cockroaches - how frightened should I be?

ChrisE said:
I'm not surprised that you got disapproving frowns, squashing a cockroach releases it's eggs....

We, well MrsE, got rid of the ones we had aboard by assiduously spraying all the areas she saw them and especially any she saw in midnight light on raids.
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Thanks for the tip! :)
 
Roaches are not bad people really. They don't do any harm. In Malta, in the '60s, we found that they had much the same mental ability as our golden cocker spaniel. She used to chase and sometimes corner many of them but I don't think she ever won.

You know they will take over the world don't you. The only things, which will live happily in an oily bilge. :D
 
Gorilla Gel

OK, so have done some online research

Gorilla Gel is made by BASF, and full details can be found here. I have emailed the company and they only sell Gorilla Gel in packs of 4 tubes.

There is an online retailer who has a pack of 4 for £158 + VAT + P&P!

So I wonder if I should buy a pack of four and then keep one for myself on the yacht - just in case. If three other forumites promise to buy the other tubes, this would seem like worthwhile insurance. I would rather spend £50 for a tube I never use than to be out of touch somewhere when a creapy crawly goes across SWMBO's path

TudorSailor
 
Blimey! Cockroaches! I really hate them. We got our first infestation when we were in Dubai. We just used a standard spray which said it would work for up to 6 weeks. I emptied each locker, washed each one with a bleach solution and sprayed them with the roach spray. I used loads and wiped down each item (it took two days). After 6 weeks I re sprayed each locker. We never saw any roaches after the first spray and I just wanted to make sure. Haven't had an infestation since although in India, we arrived back at the dinghy, which was on a rubbish strew beach to find the dinghy a seething mass of roaches. Rob tipped the dinghy upside down and bashed it. We rowed back to the boat, stripped off in the dinghy, I climbed on board and got the roach spray and sprayed the dinghy, the shopping, our clothes , ourselves and especially the dinghy painter. Didn't get a roach on board.

We don't bring cardboard on board, but we don't wash fruit and veg until we are ready to eat them. If you don't dry them properly they rot faster. We don't treat our tins in any special way either.
 
I've read that Borax and Icing Sugar mixed 50:50 and placed in bait stations works on boats. I have never tried it. I don't even know where to buy it!

At home I have used aerosol insecticide's that are marketed for surface use and that last for months, and they seem to be effective in that one finds roach carcasses lying around for some time afterwards. I have always assumed, as for fleas, that even if you kill off all the live roaches that their eggs will hatch and therefore you need several applications of whatever you use.

The small roaches are the ones that seem to breed on the boat/home, whilst the large ones (yuck) fly in especially during hot humid conditions.
 
Frankie-H said:
In Malta, in the '60s, we found that they had much the same mental ability as our golden cocker spaniel. She used to chase and sometimes corner many of them but I don't think she ever won.
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There's much truth in that statement.

When we lived in Africa we would spray every night to try and keep the cockroaches and other insects under control. These were big cockroaches - up to 2" long!

Frequently, I would come down into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a drink and there might be three or four of these monsters on the work surface scavenging for crumbs. On would go the light and they, and I, would all freeze. They would stare at me and I at them, everyone waiting to see who would blink first.

It soon became clear that African cockroaches are not fools! They seem to work as a team and always had a well planned exit strategy which would include:

one starting out on a a dummy run to lure me away from the rest,
all running in totally opposite directions,
all runnning the same direction if they had calculated that cover was close enough,
all starting a dummy run in one direction and then switching course,
one running towards me as a decoy whilst the rest scarpered,
one remaining stationary (presumably the fastest!) as a decoy until the rest were clear, etc etc

I never caught a single one and I use to return to bed and give SWMBO a blow-by-blow account of their latest battle tactics.

She thought I was mad - you decide! :o

Richard
 
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ChrisE said:
Er, not quite a myth.

It is true that, IF the beast is completely flattened then the chances are that you will have killed both mother and babies. However, if you don't then according to the experts and here's one (http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html#Q29) then you might be counterproductively splatting your foe.
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Well, the way I read it is like: can you survive a bullet in your head. Quite unlikely, but still possible. Splatting them is an efficient way of getting rid of them.

Where i think you can get rid of them in a boat, this usually doesn't work in a home, as if your neighbours don't do the same, then they will keep on coming.
 
