OMG I just saw the biggest cockroach in my life and its in my bedroom and now I cant sleep omg omg omg how do I get rid of it its too big to kill omg omg
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S.O.S.
S.O.S.
S.O.S.
Maybe you should post your telephone number and address then.
Go to welcome or any other supermarket and buy a bug bomb. Something that looks like this:
Add water to the indicated mark within and put the smoking can on your bedroom floor. Get out of the room, shut the door and wait for 2-3 hours. Any insects in your room will be dead. Open the window and turn on the fan to blow the poisonous gas away.
Or spray it with soapy water to suffocate it. Or spray it with raid. Or smash it with a slipper. Or post your phone and address. I’m sure some nice forumosan will volunteer.
Anyway, if it’s 2-3 inches, that’s the normal cockroach size around here. You’ll also see them scuttling about on the streets late at night, especially when it’s rained. They look like leaves until you step near them.
But honestly, I don’t think the Internet can help you kill a cockroach. Better stop posting and get on the task of cockroach killing.
Oh, and in case you think you’re through with giant cockroaches after you murder this one, you know what they say about cockroaches, right? If you see one, there are a thousand lurking about around the house.
Good luck.
Here’s a very super easy way to keep cockroaches out of your house permanently. Also, it’s eco-friendly so you won’t need to use poisoneous gas or other chemicals.
Simply fill your home with Huntsman spiders like the one pictured below. They hunt and eat cockroaches. That’s what I do, and I have no cockroaches anywhere in my home. 
Yes, I had several pet spiders (near as big as my hand) when I lived in an illegal hut on top of a Taipei building a few years ago. They kept the insect population down - though not completely out.
Out of the pot, into the frying pan. Surely there must be a solution to keep the house free of both cockroaches and giant spiders…?
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Hippy shoes?
Don’t kill any living things, I have found with the big mf cockroaches give it a piece of what you are eating, it will sit with you and watch TV for a bit before it pitters off to another place. The next day it will greet you at the door like a dog.
If you think the cockroaches and spiders are bad, wait until you meet the snakes.
I will go out of my way not to kill most creatures. However, there are four things that I won’t tolerate:
1): Mosquitoes
2): House flies
3): Cockroaches
4): Centipedes
…and only because they pose a threat to me, not because they look funny.
Snakes get trapped and taken away. Rats get dealt with by the dog, but get more than a sporting chance.
I had one fall out of my air conditioner. The guards got the biggest kick out of me dragging them into my room to get rid of it for me. They still tease me about it 10 months later lol.
I will go out of my way not to kill most creatures. However, there are four things that I won’t tolerate:
1): Mosquitoes
2): House flies
3): Cockroaches
4): Centipedes
…and only because they pose a threat to me, not because they look funny.
Snakes get trapped and taken away. Rats get dealt with by the dog, but get more than a sporting chance.[/quote]
Centipedes are here as well. Did you guys know some of them hiss?
There are a few golden rules to keeping cockroaches out of your house:
Sweep and mop your floors at least once a week. Sweep every day, particularly the kitchen.
Clean behind everything.
Never leave any food out. ANY. After cooking wash the walls around the stove (there’ll be oil on them if you cook local food), wipe down the entire kitchen and wash up all the plates. Wipe down the table that you ate off.
Tie up garbage bags.
And find a way to encourage geckos (you know, the little lizards that you see running around building walls). They eat both cockroaches and spiders. I will not move into a place unless I see a gecko or two around.
Huntsman are completely harmless but scare the crap out of me. Especially when you wake up to go to the bathroom and this HUGE SHADOW ON THE WALL MOVES RIGHT NEAR YOUR HEAD AND OMFG NOW I CAN’T MOVE BECAUSE IT WILL EAT ME. Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying creatures!
I think there’s something similar in Japan, so there might be those spidders here, too?
Lili,
I feel your terror. I still remember, at age 19, living on a single room on a rooftop in the middle of the city somewhere, all alone, not speaking much Chinese, and having a sudden rainstorm sweep over. Within seconds, all the roaches on the whole rooftop thought it would be nice to come into my room. I can still see myself standing on the bed hoping none of them would climb up there. (That was before I knew they could fly, mind you.) 
Anyway, my recommendations are these:
-
Get yourself a mosquito net. That way, you can be reasonably sure you will not have any “encounters” while you’re not completely awake. At least that way, the battle is more fair.
-
Get a cat. Our Taiwanese cat knew the special note of desperation that would come into my voice when the situation involved one of those big suckers, and would come running to kill it (and presumably eat it, but I tried not to delve into that part too much). To this day (and he’s going on 17 now, living in retirement in the US) he will come running to see what I need killed if I call for him in that way.
Here’s what happened when I first encountered The Huntsman:
I have a new broom. I call it Sting. It came with the new house. You see, I’ve left the comfy confines of southeast Muzha for the lee side of the slopes that dot our fair city. Nestled is what I am. Cradled in a crag of a tor. Welcome to the jungle. Bienvenu a La Val de Faire Rien.
