me. then 2 min later another did the same. the flying one made my hair stand on end. they give me the creeps. I am in the desert near Palm Springs. God I miss the Bay area. I killed five the other night.

Squirrels; opossum; raccoons... rodents... insects... everything is up, including coyotes, which is the newest out-of-the-ordinary visitor. I've lived in this area all of my life and never saw a coyote. Squirrels were rare, and are all over the place now... but coyotes? This is just weird 7 miles from the ocean in suburban Los Angeles.

They've increased in size and number. Even long time residents are commenting about it.