roach in dishwasher

[badgolferman]

How do roaches get in my dishwasher? Around here they're called Palmetto bugs.

[Norminn]

If you call them Palmetto bugs, you must be in the south :o) They get around, especially in the kitchen. They start out in the cat box or on doggie doodoo outdoors, then check out the baseboards and elect. outlets, knowing they probably lead to food. Last place they go is across the dinnerware in the cabinets, leaving their biological remnants everywhere. If they miss something, the ants will grab it :o)

One thought not often considered: if plumbing is not often used, such as in a guest bath, the water in traps can evaporate and make travel easier from sewer to house and back again.

[badgolferman]

I am in SE VA.

Sometimes I see a roach come out the dishwasher when I open it in the morning. We use the machine every night. It's about three years old.

[dadiOH]

Sorry, my wife and I won't be able to come to dinner tonight.

[dadiOH]

"badgolferman" wrote in message news: [e-mail]

Danged if I know but the suckers can get through some really tiny places.

FWIW, I have seen maybe half a dozen "palmetto bugs" inside the house in the

20 years we have lived in Florida. And most of them were in parts, done in by the cat.

Last May we had that many in a two week period, three of them in one night!!! The only thing I can figure is that we had frequent and heavy rain and they were looking for a drier place to live; no idea how they got in, our place is pretty tight.

Fortunately, they all seemed to gravitate to the corner of the ceiling and wall where they were highly visible; not to mention high and dry and safe from the cat (they aren't the dumbest bugs around). A simple matter to stick a long extension on the vac, suck them in, suck in a bit of insecticide and then wrap some plastic over the tube end for a while. ______________________

Up north they call them (American roaches) "water bugs". They usually call Oeiental roaches the same thing. All to prove they don't have roaches :)

[VinnyB]

On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 13:53:55 +0000 (UTC), "badgolferman" wrote in Re roach in dishwasher:

They are probably hitching a ride on your plate when you put it in the washer.

Here in NYC they are considered a delicacy.

[themattfella]

You're saying that you find roaches among the just-cleaned dishes?

[badgolferman]

Yes.

[Higgs Boson]

TWENTY YEARS LATER, I still wince when I open drawerq under my cooktop. It was SO horrible!

THEY were there in force. Where did they come from? I think it was in the cardboard boxes we used to carry our purchases home from the old Co-Op (before it became a big shiny market).

I got rid of them over a few months's time by the classic boric acid method. But still to this day, I hesitate ever so slightly when opening that drawer...

Shudder!

HB

[Robert Green]

You beat me to it. Leave it to tourist conscious Floridians to label HUGE flying cockroaches something tame sounding like Palmetto bugs.

Union rules for bugs. Then the termites come and eat the very shelves. AFL-CIO (American Flying Lice- Congress of Insectoid Organisms)

That's possible but I think other avenues are more likely. I've lived roach free for over 20 years after living in roach infested apartment buildings for about the same time. I know which mode of living I prefer. I had three roach incursions in the last 20 years. Two came from paper bags in from the local Giant (very old building, one of the first) and one seems to have wandered in off the street in broad daylight looking dazed as if he had been recently fumigated.

I believe the source for that tired old soldier roach was the house with 11 students living in it next door. That landlord never rented to students after them, primarily because of the bonfire in the backyard that burned up the tree they built it under.

The advice I'd give BadG (hey, you could be a rap star, Badgolferman!) would depend on whether it was a single family home or an apartment. In apartments, all it takes is one messy neighbor to raise up an unconquerable roach army. My worst roach story? I went to siphon some gas without blowing out the siphon tube with compressed air. You know the rest. Phew!!!!! Flying regular sized cockroach. Rebel, tell THAT story to your GF and see if she doesn't faint outright. I can remember the sequence exactly:

Set up the siphon, being extra careful not to suck in any gas. Hey, there's something in the damn tube. Hey, IT'S MOVING AROUND IN MY MOUTH!!!!!!! SPIT!!!!!