It’s quiet up here, save for the croaking of toads, the massively hysterical click of the ciccada, the buzzing of the wasps and fluttering of butterflies. Serenity Now!
I also have a steady spew of white noise emanating from the crick as it rushes headlong down my slope…
Supposed to really flash during typhoons. This river is not 3 meters from my head when in REM state.
Paradise? Maybe. Lost? Not yet.
For a battle has begun. A gambit for supremacy of my comfort zone is being waged by that same mongoose-ass Amazon as provides my peace. Mother Nature and I are going Toe to Toe (as it were). As we speak, She sends her evil minions around to shatter my illusions and destroy my sanity. Even now…they come.
First came that harbinger of temptation, the veritable snake in the grass. If I ever had desires to go bathe in my River of Golden Dreams,…well…let’s just say I no longer entertain such fancies. Last week, as I stood gazing o’er the banks of my creek, something caught my eye. Or rather.seized both.
The non-business end of a thigh-thick snake slithered into the tallest of grasses, never to be seen again. You’d need Swiss Timing to measure the encounter’s duration. That’s how brief it was. But the memory eats into my brain like a thousand termites. Not 2 meters from my aforementioned resting place, went the biggest snake I’ve ever seen in the wild. How long it was, I know not. I can only say it gets bigger each day in the torrid, tepid junglescape that is quickly becoming my mind. For all it’s atrementous guile, all it’s obsidian evil, SITG corrodes my content, turning golden dreams into ebon screams.
Is that she-wolf content to end her assault there? Not by a long shot.
This brings us to Sting. And Shelob. Following on the heels of The Day of the Snake, The Eve of The Spider crept silently into my embattled brain. She came in thru the eaves of my intellect. And lay, waiting, on the walls of my cerebrum. She was the ghostly grey of Matter, spinning her webs, planning her sac deposits hither and thither about the crevasses and cavities that populate my crania. To say she is huge is moot. She is the spawn of the unholy sapphic alliance of Tolkien’s guardian arachnid and that whore Nature. The Daughter of Shelob has entered the building. She came in that night from the North, just to show me she could. I sat, paralyzed with fear, transfixed by the hypnotic gaping maw of her pincers as they opened and closed, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, dripping wth glistening gobulets of venom.
My trance was eventually broken by the faint glowing of my new broom as it sat humbly in the corner, right where the previous tenant had left it. As yet…completely neglected. But now, it seemed to emanate and pulse with the subtle yet invincible power of confidence. It glowed bugzapper blue. I snatched it up and I trembled, nay bristled with courage. I turned to face my foe. She had the advantage of higher ground, but I temporarily blinded her thousand eyes with the electric sun I keep above my dining room table. She recoiled and I attacked. With the e-sun to my back, victory was mine. Or was it? Damn shoddy intelligence foiled the thrust. Air recon had failed to pick up on some as yet unpacked crates my laziness and ennui had neglected. As I slowed to navigate the obstacles, D of S refocused enough of her eyes to sense the danger of Sting as it sliced thru the jungle night, dead with crushing aim on her skull. She parried and my thrust missed the mark. She took a higher vantage point and laughed. I lunged again and she brushed Sting aside is if it were a mere featherduster. Then it came. The voice, the grating, gnashing, frothing, bubbling voice that only the writing of this journal silences. It taunts me, threatens me, cajoles me into false senses of security. I hear it now, as echoes of long lost memories become ensnared in her webs, spun with the pubic hair of Pan. She consumes my thoughts like flies. What ruminates most is her clicking scoffing derision as she telepathically warned me, “We shall meet again, Mortal!”. Then she scurried, sidled and slipped over the ramparts of my mountain castle and into the jungle night. She was gone, but the voice remained. For days it remained. Reverberating thru my psyche, eroding my faculties, pushing me ever closer to the abyss and the end of reason.
“We shall meet again mortal!”
The days turned to weeks. D of S and SITG have not been seen. Nature has sent her mosquito spies of course and the occasional mutant wasp to divebomb my thoughts, but I have not been idle. I travelled to the Oracle Carrefour and he bestowed upon me a Wand of Shock (batteries included). Mosquito spies quickly learn who’s personal space not to invade. Then it was off to The Temple of B&Q, where, it was rumoured, the monks had forged gas and steel and harnessed lightining into a deadly sentry to guard your homes from spies. It presents itself as the next best thing to fresh blood. A mosquito spy can’t help but be drawn into its glowy goodness. But therein lies the spy’s demise. To get to the prize, the buzztards must navigate a series of grids that, unbeknownst to them, lie charged with a thousand bolts of lightning. As soon a they touch any part of the grid, they become flash-fried mosquito meat. I got 5 and have them placed at strategic points about my estate. They work around the clock and truly enjoy their work. During each kill, they exclaim themselves victors with a high-voltage, banshee-esque cry of “ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZt”.
That’s how it’s spelled, honest.
