of course you know, this means war.

If one were to peep in on me, right now, in my lab, one might wonder why am I greasing the top rim of a plastic bowl with hand lotion. In fact three hours ago, if I would have been watching my own behavior now, I might have thoughts about my clear lack of sanity, or I just need a girlfriend.

About three hours before bowl greasing, I went shopping. With generally good spirits I get off work tonight and goto the store to pack my house with groceries to cook in my new super-duper 1000W oven/grill/microwave (it came today!). I even splurged on paper plates and forks. Upon cooking fabulous american made freshetta pizza, I hear a crunch under foot. I look under and see remnant of former bug. I dont give it much thought. Goto the bathroom, clean shoe and floor with some toilet paper. On with my gourmet meal. Then out of the corner of my eye I see another bug flitter on the floor. This time I get a good look before it too meets the fate of its brother, that fate being "Reebok 10.0 Bug Compactor©". Even, though this crunch was a little louder and more satisfying than the last bug crunch, I feel a pit of despair welling up inside me. Oh no. Not them. Anything. But. Them. Why not centipedes? I got comfortable living with them, knowing they are blind and can never come after me.

Cockroaches. Not even regular cockroaches but german cockroaches!. Latin name Blattela germanica. The hardest to get rid of. The out reproduce any other cockroaches, mainly cause the female does not forage and eat as much when laying eggs, so poisons and other stick trap methods are less effective.

So tomorrow I sterilize the house and silicone caulk everything but the bottom door gap. Tonight I came to lab to make some homemade/labmade cockroach traps. These mainly being finely powdered sodium borate and my greased bowl as I was describing earlier. A fine layer of borax is like walking on razor blades to cockroaches. It is electrostatically attracted to them, and fine borax crystals get stuck in their exoskelton joints, swallowed internally as it cleans itself and dies of dehydration in few days.

The second line of death is the Vegas cockroach trap. Grease a bowl or jar rim with petroleum jelly (so they can't get out), put in some organic matter (like bread) and watch them fall in and scream, "I've fallin' and I cant get up!". Only no first alert for them, just a drowning death in the water below. But I have no petroleum jelly, so my small trial sample of Nivea creme (in fancy cursive) will have to do. You can rest ease knowing the cockroaches have soft and fresh smelling feet, in their last struggling moments of life. I know I will.

I'll let you know who wins the first battle in the next few days. Should you not hear from me, you know who won the war.