The question for BadG is is the a "once-off" incident or the scout for an advancing army of giant flying cockroaches? Did you go shopping or bring anything inside the house recently. They'll never be found far from a source of water or food so a new intruder would find the smell of wet food on dishes waiting to be cleaned pretty irresistible.

[badgolferman]

I have seen them maybe 2-3 times in the past six months. It's in the morning when I open up the dishwasher after it washed the dishes last night. One just comes crawling out and I kill it quickly then wash the dishes again.

[badgolferman]

Oh Yeah, single family home on crawl space.

[Studor Valve]

I'd return the dishwasher, it sounds defective.

[Robert Green]

Has> They climb the walls then hang glide when they hear you scream. Dish washers are warm

them into your

And I thought sure you were going to recommend clubbing them to death. Go figure.

[DerbyDad03]

I grew up in NYC. Nice clean house, no roaches.

Older brother moves into his girlfriend's apartment...Mom does not approve and is not happy.

Older brother brings his laundry home and tosses it on the floor in front of the washing machine. Mom goes to do the laundry (after all, she's still a Mom) and a cockroach goes scurrying across the laundry room floor. Mom is really, really not happy now.

Older brother never brings laundry (or girlfriend) home again.

[Robert Green]

Same here. Three story house but mom was a neat freak. Never saw a bug in the house.

Dated and moved in with my sister's recently divorced best friend from HS. Neither Mom nor sister were happy. Especially sister.

First night there I get up at three AM to whiz and turn on the lights and think to myself "I don't remember there being spotted wall paper in here." Then, suddenly all the spots scurried away. It was a four story walkup over

100 years old and part of a block of tenements that all had groceries or restaurants on the first floor. Tney sprayed regularly but it only moved them around to different hideouts for a few days. I think once they reach a critical level, there's no eradicating them.

That was nothing compared to the first time I encountered ticks when I was hired to photograph someone's horse in a rural farm setting. Never felt a single one of the army of them that crawled up my legs and you-know-where. Gruesome. "What are all these poppy seeds doing on my weiner?" YIKES!!!

That's when I learned about socks OVER pants with rubber band backups and how much ticks like being around horse dung.

After I left NYC and the roach palace I found they had invaded my stereo system, my clothes and a portable TV. They're smart and they are survivors. If there isn't enough food around, the big ones will cheerfully feed on the smaller ones.

When I moved into a studio apartment above a restaurant in DC, I actually

*heard* one scuttling under the bed. I grabbed my flashlight off the nightstand and stuck my head under the bed and this HUGE nasty hairy old roach just stared back at me, not even bothering to run away. It was just like that scene out of "Aliens" when the guy pokes his head into the suspended ceiling. I moved out the next day. Cockroaches as big as mice? That's where I draw the line.

[Robert Green]

That's about as often as the Jehovah's Witnesses show up here. Neither are worth *too* much worrying over, although I can understand the "ickyness" factor of finding one in a load of freshly cleaned dishes.

I assume they've entered the machine AFTER the wash cycle if they stumble out alive. Either that or you've got very cool hot water or a race of super cockroaches impervious to drowning.

I wonder if there's a place they can hide in the dishwasher to escape the hot water cycle? With standard non-SuperSized roaches you only really have a problem when you start finding those nasty little egg cases around.

That's an easy fix. You can be pretty certain they're gaining access from the crawl space. Doubtful you can seal it well enough to prevent them from getting it but you can spread boric acid around down there or have some professionals come and do it for you if you have the same aversion to mucking around in critter-infested crawl spaces that I do.

I would also make sure that there's no small leak from the plumbing that keeps an area below the house moist and attractive to Palmetto bugs. Dishwashers are notorious slow leakers. Isn't there a candy bar with an "etto" ending? (-: Or maybe it's those capsules Joe Theissman keeps push on late night TV for us old guys with deteriorating plumbing that I am thinking about.

[DerbyDad03]

Not necessarily...