Korean Job Discussion Forums

[newinseoul]

When I got home last night my roomate told me she saw a big roach that crawled under the floor outside of the shower. Yuck!! We called my landlord straight away and after ten minutes trying to explain to him what it was (writing the word and the word bug) on paper. He called a translator to find out just what we crazy foreigners were freakin about. He brought us some spray and said "spray this, will kill roaches." Good luck!

Ok has anyone had these buggers before? Does the spray kill them or do you have to get the place exterminated. As far as I know there is only one but, if theres one there has got to be others. Do they die if you step on them. I've never had roaches in Canada so any advice would be great! Thanks folks.

signed
freaked out

[BigBlackEquus]

Random stuff I pulled off of the net for you:

Starve them out. Leave them absolutely NOTHING to eat or drink. No crubs. No inside-stored garbage with food, no containers that are not either in the refridgerator, or vacuum-sealed or in tupperware in some way. Give them as little reason as possible to think they can smell or find anything in your place. Clean, clean clean.

Another reason for cleaning is that roaches are stupid. They follow the same trails. Cleaning a lot helps confuse them. Wipe everything down daily, even floors, and once again -- no crumbs or, gosh forbid, dirty dishes! Make sure that sink-trap is cleaned out too!

Hand- spray outside around doors, windows, pipe openings, and dryer vents. Pull out every drawer and spray in there, then put it back in. Spray the ever-living hell out of the undersink area, and where the pipes come in. If there is any gap between the pipe and the wall or floor, snake the spray nozzle in there and leave a heavy dose of spray, too. Apply also on the inside on the baseboards near the entry pts. Try to spray in any location where the roaches may be entering. Roaches often enter from another location and forage in your place. If spray doesn't help, then obviously, you need an exterminator.

On the inside-apply around the plumbing under the sinks and washer and dryer connections. You don't have to spray all the interior baseboards, just the corners and baseboards inside the garage and basement areas.

One thing you should do is be sure that the counters and sink in your kitchen are completely dry at night; the roaches LOVE moisture. And never leave food or crumbs anywhere in the open.

If you live in an apartment, as I once did, you may never be rid of them unless the entire building is sprayed at one time. If one person sprays, the roaches will just move on to the next-door neighbor.

When you bring home your groceries, check rolls of toilet paper and any other item where they could be hiding.

Now, the next thing is to put your food in airtight containers. Flimsy cardboard boxes are no match for roaches, and roaches actually LIKE cardboard boxes, so don't leave those around. And then can smell the food. Put everything in containers or in the refridgerator. I kept bread and cereals in the refridgerator and flour, sugar, rice, etc. in airtight plastic containers. Coffee cans with lids work well too. I would put a layer of plastic wrap over the can, then put the lid on, for some extra insurance.

Caulk all penetrations through ground level walls.
Stop water leaks, screen equipment overflow drains, and take overflow water away from buildings; keep drain traps full or capped.
Remove rotting leaves from window wells.
Move garbage cans out of preferred moist habitat.
Ventilate moist spaces.

Roaches lay little oval-shaped brown eggs. When I had a roach exterminator spray for me, he told me that I would find lots of dead roaches around for the first few days. Then they would pretty much disappear until the crop of their eggs hatched. Then I would find lots of baby roaches laying around dead. He was right.

[baldrick]

[nev]

Big cockroaches travel more than small ones, so it's possible yours was just a lone one.

However, if it appears there are more lurking, the doomsday advice is good. But to simplify, get a spray, try to keep the place dry and don't leave food out.

Also, cockroaches don't like the cold, possibly below about 25C. So if you're away for the weekend, leave the windows open and keep the heating off.

Stepping on them/crushing them does work (and doesn't spread eggs - that's a myth). But the best tactic is to simply make your home undesirable for them.

[ladyandthetramp]

There are also boxes with...how can I describe it...smaller containers of bait. The cockroach walks in, eats the bait and dies. Just leave them around your house.

There's also a type of fly-tape you can use. The person before me used it, and it was a little scary when I discovered it. Seemed to have worked pretty well, though.

[Homer]

First of all...calm down it is just a roach!

Second the advice in here is sound and should lead you to get rid of the bugger.

Third, if all else fails call the exterminator, they will spray your place (maybe your school pays for this).

[morituri]

You can call the exterminators and spend a couple of hundred thousand Won for the works:

www.cesco.co.kr

[Barking Mad Lord Snapcase]

[matthews_world]

Under your sink basin remove the bottom panel and look under there. You'll be surprised of the old food that has dissappeared underneath. Also, clean under your range.

[ilovebdt]

Why is it always the bathroom?

I remember during my first year in Korea when I saw my first proper cock-roach. I nearly had a fit. I screamed like the big girl I am and hotfooted it out of the bathroom.

Raid is good, but I found the most effective thing was to bash the hell out of them with a heavy object. I got used to them over the course of the year and they paled into insignificance when I went to Ecuador and saw this yellow and black beetle which must have been about 4 inches long, and due to my Korean cock-roach exposure, I didn't bat an eyelid.

Haven't seen any yet in my current apartment. Fingers crossed.

[baldrick]

Living in HCMC has sort of normalized cockroaches to me. I used to live in a big house which was nice by western standards. However a daily occcurance was big roaches scurrying in from the street under the door. I'd sweep them out dead or alive once a day. No big deal. Then we found that a bag of rice had been dragged halfway across the kitchen and opened up. Turned out that rats had chewed the washing machine drain pipe out of the drain . We tried to stop them with wire in the end of a new pipe, took them about 3 days to chew their way back in. So, we got someone to seal up the pipe - a few days later they were back after they had chewed through the drain cover in the downstairs bathroom. Talk about persistent. More than once, a rat bolted from behind my cooker when I tried to ignite it. So the landlord came and set a trap - but rat traps catch them alive! What the bloody hell are we going to do with a live rat I thought, release it back into the wild? So the landlord explained that once caught, they pour boiling water over them, and as I gauged by my landlords charade, they have an intense fit before dying.
In my new house rats live in wall cavities. They used to pop their heads out at me through a hole we had in the bathroom wall until my landlady stopped laughing at me for being 'scared' and taped it up.
I figure there is the same amount of rats here as in any big city, just theres a lot more freedom for them to roam around, a lot more little holes and gaps.

[Homer]

[newinseoul]

Thanks for the information BBE! Very helpful in my situation.

Hilarious story Baldrick! Let's start a thread on crazy animal stories.

I am calm now !!! These things that were suggested I will not do:

I will not remove the bottom panel under my sink or clean under my stove (for fear of finding something even more sick than a roach)!!
I will not pay money to get this place exterminated (landlord or school should) !!

But, what I did do is spray the crap out of my walls. I hope this does the trick. We haven't seen any again so after three nights of leaving the lights on and cleaning like mad, our fingers are crossed. Thanks folks for the suggestions.

[Homer]

[newinseoul]

I'll get my roomate to do that part Homer
But, thanks for the concern. This doesn't happen to be the Homer that posted on the China forum, is it?

Ya never know what I'll find under there. The girls who lived in this place before I moved in were really disgusting. There was barf in the sink. The toilet was full of black. I'm surprised there wasn't more roaches when I first moved in(month ago). So, knock on wood (maybe I shouldn't do that), I haven't seen anything yet.