So the weeks are turning into a month soon and I was feeling pretty good about my war. Wish everyone could say the same. Not one to cry Mission Accomplished prematurely, hubristically challenging the gods, I have lain ever vigilant, training daily in the finer arts of bugminton and Spy Chi.
So when I walked into the kitchen this morning, I was not the least bit surprised to feel her again. Without even seeing her, I knew she was there. Ambush in her heart. But my spidey senses tingled and told me to move, dart, drop, roll, take, double take, lean, gawk, slide, squint. She coiled back, her pincers snapping. She had me trapped. No way out but down the drain. She was between Sting and I. Even the Wand of Shock, not that it could have damaged her, but I could have used it to attempt to keep her at bay, alas…it was in my chambers. I looked frantically about. Damn my ennui. I haven’t unpacked a damn thing for my kitchen yet. So, short of a juice glass and a pair of chopsticks, I was defenseless. She ambled forward, pincers on pince. I retreated enough to see the stove. Fire! Every “mortal’s” birthright. Thanks Prometheus! I had a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigaretes, it was raining out, and I was wearing sunglasses. I leaked enough gas in the air to make an invisible cloud of propane. As it wafted silently up towards her, I bade my time. We were locked in a deadly gaze, our glares were webbed with haze, the gas rose and, steadying myself, I primed the stove. With a whhoooooooooooooof, the propane exploded in a cloud of flame. D of S ran over the transom and behind the door. I ran for Sting. Without a moment’s hesitiation, I swung back the door. There she was, on the roof, spinning hate. I lunged, she hissed. I’ve never heard a spider hiss before. I have now. She tried to beat a retreat, but Sting cut her off with a resounding blow to block her path. She scampered the other way. She was quick but Sting was quicker. My third lunge pinned her against the roof. I bore down on sting, crushing her with all my might. She hissed again, louder this time. I abated, and readied my self and my Sting for the final blow, le coup de tete . Surely she was flat as roadkill by now. I peered into the crevasse I had had her pinned in and she jumped up and spit at me. Up Sting went again, but She was ready this time. She made her escape out the eaves. I think I got a final blow in, or maybe She is merely injured. I know not. But I wait, evermore…
Check your shoes before putting them on, is my advice.
[quote=“lupillus”]
Go to welcome or any other supermarket and buy a bug bomb. Something that looks like this:
Add water to the indicated mark within and put the smoking can on your bedroom floor. Get out of the room, shut the door and wait for 2-3 hours. Any insects in your room will be dead. Open the window and turn on the fan to blow the poisonous gas away.
Or spray it with soapy water to suffocate it. Or spray it with raid. Or smash it with a slipper. Or post your phone and address. I’m sure some nice forumosan will volunteer.
Anyway, if it’s 2-3 inches, that’s the normal cockroach size around here. You’ll also see them scuttling about on the streets late at night, especially when it’s rained. They look like leaves until you step near them.
But honestly, I don’t think the Internet can help you kill a cockroach. Better stop posting and get on the task of cockroach killing.[/quote]
OK! I will buy that bomb thing!
I couldn’t kill it! Its too big to kill! What would I do with the body of it?! Scoop it up?! The thing was like 4-5 inches long!!!
That’s just cruel. You’re making her think about it too much. 
They can swim too and love the feel of porcelain. 
When I first arrived in Taiwan, I stayed in a cheap hotel near Taipei station for a month or so. One day, a member of staff must have done some spraying while I was out, and I returned to find the floor littered with the most massive roaches wriggling out their death throes on their backs. I never felt quite comfortable in there after that.
Soon afterwards, I rented a place near Shilin night market. One night, I was woken by something crawling on my neck, instinctively swept it away with my hand, turned on the light, and saw a huge upturned roach thrashing its legs about on the floor. It took me many nights before I could fall asleep again without trepidation, and I still vividly recall the sensation of that roach on my neck with a shudder 25 years later.
After that, I lived in many old apartments that were infested with roaches, and came to accept that they were an inevitable part of living in Taiwan. But when I bought and moved into a new apartment on the 15th floor in Xindian, it came as a very pleasant surprise that it remained almost totally roach free throughout the six or so years I lived there. At first I thought it would just be so for a short time while the place was brand new, and that they’d soon find their way inside and make their nests in the hidden nooks and crannies. But only about 2 or 3 appeared in the whole time I lived there, and when I cleared it out to move and sell it, I didn’t find any roach droppings or any other sign of their presence.
When I moved into my present home, I fully expected to have to contend with a roach problem again. Since it’s a 5-floor town house, and I often see roaches or roach corpses in the communal yard and the streets outside, it’s hard to see how I could possibly prevent them from invading. But so far, after nearly 3 years, although I’ve found and killed a dozen of the blighters on the ground floor (where there are plenty of gaps under doors for them to get in by), I’ve only had one appear upstairs, and have yet to see any other signs of them anywhere. I’m sure this situation cannot continue, but it’s very nice while it does.
So from my experience, the best advice for anyone who is strongly averse to living with roaches is to live in a brand new place, preferably on a high floor, and then if you keep it reasonably clean, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about.