* Years ago, we lived for a time in a small town in southern Louisiana. While there, I wrote a series of essays about our experiences that I have never posted anywhere. I’m cleaning up some digital storage and will start posting some of them, along with other stories that are yet to be revealed…
John turned the car into a short driveway. Along the side of the house, between the unopened garage door and the kitchen entrance, is a small garden with a rickety porch swing, a plastic pond, and a concrete bench. I unload the dogs and lead them out into the garden while John comes in through the kitchen door to find Newt and carry her into the bedroom.
As soon as I walked up the crunchy cobblestone path, I saw the cat. He’s sprawled on the bench, feet at his side. His head lifted a few inches to look at us. Directly flecked with his smoky gray coat but the fuzzy mane that surrounds his large and bright eyes makes him look regal. After glancing at us, the cat fell asleep again. The dogs were so engrossed and excited to go somewhere new – and relieved to get out of the car – to notice the cat.
John pulled open the side door. “The power went out,” he said.
He turned on the flashlight on his phone and led me and my brothers into the master bedroom on the first floor. My eyes couldn’t adapt to the dark, and the dogs were cornered, pulling me in three different directions. We pulled back the bedroom door. John pointed to the bathroom door, then left to call our host, flip the breaker, do something to try to restore the power.
I used my phone to go to the bathroom. I flashed the light around the room to get a nest, and there it was, right in the middle of the room: the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.
When we lived in DC, my roommate Erin and I occasionally had a sizable cockroach in our apartment. We did what any reasonable thing would do. We throw our shoes at them. Then I moved into a small studio apartment, and the night I moved in, small cockroaches filled the bathroom sink but disappeared after a thorough cleaning.
The cockroach in front of me on the bathroom floor was huge, bigger than any DC cockroach, but it was dead. The house was empty for a few days, except for Newt, so I imagine that she was probably the hunter who killed the cockroach and that was it. Or, so I think it is like that.
But that’s just the beginning.
After another hour, the power was restored. We made the dog bed in the bedroom and went to bed on the mattress that John brought from his apartment. Our moving truck isn’t coming for another two days, so when I go back and forth, I think that will give us plenty of time to do a thorough house cleaning, in case there are a lot of cockroaches. than. Just beware.
North American cockroaches, sometimes called water bugs or foot beetles, thrive in warm, humid climates. They eat just about anything, which means they can survive almost anywhere. And they are resilient; In places like New York City, where cockroaches thrive, they are developing resistance to the most commonly used pesticides. That means they survived the attack but, in a strange turn of events, caused the city’s cats, like Newt, to hunt them. The cats ingested an insecticide that was supposed to kill the cockroaches, but instead built up in their systems.
In places like Louisiana, it gets too hot for cockroaches outside. They sense condensation inside the walls of the house, assume it’s a source of water, and invite themselves in. Among the more serious side effects – aside from their terrifying presence – cockroaches leave feces and body parts that can end up in food. They excrete secretions from the body, like scent markers, and constantly regurgitate fluids.
Although they can fly, they prefer to run. And, on our first full month in our new home, we learned that the dogs loved to chase them.
Previous encounters with insects did not cause the boys to give chase. They will see a fly and clumsily grab it. Emmett would often sit and watch the bugs infiltrate our apartment, and Cooper would occasionally attack the spider. However, these cockroaches aroused something pristine in them.
The first morning after our belongings were delivered, John left for work before sunrise. He fed the dogs and left, so the boys jumped in bed with me and we all went back to sleep.
Moments later, I was startled awake by the sound of the wardrobe being pushed across the wooden floor. Emmett and Cooper put their faces in the closet and ran as fast as they could. They worked hard to achieve anything there. My heart beat. Oh my GodI thought. It’s a mouse.
I called the dogs out, brought Lucas into the hallway – the last thing I needed on a rodent’s head would be a dog fight – and grabbed a flashlight. I crouched down, clicked on the light, and released a cockroach the size of a hamster squirming from beneath the vanity. It crawls under the dog bed by itself. I shouted.
Emmett and Cooper jumped out of bed, scratching to chase after the cockroach. Then I realized that it wasn’t the fact that it was a cockroach that lured them into chasing. That is the magnitude. They looked at the cockroach and saw a small animal. They have seen their prey.
I took John’s sneakers out of his closet. I lifted the corner of the bed. No roach.
I stood back. Re-evaluated. How did it disappear without us noticing?
I flipped the bed over, and the cock shot out. It made the wardrobe go crazy again. Emmett lunged forward while Cooper scratched the floor. Before the cockroach could get through the dog gloves and another dog bed, I lifted the shoe and slammed it down.
I backed away from Emmett and Cooper, lifting my shoes and screaming as the cockroach ran away. I took the shoe down as much as I could.
I cleaned up the splattered cockroach with a whole roll of tissue.
Over the next few weeks, getting rid of cockroaches became part of my routine. They climb the wall in my office and scatter behind coffee cups when we turn on the kitchen lights. One cockroach fell into the bathroom sink while I was brushing my teeth, and another got through the broken sealing around the upstairs window while we were watching TV.
I invested in a pesticide sprayer, and we cleaned and scrubbed every square inch of the house. The previous occupants, it turned out, were a mess. Drinks spilled down the bedroom and living room walls. Bottle caps and beer can poppers are tucked under the wall in the upstairs bedroom and bathroom. Expired pudding cups are stuck behind refrigerator drawers and a trash can labeled “cans” has remained unempty for ages. We found underwear in the garden and a rotten lizard in the kitchen cupboard.
Meanwhile, as I scrubbed and bleached every surface in the disgusting house, Newt hunted and killed the cockroaches she found in her upstairs area. We found some kills to her leave us.
When we put in the effort to clean the house, the number of cockroaches gradually decreased from a few per day to a few per week. Once I felt like we were in control and the house was finally clean enough to live in, I researched pet-safe methods for getting rid of cockroaches and diatomaceous earth attacks.
It is a naturally occurring substance, a type of rock that turns into a fine, white powder. People drink these for purported health benefits like lower cholesterol and brighter skin. But because the material is abrasive and it absorbs fatty oils from the insect’s exoskeleton, it kills bugs like cockroaches by dehydrating them. We know that if the dogs or Newt sticks to it, they’ll be perfectly fine.
After we cleaned the house clean enough to remove bleach and pesticides, we sprinkled diatomaceous earth on the counters behind the coffee machine and toaster. We pull out the refrigerator and coat the area below, then sprinkle more along the windowsill where the seals are broken. We pour it behind the toilet and into the fireplace.
The number of cockroaches decreased even further. Instead of a few per week, we found a few dead cockroaches every few weeks and only occasionally one alive.
That is, until we started feeding Gray cats.
More on our Houma adventures:
Some additional resources if you want to learn more about cockroaches (who doesn’t?!):
http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/guidebooks/PIH-95-66/HUDGB7C5GUID.pdf
http://www.orkin.com/cockroaches/american-cockroach/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth
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