I know, I know! Yesterday I blogged about my phone problem. But today I have an even bigger and more annoying problem: I have cock roaches in my house. (Don’t judge until you have walked a mile … in my house … with the cock roaches.)
So I bought some roach bait at my favorite store, aka Costco. And, like the phone instructions in the previous post, the roach bait instructions were entirely in Chinese, except for these four delightful sentences:
“Hydramethylnon’s powerful delayed-action with excellent secondary transmission effect.* It is effective in control of roach with single feeding. Allow infected roach return to harborage and die. The lethal dose would be transmitted to all roaches in harborage by roach coprophagous and cannibalistic behavior.”
*(Yes, this sentence is completely devoid of a verb, or a predicate for that matter.)
Now I can only speak for myself here, but I’m always very careful to ensure that my roaches have both caprophagous and cannibalistic behavior in any harborage that I provide. Any other roach expectation would be just wrong. Furthermore, I prefer the thoughtful hydramethylnon’s delayed-action with secondary transmission effect way of doing business with any sort of larvae; because, let’s face it, that’s just the kind of person I am!
But regardless, I really hope those filthy little suckers are dead by morning!
Six Abroad 
When I lived in Japan we, too, had cackroaches in the house. My solution was to keep a big Sears catalog just outside the kitchen door. Before entering kitchen at night we would throw catalog in on floor, wait a bit and then turn on light. At least we didn’t have to see them. Veda
You always make me smile – actually the part I loved the best was that you didn’t call them cockroaches (which is in fact what they are – one word) but the noun you devised made them seem even all the more filthy and disgusting! And then it seems that Veda has another breed again that they find in Japan (loved her catalog technique by the way)! To top it off, the whole thing is even more poignant because I had to stop reading your post mid-way through when I spied out of the corner of my eye, a big brown 6-legged critter sneaking under my computer desk – nasties! Grabbed a flip-flop (or was it a thong?) and he was a goner!
You’ll have to try Gary’s method of cockroach control…stun them with a rubberband then pick them up and drop them in the toilet, flush. You can try smashing them with a flip flop (like Jessica did in Hawaii when she was 3) and they eventually get squished but they smell HORRIBLE! I like Gary’s method better : )
Good Luck!
try using powdered BORAX and sprinkle it around baseboards, under stoves, frig, etc. We had them in Carlsbad NM and they are nasty.
You are TOO funny, Erin. You should have been a standup comic!
Funny, funny post… we too, had a horrible problem with roaches back in Recife, Brazil (apartment). By the end of our stay, if we had to go into the kitchen/laundry area in the middle of the night, the only way was turning on the lights, making lots of noise while walking, so then, none of us (people and roaches!) would have to meet (one of us would always run!). Thanks for the post… reminds me of a time that (hopefully!) is gone… too cold here in Bolivia for them! 😮
Hi Erin! We are another DOS family who is looking to make Taipei their home in 2013. Another DOS spouse passed along a link to your blog and I absolutely adore it! Is there a way I can contact you directly to ask more about your experience there? I hope to hear from you. Again, kudos on such a wonderful recap of your lives abroad!
Hi Christine. I would love to answer any questions you may have. Email me at erinphale at gmail dot com. And thanks for your kind words.
If you only knew what we dealt with when I was a kid living in Caracas, Venezuela. We had a live-in maid and the house sparkled. We had a weekly exterminator. My baby sister was born there. When she started crawling, she’d come across the huge roaches that we couldn’t get rid of no matter what we did. And we caught her more than once with them half in her mouth. Yeah, horrid and awful. And I was only 8. Will never forget it.