Living in BI for a few months

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

Anyone mention centipedes yet? Just wait until Gentler sees a 10 incher slithering across the floor.

And chops it in two - and has two 5 inchers slithering

[steiconi]

I didn't see exactly where your house is--in Hilo itself, or in a subdivision?

If you're up at some elevation, you won't see as many bugs because it's cooler. I saw lots of huge centipedes down near sea level, none at 1,400 feet.

I saw my first flying roach (aka palmetto bug) in Texas, saw a few in Hawaii, and see more than I'd like here in Arizona. They creep me out every time. I've been bitten by regular fire ants in all three states, too, but only seen LFAs in Hawaii. There are no snakes in the islands, and no rabies, either. Yay!

You know geckos are lizards, not bugs, right? The pretty bright green ones are an invasive species, the dull ones are native.

How are you going to furnish your house and get groceries during quarantine? Shopping is pretty minimal in Hilo, and there may be long waits if you order something (my new stove took six weeks to arrive). Amazon takes longer than it does on the mainland (they sometimes didn't even ship items for a couple of weeks, but that may have changed).

Many online resources either don't ship to Hawaii or charge a lot extra; you'll find that little asterisk next to FREE SHIPPING! pretty much always excludes your new home.

Do any grocery stores deliver to your new house? How about restaurants? Uber was just getting started there 3-4 years ago, and I don't think Door Dash or other food delivery services went outside of Hilo.

These questions came up for us when we were talking about getting a house in another state, and were trying to figure out how to deal with it all.

[Nitnat]

Originally Posted by gentler

OP) So far, I've never seen a flying cockroach in my whole life and cannot imagine how to deal with it if I see one inside the house. While I try to avoid chemicals as much as possible, I'd better prepare some besides mosquito nets. Not sure if I can put sprays and traps in a luggage for checking in with the airline security rules.

I had more than one reason and bought the house - Mainly for vacation home for my family but occasionally for my parents, sister and her family, and couple of closest friends (it'd be a different matter if they wanted to go there for vacation, though), staying in my own place, no worry about where to stay each time (same as the vacation home reason?), a long-term investment, etc.

I hadn't seen a flying cockroach before either, and have no experience with cockroaches in general. I'm thinking it just depends on the home, surroundings, and being neat and tidy with food and their by-products. I stayed in a few places in and around Hilo before moving, and never had any issue with bugs and mosquitoes. In fact, I lived in Minnesota for a while, and saw the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen. We used to joke that they should be the state bird. Anyways, the windows and screens here have little gaps, which allows some tiny, biting bugs into the house. Just make sure that the home is well sealed. Plant some lemon eucalyptus and lavender plants around the house if you are concerned, but the mosquitoes are not bad at all in Hilo. Minneapolis was much worse!

Where I'm staying now before moving into my home is a whole different story and has me kind of freaked me out. I wanted to move to a different airbnb, but I knew it would have hurt my host's feelings, and it would have been a pain to do so. I saw a B-52. (Never heard that reference before but now i know.) The owner chooses to do nothing about them. Yeah, pretty gross. I found how they were coming in and just spray those areas nightly. I have used regular raid and a safer version, but every once in a while one comes down the wall from the owner's unit upstairs. She has lots of animals and fruit trees that drop to the ground and often just stay there. She has admitted leaving various items out at night that attract them. I think cockroaches can be avoided based on my stays at other places here. If someone lived in the home who didn't care, that could be a problem. Just call Will Kill and practice good hygiene and common sense. I've read that they hate lavender oil, but haven't tried that yet and hope I don't have to in my new home. The pest inspection came out clean there, and it is a very clean place. The only pest problem they have had is fire ants, and well, those are everywhere. They did treat a nest of them in the yard earlier this year. But I've learned a lot here and think I know how to try to avoid cockroaches and bugs inside. This is an issue in TX, FL and elsewhere, so it's not unique to HI. Although those centipedes might be? The first time I heard of those was in Mark Twain's "Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands."

I'm supposed to close Oct 6, and that day can't come soon enough.

[terracore]

Originally Posted by MikeyWillis

When you put it like that, it doesn't sound all that hospitable. Is it like this all over the Big Island?

Less coquis, cane toads, and fire ants on the West side, but they are gaining a foothold in many areas. The higher elevations like near Volcano have less frogs too.

[terracore]

There is no excuse to have cockroaches in the home with the new slow-acting targeted poison baits available. Cockroaches are cannibals and these poisons use that to leverage their demise. If one roach comes in contact with the poison bait they return to the nest to die, delivering the poison with them. The cockroaches that eat them die themselves, and the cockroaches that eat them die, and so on for 4-5 generations. For every roach that comes in contact with the poison bait (either by eating or touching it), approximately 44 other cockroaches are killed.

My daughter lived in an apartment building in Honolulu that was on a regular cockroach spray regimen, but she still had roaches. I sent her a tube of Advion roach gel as well as a youtube link on how to use it and less than a week later all the roaches were gone. She was able to get rid of a problem a professional exterminator company was only able to 'control'.

This stuff WORKS! It will wipe out the heaviest infestations with a single application: https://www.amazon.com/Advion-Evolut...language=en_US

Note: The product isn't "magic". Watch a good youtube video to see how to apply it properly including to make sure any other items (like a sink full of dirty dishes) aren't competing with the poison bait for the roaches' attention.