Oh Texas…we were making some strides in our relationship, some real strides. And then this weekend happens.
First up Ikea. Or should I say, Ikillya. Cuz that’s what it tried to do to us. Apparently it was their first busy day of the back-to-school-year season. The busiest time of the year! said one employee. We left an excited, jovial and happy family of four ready to do our part to stimulate the economy and beautify our home. We came back broken and defeated. No longer able to cope, we started turning on each other just like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. It was ugly. But whatever, in the end it’s hard to feel sorry for people who had a hard time shopping and buying pretty things for their home. Pathetic right? Let me know and I’ll flip myself off for you.
But here’s the real kicker.
I’m already getting goose bumps writing about this….cockroaches. Last night there was a cockroach hiding behind the soap dish in our bathroom. Oh vomit. I look down and see these reddish, brownish toy-like legs sticking out behind the soap dish. They didn’t look real. They were big enough for me to pause for a second and think Well obviously that’s too big to be a bug, but what could… and then the horror hit me. That was a real bug. It was big, but the sad thing is it’s not even that big for a Texas cockroach. How do I know this? Well after that near-death experience culminating in B shoe-smashing the roach and flushing it (don’t you throw that thing in the trash! flush it! FLUSH IT!) I decided I better go finish the dishes in the kitchen so we don’t attract any more creepy crawlies. I’m cleaning, cleaning…then I open the door under the sink and grab the trash and crawling along the top of the trash can is another even bigger man-eating cockroach. At least 2 inches long, possibly 3. I screamed like the girl I am and once again B came to my rescue. And lest you think I’m being a complete wuss, my husband conceded when he saw that barfy roach, Oh my gosh, that is a big one. I can’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t go to sleep last night. I kept seeing roaches in my bed, in my shoes, in my cereal, everywhere. And I am mad. I can’t believe we don’t get some sort of warning when we move here about pests like this. I’ve seen small normal roaches and that’s fine. But when they reach a certain size it’s a life changer. I no longer feel comfortable in my home. Everywhere I go I’m looking for roaches. If there is a national registry for sex offenders, certainly there could be a national registry for pests and other animals that might make you not want to live there if you knew beforehand that they existed in your area. Someone get on that.
Sorry San Antonio, you’re back on my crap list.
I'm horrified for you. Is all of Texas that way or is it the house?
We live in Houston, and I am sorry to say, those suckers fly too. I vacuum them up because they freak me out so bad. We had Bulwark Pest control come out and they sprayed some sort of powder into the walls (through the outlets) and I haven't seen any since, well, except when my in laws visit and refuse to shut the door. Grrr.
I'll go ahead and warn you about the snakes too, there are a lot of them, especially in the spring. I have heard that every type of poisonous snake in the US can be found in Texas, so just be careful outside. We got a dog to keep them out of our backyard, but I do see them in the streets quite and bit.
Texas isn't all bad though, I hope you'll make friends soon. Good luck with the roaches.
Melanie,
I think it's everywhere. I don't think our home is bad, but since we live at the ground level and it's only 1 story that doesn't help.
Nicole–Yeah we saw that second one fly. I couldn't believe it…luckily it landed in the trash can and B just grabbed the whole bag, tied it up and took it outside to the big trash. I'm not kidding, I have goosebumps just writing and thinking about it…I've had goosebumps for like 5 hours this morning. And snakes…well of course I don't want a poisonous snake in my yard or house, but they don't give me the willies like the roaches do.
boric acid in the bug section in walmart kills roaches its a white powder
call pest control!
Actually, you probably don't want to hear this, but the big ones are better. They are tree roaches that come inside looking for water (this time of year is the worst…particularly this year because it's been so dry.)
The little little ones are bad. They mean your house is dirty.
Still not fun.
I hate getting up in the middle of the night to feed the baby and seeing one. YUCK.
Get a bug guy. It's worth the $65 every three months. TOTALLY worth it. He will be your best friend!
Welcome to Texas. Barf!
I say fumigate. Seriously. I'm not trying to scare you but…
When I lived in West HOllywood, in the summer it would get really hot and the roaches would come out-I lived in an old building. (nowhere near as hot as TX…but still) anyway, I started to see little roaches in the kitchen. Just one or two. By the end of the week I had seen 10 or so and they were getting bigger and more disgusting. I called the landlord because I had never dealt with this sort of thing (hello-utah) and just told him that I'd seen a few roaches and that they were starting to gross me out. He was all Johnny-on-the-spot to hire a fumigator–he said if you see one there are probably 100. The next day they came and sprayed and I kid you not…for the next 2-3 days I had HUNDREDS of little roaches crawling out of their kitchen crevasses and dying on my counters and floors.
Seriously–nothing is grosser than roaches.
You live in the south, so there are going to be roaches, BUT if you see more than one or two in a day…you probably have a problem.
Stay strong! It will get better, summer is the worst there.
*hugs* I hate roaches. We had the flying ones when I lived in the Philippines. In our part of the South, we have more of an ant problem than roaches (which I'd take any day over roaches!), but my mom still tells roach tales from when we lived in New Orleans, oh-so-many-years ago. Good luck – I hope calling a pest control company helps!
