Florida Flora and Fauna
One roach egg can contain up to 50 baby roaches
One thing about me is that I hate roaches.
And one thing about living in Florida is that there gonna be roaches.
Roaches love hot, humid-type environments. They feed (according to Mel) on dead skin cells, hair, cardboard, paper, stuff like that. I don’t really think I need to give you any more background on what a roach is, I think you can use your imagination.
Shortly after moving into my new townhouse on Ward Island, I saw an enormous roach in the upstairs bathroom shower bathtub (the primary bath directly next to my bedroom for proximity). I was going in there at night half asleep to pee, flipped on the light and there he was sitting on the edge of the tub.
He was huge — I would say over 6” long.
I tried to make some noise to scare him away. In an audacious, atypical roach move, he ran toward me so I immediately retreated into my bedroom and did not use that bathroom for multiple days. I sprayed roach killer spray around and one evening when I thought it must be dead somewhere deep in the walls of this place, I decided to use the shower.
YOU KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING.
I undress (bonus: I was on the bloods), step into the shower under the water. I casually turn to my left and come face-to-face with the 8” roach who has positioned himself between the white linen shower curtain and the clear, plastic shower curtain liner — the only thing separating my face from his crunchy body.
Obviously I scream and run out of there.
After that Mel (my mother), who is not afraid of any living thing insect or otherwise came over and graciously cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, spraying roach killer spray everywhere and putting out roach hotels. She also got into the attic to inspect if that’s where he had his pied-à-terre (it was not).
Maybe you are thinking to yourself that I am a 42-year-old independent woman, why is my over-65yo mother coming over to hunt a single roach?
Well I would say mind your business and it’s because I simply cannot with roaches. Other insects, no biggie. Stink bugs, most spiders, ants, flies, wasps, we’re cool. I have my catch-and-release program implemented upstate where I pop a glass over them, slide a postcard underneath, and bada-bing they’re back in the wild where they belong.
The roach is too big to fit under a glass.
A few days later (still not using the bathroom) I found not a dead roach but roach poo. If you aren’t familiar, it looks basically identical if not larger than mouse poo. That is the size specimen we are dealing with. And not only had he poo-ed in the bathtub but there was a huge, curly turd on my washcloth. I was beginning to lose empathy. I set out poison pellets.
There’s just something about roaches that I can’t stomach. I think it’s the consistency of their body, their unpredictable (read: FAST) movements, how they scurry around at night. How they FLY. I mean they are huge, this one practically the size of a small animal.
Ed Note: if you’re from the South you might be thinking this is not a roach, this is a palmetto bug. Potato potatoe in my book, they’re both nasty.
When I was in art school in Atlanta we had roaches in our rental house. I would spray them with Super 77 adhesive until their body was completely mummified by the stuff, wait until the movement stopped and then flick them into the trash.
Once when my brother was a kid, he got into his sleeping bag and his foot touched a roach. I think of this often.
Now it’s been probably two weeks since the first siting and though I thoroughly inspect the entire bathroom (including under the toilet seat), I was getting comfortable. Too comfortable.
Today while cleaning I casually went into the bathroom to grab my towels to wash and the 10” roach flew out of them just missing my face. He is still very much alive — clearly too big for the poison to have any effect on him. Or he’s not eating it. Honestly who cares, the thought of this encounter haunts me as I type this.
I almost didn’t even write this roach blog for fear of vomming recounting the events. But then I needed something to do while procrastinating going into the bathroom to get my shampoo to wash my hair (in the downstairs bathroom).
More will be revealed, but there isn’t room on this Island for the both of us.
The only thing left to do is leave the vacuum outside the bathroom door, all extensions pre-attached at the ready, and then suck him up. I haven’t tried this yet because honestly I’m not sure he will fit through the sucker upper.
Until then, think of me like this.