hi.
i got the roach you asked for. i'll be out
tomorrow morning for groceries, but should otherwise be home almost all
of the upcoming week.
a few notes.
1)
that's the first roach i've seen since the first week of june, and it's
also the first roach i've killed on the side of the apartment closest to
the door. it was actually right outside the door, in the hallway, and
scattered when i turned on the light. so, it got stomped on. that felt
good.
2) it is indeed an oriental roach, which is determined primarily by it's dark colour.
3)
oriental roaches are seasonal. it's been cool overnight this week. they
tend to come inside in the fall. so, i was expecting them and hoping
this would be a good test if my barriers were working.
4)
the fact that it was stumbling around in the hallway far from a water
source does suggest as much, although it also suggests that it may have
been scattered in an unexpected direction from it's entry path in the
back area by the residual sprays. i'll monitor the situation further,
but if i continue to see roaches scattering around on the outside of the
apartment, i'm going to request that the back room gets inspected for
holes and has steel wool or whatever else put in to patch them up. i can
help with looking for holes. the thing is that i can block the holes in
the apartment, but i can't block the doorways, so if they're going to
be coming in through there then the basement entry points need to also
be addressed.
5) for now, i'm cautiously concluding
that i've blocked this space off, but that it's only a partial barrier.
further, there's really no way for me to guess where it actually came
from, so no further leads on holes to patch.
(pause)
i'm sorry, i just want to clarify that when i say
"back room gets inspected for holes"
i mean inspected by you or i or paul or whatever. i'm NOT requesting an exterminator.
those guys tell you lies half the time, anyways. they want to be able to come back repeatedly, otherwise they're out of a job.
j