The politically correct term is "water bug". : ) It's the Southern way of saying cockroach without grossing yourself out. When we moved into our 90 yr old house, it had been empty for over a year. They were as big as shetland ponies. I vote with boric acid. You can put the boric acid in places that the kiddies can't get to without fogging the whole house.
The other reader who said the big ones are tree roaches is right. Make sure you don't have mulch or something sitting in your garage that would attract them in. And get a pest guy – everyone in Texas has one. Good luck
Oh wow…thanks for the info and advice. So here's the scoop…we already have a pest control service. Our landlords had it sprayed the week before we moved in and I called them last night to get another treatment.
In the meantime I will be using a borax solution (we already had borax from the small ant problem we had in Cincy before we left…and boy do I wish we were just dealing with ants now) and I even bought a few roach motels….just to make me feel better.
So I'm glad to hear the big ones are "better." Yeah we definitely don't have the nasty small ones…and we are clean people for sure. I'm pretty anal about cleanliness (in fact that was tonight's FHE lesson) but we're still in the process of organizing and getting the house set up, so there's the feeling of there being a lot more hiding places right now.
Anyway, glad we're not alone. But STILL how can so many people like living in Texas with roaches this big running around?
We're in Dallas, and they're here, too. I agree about the big ones being the lesser evil… They're horrifying to see (goosebumps) BUT, I think they're slower, and therefore easier for your husband to catch.
I think it also depends on the age of the house. My parents' house was built in '79, and we do see two or so a month (the big ones) in the house. My husband and I are in an apartment built in 2009, and we haven't had any. Having stuff sprayed in the walls is an effective way to control them, but I'd do some research and see if you feel comfortable having those chemicals in your home.
I all my Texas years, I've only seen one fly. I was 10, and it still haunts me. Goosebumps.
I bet you got a bunch inside during the move while the doors were left open.
Carefully put boric acid with a folded paper in all your light swiches and plugs . becareful of the wires
OH NO- I am so sorry! It's a terrible feeling not to feel comfortable in your own house. I know that feeling and I hate it- it's so unsettling and preoccupying and icky. I hope there's a quick and semi-painless solution. There's got to be, right? I mean, lots of normal clean people live in TX, right? Hang in there. It's GOT to get better, it's just got to.
Our exterminator told us to pour 1 C. of bleach in our sinks, showers and bathtubs once every 2 weeks, at night before you go to bed and plug the drains for the night (he did give that advice after giving me a 15 min seminar about cockroaches, the different kids, etc). It's gotten rid of the big ones at our house.
Cockroaches fly? They FLY?!
They FLY.
^^yes they definitely do FLY. I was horrified when I saw a big one at the Columbia showers jump from the top of the shower and flutter nonchalantly to the floor. Ick.
A good, non-poisonous way to get rid of them is to borrow someone's cat. Or get a cat 😛 I had a few "waterbugs" in my apartment when I first moved in, but haven't seen one in the past two years thanks to my kitty.
Cock roaches! I spent my summers visiting with my mom's family in southern rural Alabama and at nght you hear the big things scattering all over the house (wood floors). I Hated the sound–it scared me. I still to this day, when visiting, will not leave my shoes on the floor for fear of stepping into one and crunching one of the giant things. Aren't they just the biggest ugliest things ever? I cringe at the thought of why Heavenly Father saw fit to create these things. I feel for you 🙂
My grandmother used to sprinkle red chili powder along the floor boards to keep them away, and the for the most part it did work, but she only did the kitchen and dining room area so they couldn't get to the food.
I'm absolutely baffled that they fly. How could they get any worse?
I cried for a good hour on Sunday after seeing a rat and cockroach in our building's basement. "I can't live here anymore!" I screamed to Cameron. I feel your pain.
Hoping it gets better – it's only up from here, right?
Haha I live in Hawaii where the roaches are BIG, the centipedes are BIG, the cane spiders are BIG (as big as your hand) … It will become routine … Git yerself a big-a** fly swatter for when you HAVE to deal with a critter yourself, it has been my salvation, next to our bug man, of course! And sticky traps don't hurt, either. You can put them under fridge/stove/furniture where you don't see them (and the kids don't find them) yet feel good knowing they are eliminating SOME of the competition!
Oh dear. We moved into a roach problem in our first apartment in NYC. From August to December we BATTLED those suckers with everything that we had. They'd be gone and then three weeks later they'd come back (little ones, but they would still be there). It seriously made me feel like I had absolutely nowhere safe to go or where I could let my guard down since I obviously couldn't do that at home or on the streets of NYC. It didn't stop until we convinced our neighbor to spray his apartment too. And then our last month there in the nice, big apartment, one of those water roaches flew in when we left the window open and I had to kill it by myself. I thought I was going to pass out. Anyway, point being – I am FEELING your cockroach pain and I am sorry. You will get rid of them though. Moving is always hard to do.
Ughhh, roaches suck. Down here they like to give them clever names like, "Palmetto Bugs" and hah hah, "Charleston Skateboards". Not so much. Still a roach. You'll get used to them. I agree that the big ones don't mean dirty though, they're just thirsty. Now spiders… 😉 Borax (laundry soap) is actually a really good and reliable and safe way to deter them. Sprinkle it in the back of your sink cabinet, around the perimeter of the house. And maybe in other cabinets like in the bathroom. That should help!
Wait til the lizards start showing up. That's what my sister had in SA, TX