Roaches, small ones at least, have been known to crawl into babies ears causing great pain and eventual infection. I'm 2 meters of man, but that's enough to scare me into violent, spasmotic thrashing if ever one should touch me.
I know how you feel - especially about the apartment thing - sharing a wall. I lived in an apartment - when I had looked at it before moving in, all was well. It didn't come across my mind until later that had there been food in the house, I would have seen them. Of course, after I went grocery shopping for the first time, there they were. Perhaps it was the scent of fresh food that brought them over, I don't know. But the neighbors were the "strung out" types - parties every night and I'd *never* see a pizza box in their trash, even though the delivery guy was there every single day.
Anyway, it was the morning I woke up to find one crawling up my bedsheets and onto my bed, heading straight for my face that I moved out.
Those landlords *sucked* too. I tried for *months* to get them to fumigate, and they refused. Then they tried to tack the bill on me when I moved out. Ha.
Funny thing is, when I first saw them, I had no idea what they were - I'd never seen one before. But now - just the thought of those disgusting things gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Oh, and another piece of information - if you see one, there's 1000 you don't see - not 300. And yes, they *can* live for 7 days with their heads chopped off. And if their head is chopped off and it's about to give birth, it will still give birth. And they give birth to quite a litter.
Gross. ::Shudder::
Yeah-I live in apartments where my neighbors like to leave their trash out by their front door-and yeah Im not super clean but I am not roach messy either...
I cant stand them. When i see them I feel like I didnt do ENOUGH to clean my home and god knows I cant kill them....
OHMYGOD how I hate bugs. Thank the Lord that apartment life and cockroaches creeping in from neighbors are behind me. But now I am a homeowner in Chi-town and JUST AS BAD as cockroaches, are things with MORE THAN 6 legs. Especially house centipedes, or thousand leggers. These things are so fast and so nasty and I scream like a little child when I see one. That brings my often sleeping significant other lurching into the room and sighing, bless his heart. Spiders are just as bad, though not as frequent. When I discovered that my wet/dry vac could take down bugs w/ more than 6 legs AND handle a big mess of RAID sprayed down the barrel, well. I just love that thing.
Apartment dwellers videotape your bugs - but be kind to the landlord because most of them are damn lucky to break even except for inflation and some tenants are real pigs and the law is anti-landlord.
As for bugs, there is survival value in being bug shy since almost half the world's food supply is ruined by bugs. [and half that is ruined by Southern Cooking]
Not that I want to interfere with the beginning of a beautiful friendship (sorry Matt), but a canister vacuum will do a fine job of picking up even the largest insect corpse. And does a good job on living bugs as well.
Should you eventually buy a house, put in a central vacuum system. It's great for dealing with crawling things. And you don't need to spray anything into the unit, as the 100 mi/hr ride into the canister will kill most anything small.
As a book collector, the bugs that scare me the most are silverfish, since they eat paper...
TAF
Living in Texas, the cockroach, both large and small varieties, is a fact of life. That doesn't necessarily mean I have to like them though. In fact, I have been known to go into freak out mode if I see an unidentified shadow in the corner. Especially treacherous is the giant, Mothra sized, flying cockroach. If one of these particularly heinous monsters detects a decent, roach fearing individual in the house, it will hunt the poor, unfortunate bastard down just for the pure joy of seeing him or her lose his mind. And they will hunt you down. They are equipped with sensitive, quivering antennae that can single out the roach fearing individual from the masses. Once the victim is is determined, the roach then spreads its giant Mothra wings and swoops down upon the poor bastard with uncanny accuracy and enthusiasm. The head and face are the normal target, preferrably into the hair of female targets. Now, I am not scared of spiders, mice, snakes, etc., but a flying cockroach will make me run from a room at light speed. But when the unholy, zepplin sized demon alights, then I make my stealthy return to the vacinity to exact my revenge. I go into commando mode, effectively arming myself with a newspaper, a shoe, or broom; the longer the better. I never take my eyes off of the roach as I stalk. I need plenty of running room if it flies at me. Once into killing range, I strike quickly, effectively ending the threat of hair entanglement for the moment.
Cindy could not have described the situation better. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who has called a neighbor over to take care of a Texas-sized flying roach with teeth...
Sweet effing Jesus, Jenn - a ONE POUND MOUSE?!
That's not a mouse, dearest, that's a rather large RAT.
Ahhh, so much talking about bugs, I keep "doing this uncontrollable shivery spasm with my entire body" - since I couldn't possibly put it better myself.
i had to your laugh at your "There was no boyfriend" problem when faced with a big dead roach. the other night, after spending a day thinking my room smelled kinda, well, funny, i decided to investigate the problem. looked under my bed. saw a pile or SOMETHING on a newspaper. "oh, i guess my tortoise's food spilled off the plate and i missed this bit." i pulled it out. uh, no, not some lettuce. instead, apparently a rodent my cats had brought in, if my CSI viewings have taught me anything, a week or two before, based on the apparent age of the MAGGOTS crawling all over (in, out, around) it. i have a guy roommate who's the best, but it was 3 a.m. and i wasn't about to push it, so i had to dispose of a bug-infested, bloated, dead mystery rodent all by myself. i had the same "if i only had a boyfriend" thoughts. for the rest of the night, i kept feeling like i had bugs on me. at one point i woke up and swore i flung a cockroach off my arm, but i'm pretty sure that was paranoia. at least, that's how i continue to sleep in that bed at night. :)
I feel your pain. I'm the same way about mice. It's quite frightening how childish a 30 year old woman can get over a 1lb. rodent.