Perhaps their extinction could be engineered genetically, like mosquitoes. Or we could introduce innocuous species that eat them. Cold also kills cockroaches. All of these have blowback, however.
I thought they unthaw from any freeze and keep going?
Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
41–50 of 154 posts
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#42Mix baking soda and sugar together and put them in a bowl. Will kill them dead without toxicity to humans.
Boric acid has no resistance.
Bay leaves repel about every insect known to man. Roaches hate bay leaves and will not be in the same area with them.
Editing to say that bay leaves can be crushed in a coffee grinder, put in a plastic ketchup/mustard bottle as a powder, and the resulting powder "puffed" into areas where they have been. This can be done outside as well. Combine this with orange oil concentrate and your house will be insect free fairly quickly. Cheap, too.
Editing to add, here in the south, loads of people also buy concentrated orange oil from places like Tractor Supply and mix it with water in a pump sprayer. Spray the permimeter of your house and zero insects will cross it. It's toxic as hell to the insects because it dissolves their bodies, but non-toxic to cats, dogs, lizards, etc. They will NOT develop a resistance to being melted by the citric acid.
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#43Haven't seen a cockroach in a decade. Not so hot as they were hyped up to be during the 70's and 80's.
#suburblife Cockroaches infest all urban areas. If you’re around a dense population of humans, you got them. If you’re in the US south, you got them. If you’re in the hood, you got lots of them. If you’re in an area with lots of transient people, you’re near them. My dad was a fireman. I recall him describing an apartment fire where they encountered a “moving wall” in a stairwell, a 5ft square cluster of roaches tryi…
Why? Did they try to prevent diseases or something?
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must not live with cockroaches if you feel no need to stop them.
Inside the US, they seem to be present in large numbers in the deep south (FL through TX). Are they present in the southwest as well? Here in DC, we get them, but generally only in homes that aren't kept clean - which can a problem in large apartment buildings, as it only takes one slovenly neighbor or poorly tended garbage area to let a colony grow and become a visible nuisance. And what about Europe? Probably too c…
Apparently, apartment blocks in Russia used to have a massive cockroach problem in the 90s, but then they all suddenly completely disappeared in 2000s and never came back. Nobody seems to know why.
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#45Well on the plus side the things won't constantly die when we start farming them
Cockroaches are a great source of protein. Cockroach farming is a greener, more sustainable activity. What you eat for dinner tonight was eating someone’s dinner leftovers last night! This is organics capture at its finest.
There's a very strong health consideration that you're overlooking. You don't want random pollutants to be a part of your food intake, and roaches are not picky at all so they are guaranteed to be feeding on (and contain) various contaminations.
This is good for the primary role of roaches, to be the cleanup crew for all sorts of organic matter in nature and helping in the breakdown cycle. But if you were inclined to use them as food, you'd have to maintain a much more controlled (farmed) environment.
By way of comparison, the wild snails you migh eat in France are first fed with a diet of clean lettuce for a week to help purge them of whatever they were munching on in the wild. And they only eat plants to begin with…
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#46Mix baking soda and sugar together and put them in a bowl. Will kill them dead without toxicity to humans. Boric acid has no resistance. Bay leaves repel about every insect known to man. Roaches hate bay leaves and will not be in the same area with them. Editing to say that bay leaves can be crushed in a coffee grinder, put in a plastic ketchup/mustard bottle as a powder, and the resulting powder "puffed" into areas…
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Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#47Mix baking soda and sugar together and put them in a bowl. Will kill them dead without toxicity to humans. Boric acid has no resistance. Bay leaves repel about every insect known to man. Roaches hate bay leaves and will not be in the same area with them. Editing to say that bay leaves can be crushed in a coffee grinder, put in a plastic ketchup/mustard bottle as a powder, and the resulting powder "puffed" into areas…
Boric acid is mentioned in the article, they are developing resistance.
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#48Headline is misleading because the conclusion is premature. There are other obvious reasons why the roach population may not be decreasing, other than adapting to pesticides:
1. Incomplete treatment -- apartment buildings are large and exterminators likely can't access all interior spaces, providing ample breeding ground.
2. Reinfestation from outside sources -- roaches live in all kinds of tight spaces (e.g. corrugated cardboard boxes), and the number of people in an apartment virtually guarantees cross-contamination.
3. Inadequate amount of pesticides applied.
I'm hesitant to jump to the conclusion that neurotoxins are failing without removing other, much more likely factors.
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I raise roaches, they are amazing critters! They eat two apples, a banana, an orange, and two cups of dogfood in only five days or so. No skin, peel, stem, or seeds leftover after!
How many would eat all that? What about their waste how big would it be?
So I have about three hundred at any given time. As for waste, I don't worry too much, like fish the young eat the feces of the adults. In the last six months or so the 60gallon tubperware they live in has accumulated enough wase to cover the bottom about an inch deep or so
Re: Cockroaches becoming resistant to most chemical insecticides
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I raise roaches, they are amazing critters! They eat two apples, a banana, an orange, and two cups of dogfood in only five days or so. No skin, peel, stem, or seeds leftover after!
They are kind of fascinating once you get over the creepy factor. The main problem is that, like rodents, they can be a major health hazard as passive disease carriers. A pet rat is as different from a wild rat as a pet roach is as different from a wild roach.
Very true. I also raise Dubia roaches, which are very different to those common in the western world