Infestation - maybe

I recently moved into a new flat, when i first got there there were a lot of dead bugs but i assumed it was because the last family had moved out sometime ago and since no one was looking after the place the bugs crawled in, died and didn’t get swept up.

However in the last few days the place has just gone crazy, i’ve been finding over 20 of them a day, half are dead and the other half are still alive hiding anywhere that is dark.

THe flat is totally clean, ive been over it so many times now. We keep finding the little bastards on in the stairwell and in the garden as well, does anyone have ideas for getting rid these things? Is there anything that i can get at a supermarket?

They look a bit like cockraches but small, rounder and without antenni.

Based on your description, I’d guess they are the nymph stage of the American Cockroach:

There are also German Cockroaches in Taiwan, and I think “Oriental Cockroaches” as well. But those huge fuckers you see here are the AC.

My thinking with cockroaches is that they are similar to icebergs: the percentage you see is minor compared with the total infestation. I get the willies thinking about this film I saw once of a cockroach getting it’s late time snack/water off a toothbrush. Brr!

Apart from calling an exterminator and having them treat the entire building, try sealing doors/windows, and sprinkling diomataceous(sp.?) earth down drains, under fridges and at the backs of cupboards or wherever they seem to lurk.

Actually, I’m not sure you can get that in Taiwan. Alternatively, Raid/Pesticide bomb the hell out fo your place, but be mindful of pets(including fish in tanks)/children/innocent fauna like geckos, etc… Definitely not the environmental answer, so there’s the whole guilt factor with this choice.

Good luck!

Have you talked to the neighbors? It might be more effective if extermination was done through the whole building instead of just one apartment.

The cockroach traps and patience - it has always worked at my place.

Now, if only I knew how to get rid of termites.

SM, since half of the cockroaches you are finding now are dead, I think that one of your neighbors recently fumigated an apartment. The dead ones got hit with the poison, and the live ones are running away and hiding from it.

You gotta hit back. Time to fumigate your own place.

I worked at a restaurant once and I never saw a cockroach. When the management had the place fumigated, all those disgusting critters were everywhere, in various stages of death. Not very appetizing…

[quote=“david_in_taipei”]SM, since half of the cockroaches you are finding now are dead, I think that one of your neighbors recently fumigated an apartment. The dead ones got hit with the poison, and the live ones are running away and hiding from it.

You gotta hit back. Time to fumigate your own place.

I worked at a restaurant once and I never saw a cockroach. When the management had the place fumigated, all those disgusting critters were everywhere, in various stages of death. Not very appetizing…[/quote]

Agree!! I rarely had a cockroach until my neighbor bug-bombed her place. Then they ALL migrated to mine. Right when my mom was here too… had a big fat one run out from under the bed… ha ha
Just go out and get a few of those smoking bug bomb things and you’ll be fine. And COVER all drains- especially the one on the floor in the bathroom. A nice tile sample works; keeps the bastards and the rotten pipe smell out.

This is a must do if you have a kitchen. I really really don’t know why the kitchens here have drains on the floor but all kitchen I saw here also have it. In traditional Taiwanese cuisine, is that for dropping the rest of the soup if there is any?

Well, if you have seen some kitchens here you should know why - Taiwanese cooking seems to be a very messy affair. :wink:

I guess it’s mostly for cleaning purposes, i.e. when you wet the floor you can get rid of the excess water easier than by mopping it and wringing it into a bucket.

It’s very hard to kill off the cockroaches, so bug bombs aren’t really all that effective. The best option, as Mr. He recommended, is to use the cardboard traps which are widely available here. You can get a 6 pack of them cheap. You get a bunch of cardboard boxes with a sticky tape bottom and tablets. Peel off the cover of the sticky tape, pop in one of the tablets in the very center, then assemble the box and place them around. The tablet is not poison but puts out a banana scent that attracts cockroaches. They amble inside and get stuck on the tape and can’t get out. You can wait until there’s a nice party of half a dozen critters before you need to replace them. At first you’ll need to replace them frequently, but later on you should have fewer and fewer to worry about. Place the traps in dark areas, along walls, inside the ceiling if you can, and anywhere you’ve spotted the critters.

A cat is another option to control your cockroach population, but beware that your furry friend may end up with parasitic worms by adding cockroaches to his diet.

To prevent them coming back, cover up your drains and any other openings they might wiggle through. If you find an area which is difficult to block off, this is a good place to put a trap or two. For your shower you can put a tile over the drain so that you can move it out of the way before taking a shower.

Yeah- here in the states we had a mouse problem, we bought 2 different kinds of traps one of the worked really well. I put that in the ceiling and caught like 3 mice in a row in the same night. I’d say thats the way to go since its always dark up there.

my polish friend used to leave one or two big bottles of taiwan beer around that had about a few inches of beer left and it soon filled with cockroaches who fall in the beer and die

mix in some combat with the glue traps, it works