“The Roach War of 2021”

During the hurricane season of 2021, we had several weeks of torrential rain when I lived in my one-story apartment in Ft. Lauderdale.

The ground saturation, along with, I’m sure, some other factors outside of my control caused a battalion of palmetto cockroaches to infiltrate my living space in waves over the course of a month or so.

I dubbed this period, “The Roach War of 2021” and despite the odds, I was victorious. Here is what I learned as the sole survivor, and I pass this knowledge onto you, reader, so that if you find yourself under seige, you too may survive to tell the tale.

Roaches hate submersion.

During heavy rains, when the ground is saturated,
the grass and dirt dwelling roaches will begin to seek higher ground and dry land. More often than not, that leads them directly onto the walls of your home or dwelling. Depending on the age of your home and your sewer pipe condition, they may already be living inside your sewer pipes, feasting on your fecal matter and drinking your urine. This is their safe haven.

When the ground gets saturated, and if there is even the smallest crack or hole where water can ingress from the groundwater, your sewer pipe will fill with water, and will drive the roaches up through your drains, the kitchen being the first point of emergence as the grease laden pipes will appeal to them, and they will choose that over your soapy tub/lavatory sink lines.

Roaches Love grease.

I cannot stress this enough. At the time, I was doing a keto diet, and would start my day with various breakfast meats and eggs, and leave the pan in the sink until I got home from work. This was a grave mistake, as the used greasefat is like crack cocaine for those filthy demons. By washing the pan and dishes immediately after use, you may convince them to stay down in their hole to feast upon it.

Roaches have a highly proficient military.

I will never forget the day I went grocery shopping, buying various canned goods, and leaving them on the counter while I went to do something. I came back to put them away, and before I could round the corner, I could see atop one of the can towers, there was a roach standing there, surveying the landscape of my kitchen. I watched him turn left, right, left, right, left right. Rotating in place as though he was standing watch. He turned, and assessed me before lifting up on his hind legs, turning, and running into the sink, where 2 more roaches no doubtedly were committing some untoward crime against me. They all disappeared into the drain before I could find my bug spray.

Roaches mark portals to Hell itself.

Hell is a real place. Of that I am certain. The exact places on Earth where entrance/exit from the pit of darkness is accessible change, over time, depending on factors which are unknown to me, but, those places are holes made entirely of roaches. They skitter around the walls and lips of the portals, climbing over each other in a never-ending wave.

I am not sure what you should do with this information, but I feel you must know it.

Roaches know your intentions.

With their relentless militarized minds, they know what tools you have at your disposal, what affordances they grant you, and how they can/should move in order to counteract you. For example, if you equip yourself with a broom, they know, that you need to hit them a certain kind of way with the bristled end and that that motion of the swing cannot be had on them if they run underneath your table, where the legs of the table and chairs will prevent you from striking them with deadly force. Similarly, if you have, say, a spray can of bug spray, they will seek porous materials such as fabrics knowing that you will hesitate to drench your own belongings with poison, even if it is for a moment. They also might hide behind fragile valuables or by food items to make sure that if you do strike, you destroy that which benefits you as well.

Roach attacks

The roaches I was at war with were the flying variety. Big, strong, and winged. From what I could tell, it is not easy for them to fly from the ground and carry their body weight up and to a destination. This is one of their inherent but few weaknesses. What they favor, is, climbing the nearest wall or object where they can be at a hieght higher than you, from which they can launch themselves at you, with their wings carrying them further than a jump alone could manage.

You must never allow them to get the high ground.

They can jump, however, which you might encounter if/when you do corner them in a place where you do have a good attack angle, at which point they will turn and face you. Approaching them meekly with a broom or other object will cause them to jump forward as an attack in order to get some space for them to seek some more advantageous position.

Now that you know their movements, it’s time to talk about your strategy beyond prevention.

Weapons of war.

Having gone through several various kinds of bug spray appratae, and many, many plastic broomsticks, I had finally found out the most effective combination of weapons for use against these hellspawn.

1. Bug spray. Not raid. not aerosolized poision. This might work in some siutations, but just know, that, these are short range weapons, and their effective range is shorter than the roaches attack range on average. Trying to use this from a distance you will only poison yourself faster than you will affect any roach, and you will get itchy red irritations around your nose and eyes, which the roaches know and count on, so that you might open a window to ventilate and allow more of it’s brigade into your already breached fortress.

