Two New Yorkers spend six months 18 months!?! in Bangalore and other places in India.

Monday, May 29, 2006

When Roaches Attack

We really have an amazing number of cockroaches in the kitchen. I've seen more than few roaches in my day, sure, but I've never been in a place with multiple species living together. They're not living in harmony, but they are living together all the same. The enormous big ones that New Yorkers quaintly call "water bugs." They're here. And midsize ones, and dainty ones that can run faster than a hand can move to smash them, and weird fat ones that I've never seen before. It's as good a reason as I've ever seen for the stainless steel containers that everyone uses here for spices, flour, lentils, rice, and just about everything.

Stuff like Raid and their little roach motels isn't really available here. There's poison powder and spray-on poison, and it all seems too hardcore to use in the kitchen. And even if we put it down, and even if we did a better job of cleaning up, I'm not sure how much good it would do. There's a small hole in the floor, the tile isn't well sealed, and the windows are open to the outside and the many apartments down the hall.

When I asked the apartment's manager about our many roachy friends, he said we could get an exterminator -- one that would use stuff that would kill "anything -- roaches, bugs, rats." The idea of using something that could kills rats as well as roaches was upsetting. I think I'll keep with the smash-with-the-Times-of-India method, at least in the short-term.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look around in your friendly neighborhood store for a piece of chalk like stuff which goes by the name "Lakshman Rekha". You just draw a few lines on the floor around the areas where los cucurachas come out to play and boom! watch em drop. The stuff is toxic, so wash your hands after.

Tripp Hall said...

Thanks, A. I should have mentioned in the post that we did buy the magic chalk. It did kill many of the beasts, but a lot of them seem to be resistant. Probably it's time for drawing some more lines in the sand, er, countertop and floors.