Biggest #&#$@ Roaches on the planet!! (Houston: apartment, credit card, house)

[bookworm2768]

Holy @@$@$#@!
WHAT IS UP WITH THE SIZE OF THE ROACHES DOWN HERE!!!
This dream move to Texas is turning up some pretty nasty little added benefits!
I've found a roach in my sun room last week (just wandered in, right?) and just five minutes ago found another one as big as a credit card inside my cereal bowl INSIDE my Kitchen cabinet. I am utterly freaked out!!! After doing a *** all over the kitchen and smashing the monster to bits I am ready to throw up!
How common is this? I've got a contract with a pest control company who will only be able to come out on Friday to spray the place. Friday!! Heck I'm terrified of entering the kitchen anymore! I haven't seen roaches this big in 13 years!
So what does this mean?? Is this house infested?? We just bought it this spring but I cleaned those cabinets out really well! Where on earth are these da&**d things hiding? HEEEELLLP!!!!

[Lakewooder]

I've never seen one that big. But at least ours don't fly like they do in Houston.

[pepper131]

OMG!!
I saw one fly last week at my neighbors!! Scared us to death!! They call them waterbugs/palmetto bugs...but still...

I keep things clean, but they'll still bother you. After we started a quarterly service, we haven't had any problems. So set yourself up with a service that visits regularly.

[dallas76]

As someone who was born and raised in South Carolina (The Palmetto State hence Palmetto Bug) my only is advice is "You can not stop them. They can only be contained". Keep most of you drain outlets closed when not in use (sinks, bath tubes). This will help until you can get regular service to your house They usually come through the water pipes. They will be around untill the winter. FYI If you see one climbing up the wall please be advise that it will fly at your face.

[Ådvenio_Nobis]

Hmmm... one complaint I really don't have since moving back to Texas is the size of the roaches. I lived in Washington, DC, for 12 years and we had some monster roaches there. I also seem to remember HUGE bugs in Alabama...

Texas? Not so much. Or perhaps I've just been lucky.

[bookworm2768]

Originally Posted by dallas76

As someone who was born and raised in South Carolina (The Palmetto State hence Palmetto Bug) my only is advice is "You can not stop them. They can only be contained". Keep most of you drain outlets closed when not in use (sinks, bath tubes). This will help until you can get regular service to your house They usually come through the water pipes. They will be around untill the winter. FYI If you see one climbing up the wall please be advise that it will fly at your face.

I stand advised!! At your FACE!!!! Palmetto bugs sounds a lot better than roaches but they still bring the gorge up in my throat!! Scorpions, snakes, lizards I can handle but not these things! Hopefully the exterminators (who can only come out on Friday!!!) will take care of this. Right now I'm putting out 24 roach baits throughout the house and am armed with a kill on contact spray. No more trying to nail them with a flip flop!

[Lindsey_Mcfarren]

Like they say, everythings bigger in Texas.

I found one of those BIG ones once when I was living in an apartment. I literally had a panic attack when I found it. I couldn't breath I was so shocked. I had NEVER seen anything like it.

If it had commenced to fly up out of the sink, I might have fainted on the spot I tell you.

[fisher33]

hahaha - this is so funny. i'm not laughing at you b/c i know they're awful, but it is kind of funny! haha. i think we started calling them palmetto bugs in sc so that people wouldn't know what they were - home of the biggest flying cockroaches one has ever seen wouldn't look good on the visitor pamphlet!! i hope i don't see one here! i was hoping they weren't here!

[nsumner]

ROFLMAO... thanks I needed the good laugh.

I really don't think it has something to do with the house being clean. It goes with the territory if you are in a neighborhood that is older, with mature trees, especially if the house is pier and beam, you would run into those. In the burbs where homes are newer I have never seen them, even in some of those HUD homes that I need to wear a hazmat suit to show.

I remember seeing those giant, about 1.5 inches long that are white and they fly in several places but again, it's always in the older neighborhoods. They can definitely be contained with a quarterly treatment that you would not even see them anymore.

Naima

[Canine*Castle]

Oh yes, they fly here and don't let anyone tell you differently. When I purchased my home 21 years ago, it had roaches. They weren't taking over the place, but I made sure very quickly that wouldn't happened. I purposely got up in the middle of the night, turned on the light and saw to where they ran. I worked nights on end emptying cupboards, spraying, using roach powder, et al and a few weeks later, no more roaches. I refuse to pay an exterminator for something I can deal with myself. People who have their homes exterminated may still have the problems.

Anyway I kid you not.........In the past 21 years since I got rid of them, I've maybe seen 10 in all these years, one here one year and another here another, etc. Some may have traveled home with me from the grocery store and a few others I believe just walked right in the front or back door.

That is something I cannot stand and I refuse to have bugs in my house. Sure, all bugs get in once in a while, but roaches are absolutely disgusting as are rats and mice, and they will not live in this house. I do not use any pesticide at all, and I don't have a problem. I feel for you. I'd freak out totally if I had bugs in my cupboards again. 21 years ago, I went nuts and that nuttiness got rid of them.

Anyone living in Texas who has not seen gigantic roaches is either blind or oblivious to disgusting creatures. Filthy, filthy, filthy. I've been in homes where they are everywhere, climbing up the walls, walking all over the counters and all this can occur in broad daylight. Needless to say, I avoid those places if I see bugs. If people can live like that, there is definitely something wrong with them.