The bug spray I am talking about is very specific. It is an automatic spray mechanism that uses, I believe, a battery to spray small, precise bursts of liquid decent distances as long as the trigger is depressed. This is the AR-15 of anti-roach weaponry. It is best used for when the roach has already began its wall climb and can easily reach without putting you in the attack zone no matter how high it manages to get before you notice.

It also does not disperse throughout the air the same way as the aerosol can does, keeping you from suffering the same fate it does. It instead, concentrates a small puddle of liquid wherever it hits, which can easily be cleaned later with a mop.

2. A roughly 2-3 foot (0.6-0.9m) length of 2x4 wooden stud. Whatever long-handled cleaning or gardening tool you are thinking of using is insufficient, with or without the head. The heads of most cleaning supplies disperse the force from the end to non-lethal levels when striking a roach. they also hide what they are doing from sight when they are struck and held, which is a disadvantage to you. The sticks themselves, even if they are of the wooden variety, do not have enough surface area in order to accurately or consistently give the desired results. Even the beloved louisville slugger, is round, which gives the roach the opportunity to hide in the corner that the rounded bat cannot reach and may allow them to recover and escape from your attempts, which will only be worse for you.

The 2x4 wooden stud however, is the perfect size and shape to allow different angles of attack, and also fits perfectly in a 90 degree corner. Keep it within reach at all times.

Fail-proof Attack Strategy

I listed only 2 necessary weapons above, because that is all you will need for this hitherto 100% successful attack strategy I am about to share with you.

It is as follows:

Upon seeing a roach invader, nonchalantly find and grab the rapid-fire bug spray. The roach has likely already seen you, and depending on where it is and how arrogant it has become, it may or may not already be planning an attack and you dont want to alert it to your actions. Aim your weapon, you do not need to hit it the first try. You probably wont, what you want to do is hold the trigger in and see where the stream is currently landing in relation to the roach. Keep the trigger pressed! In a sweeping motion, adjust your aim until you get your first strike on the roach. Immediately, he will being moving erradically. This is OK! It is already to late for him. The moment the spray touches their wings, they are unable to fly, so you have already limited his attack capabilities. He will however, try to recover. Roaches will try to escape to cover to clean the poison off their wings so that they may fly again.

DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.

Keep spraying. Each direct hit that you land will cripple him further. You want to keep him soaked in it. If he runs beind or underneath something, adjust your aim so that you are spraying back behind wherever he is. You do not want him to get dry. Soak him. Even if you just soak the area, the fumes will be too much for him and he will begin running to find another place. Now you’ve got him. As he runs, spray him again and again. I have never killed a roach with spray alone, but what you want to do is give him not choice but to run out into the open. And he will.

Once he does, he will now be at a fraction of his top speed. Find your 2x4 and stop spraying. He will relax a bit and likely stay in the open where the air is fresher. He is in full survival mode now, and will not be thinking about the lack of physical obstacles around him. Take your 2x4, and, ideally, using the butt end, you are going to go straight above him, and slam straight down. Do not try to swing like a mallet or hammer, or a bat. No, you want to place it down like you are planting a flag.

YOUR FLAG OF VICTORY!

Once you crush him, you will have won this battle. Congratulations. It is now time to sweep him into a dust pan. I prefer the ones on a stick, not the one where the handle is closest the pan. And drop him into the trash. Mop the area, wash the walls. Clean the excess spray from your living quarters and enjoy a world with one less roach.

Epilogue

By the end of the Roach war, my 2x4 was blackend on the butt end with the smashed corpses of my enemies. The rain subsided. The anxiety faded. My apartment was once again mine.

I hope that you, reader, now find solace in these practical steps you can take to win whatever battle, or even war against these vile invaders you might find yourself in in the future. Godspeed.

Bonus Knowledge.

The roach war of 2021 was fought against countless palmetto (flying) cockroaches and the strategies herein were developed to fight that specific kind due to their large size and militant personalities, but I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that many people are plagued by german roaches, the small, multiple ones who tend to hid within your walls and come out to drink whatever water might have spilled somewhere or snack on what little crumbs they can get.

I would also be remiss, if I did not tell you the secret weapon against these. Pinesol. Old school, pinesol. The pine flavor or scent is repulsive to them. During the fall of 2023 I moved into an apartment building that had a german roach infestation. They were in my drawers, my oven, beind anything they could hide behind. I read a tip saying that pinesol would repel them, and I cleaned every surface with it once a month, and they fled to the neighboring units in the building, leaving mine alone ever since.

Stay Strong. Stay Diligent. Stay Alive.

The End