In a recent post about heating, Lakesailor said (facetiously) that the best solution was to sail south...:rolleyes:

lenseman said:
South of La Rochelle (46°N) Cockroaches become progressively worse as a problem.
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...is the solution in this case, to have a month's winter cruise round the Outer Hebrides? Up to Reykjavic, perhaps?

In years living in southern France, I never saw one.

Reading (with horrified amusement) about the sudden 'lights-on' show-downs, and the critters' inevitable disappearing act, I'm wondering, isn't in a mark of careful work by the yacht's designer, or wise preparation by owners heading south, to block off cracks/escape routes?
 
RichardS said:
There's much truth in that statement.

When we lived in Africa we would spray every night to try and keep the cockroaches and other insects under control. These were big cockroaches - up to 2" long!

Frequently, I would come down into the kitchen in the middle of the night for a drink and there might be three or four of these monsters on the work surface scavenging for crumbs. On would go the light and they, and I, would all freeze. They would stare at me and I at them, everyone waiting to see who would blink first.

It soon became clear that African cockroaches are not fools! They seem to work as a team and always had a well planned exit strategy which would include:

one starting out on a a dummy run to lure me away from the rest,
all running in totally opposite directions,
all runnning the same direction if they had calculated that cover was close enough,
all starting a dummy run in one direction and then switching course,
one running towards me as a decoy whilst the rest scarpered,
one remaining stationary (presumably the fastest!) as a decoy until the rest were clear, etc etc

I never caught a single one and I use to return to bed and give SWMBO a blow-by-blow account of their latest battle tactics.

She thought I was mad - you decide! :o

Richard
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No not mad at all. The African and the Maltese 'roaches must be very closely related. Add a cocker spaniel into the equation and you can imagine the mayhem.

I seem to remember that the 2" ones were the children.
 
We've been really lucky. Over a year now into our trip, been Spain/portugal/Canaries/Cape Verdes/Barbados/Grenada/Columbia/San Blas/Panama/Galapagos/Marquesas/Tahiti bora bora and now in Vava'u Tonga..... and only spotted one tiny cockroach on a cardboard egg box- we carefully threw the whole thing overboard and touch wood no more cockroaches. And lesson learnt- no more cardboard egg boxes. We have got a bit lazy about cardboard/labels/fruit washing, because a book we read said don't bother, while you are sitting washing your fruit/removing your cardboard there will be a big roach sitting on the brim of your hat watching and laughing at you and waiting for the lift aboard....the book also said they are clean and make good pets!
I did wash aload of veg before the 3000 miles Galapagos-Marquesas trip, but I think some of it didn't get properly dried and went soggy/mouldy really quickly.
We are now only fairly careful ie strict with eggboxes, not very strict with paper labels (most tins we are now buying don't have paper anyway)

I'm more in horror of other 'visitors'- a boat we met had bed bugs they couldn't seem to get rid of. Yuk.
 
Drunken Sailors Around The Globe

AntarcticPilot said:
My Chinese relatives certainly don't!
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Have done so many times over many years ….. not me … just witnessed. :eek:

But they did have the ‘wee-beasties’ as local entertainment in the ‘Captains Cabin’ in Gib. (79 - 83). ;)
 
LePacha said:
Well, the way I read it is like: can you survive a bullet in your head. Quite unlikely, but still possible. Splatting them is an efficient way of getting rid of them.

Where i think you can get rid of them in a boat, this usually doesn't work in a home, as if your neighbours don't do the same, then they will keep on coming.
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Well best of luck, I'll stick with weapons of mass destruction (cockie pesticides) and you to the trampling.

The thing is not to believe, as some do, that once they are on the boat they can't be evicted. We did and met plenty of other who did, too. It just needs vigilance and persistence.
 
Now I've eaten quite a few more obscure things in China and France but this I'm not so sure about. I might actually try some of these dishes but you won't see me buying a bag of frozen cockroaches or caterpillars anytime soon.
Chuck Norris of course has them for breakfast
 
This topic has brought back some memories. In Borneo I was looking after laid up shipping and had pet cockies that came out to listen to the BBC world service with me in the evenings for biscuit and a larger one who shared my breakfast cereals with me.

Much preferred having these boys to having to cope with sea snakes which liked to breed in the sea suctions and sometimes met you on the gangplanks when you went on board the vessels.

Sadly all the jungle looks to have logged out now in the bay, they were still finding unknown tribes inland in the 70s.


Brian
 
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