A Cockroach under a plastic mug

A Cockroach under a plastic mug

When I woke up in the night to go to the adjoining rest room, I found a cockroach searching for food. Lest it crawls into my bedroom, I took a plastic mug and placed it over the insect so as to imprison it for the rest of the night. In the morning when I wanted to release it and lifted the mug I found no cockroach. It had escaped. How, I wondered. In the plastic mug, on the opposite side of the handle, there is a V shaped dip on the rim (serving as a spout?) to direct easy flow of water. In that part, the wall thickness is next to nothing – that is where the cockroach managed to escape through.

One easy way of killing cockroaches when they appear by one or two: you can use a ink filler to pour a drop or two of kerosene on the insect per-se. When they appear in masses say big groups, then, you may spray an insecticide like DDT.  If it is a question of cleaning a drain – opening a manhole and discovering a horror scene - then you need professional help and spend couple of thousands.

Why am I obsessed with this insect? I have heard many things that I cannot forget. They eat dirt and cause TB and other diseases. They have been around this earth for a pretty long time say 200 million years or more. They can withstand radiation ten times more than us, humans. Cockroach may survive for almost a week with its head is cut off. Not only larger roaches, even smaller ones are equally dangerous.  While dirty homes offer more inviting living space for roaches, clean homes cannot guarantee themselves to be rid of them. It is a fact that roaches can feed on anything and everything. They are so adaptable that cockroaches may be found in all continents without exception. They can survive without breathing oxygen for a very long time. They can move fast at rates as high as 3 mph! Longevity of roaches ranges from a few months to a few years. They are indeed formidable species to bother about and eradicate, if we can.