My neighbour just been recounting the saga of the cockroach problem that’s been going down in her house. She was almost in tears of relief about finally getting it under control. Apparently, it had started on her back porch, and she hadn’t paid much attention, but pretty soon it had expanded into her kitchen. This wasn’t helped by her five year-old secretly hiding bits of food all over the place; she suspects that he actually likes having the roaches around has been trying to help them out (much to her disgust).
The solution was to get in some professionals to deal with the situation. Here in Pakenham, pest control specialists aren’t all that hard to come by, so I’m not sure what took her so long, especially given how deeply bothered she seems by the whole thing. Anyway, she told me that they inspected the place and found that the infestation was making its way towards her bedroom. They said it was one of the fast-growing colonies they’d ever seen (at least, according to my neighbour – I do wonder if she was stretching the truth).
The plan of action that the pest control company has put forward for dealing with it involves chemicals, alongside the recommendation that my neighbour do the best she could to nip her son’s food-hiding tendencies in the bud. She confided that she’s not going to tell him that the roaches are being exterminated. Instead, she’ll say that they didn’t like the human food. Nice one. My mum recommended a guy for pest inspections in Berwick a while ago; I’ll see if she still has the number.
Personally, I don’t get as freaked out by cockroaches as other people seem to. I mean, I don’t love them crawling on my stuff, especially my food prep surfaces. But ultimately, it’s humans that provide them with the tools they need to carry on the behaviours that gross us out. That’s why they congregate around us.
Even so, given the alleged extent of my neighbour’s infestation, I wonder if I should look into having my house checked out too.