The Flying Cockroaches

November 6, 2010

I believe that every place in the world probably has its hated critters. In the north there are deer ticks and black flies. My house in PA was often overrun by ladybugs which though cute by nature, are not so cute when found by the hundreds in one's house. Well, here in Central America one of my hated critters is the cockroach. Perhaps it stems from traumatic childhood experiences with cockroaches while living in Florida. A cockroach in your peanut butter and jelly sandwich in first grade is enough to create some later dislike of the insect. On Thursday evening I had some unpleasant encounters with cockroaches. Unfortunately the encounter came on the eve of just having helped two girls review for their science exam information about diseases and how cockroaches are carriers of many diseases. Thursday evening I was making a yogurt, fruit smoothie when all of a sudden I felt something land on my shoulder. I brushed it off and then discovered it was a cockroach that had just landed on me. I do not really scream, so no screams left my mouth but I think there were some gasps of horror! My problem with cockroaches is that though I hate them, I also hate killing them. The crunch and the gore are too much, especially when I do not have anything I want to dirty in my process of killing them. (I think I need to invest in a flyswatter!) This one was going to die though because it had landed on me. And so I pursued it with a vengeance and though it escaped once, it ended up dead and in the trash can. The thing was I had no idea where the cockroach had actually flew in from which made me a little worried since I had just been getting cereal out of its bag. Several hours later I returned to the kitchen and there was another cockroach on the counter! I was appalled because I had hoped that there was only one, but I guess that where there is one, there are many. Let’s just say this one died too but there were lots of squeals from me as I smashed it several times.

Friday morning I woke up early not feeling so well. Probably there was no actual connection to the cockroach incident but I had to wonder. I had gone for months without seeing cockroaches in the apartment but this week things went downhill. I need to find some natural deterrent of cockroaches. Supposedly ants do not like mint nor mosquitoes lavendar though my attempts at growing them in Honduras to prevent plagues of those two insects never really worked. The ants still made their way into the house and the mosquitoes too. Raid and daily cleaning will probably be the other option. So we will see but I hope to not have anymore bad encounters in this coming week.