Sitting here at my desk in bare feet and felt this ominous tickling sensation which made me leap out of my chair and yell an obscenity because in my heart I knew what it must be. Saw a gigantic roach skuttling away toward the kitchen. Managed to get to my can of Raid in time to kill the b&stard before it disappeared under the stove. But damn what a thing to lay on my mind just as I'm going to bed. I just know I'm going to dream of roaches tonight 
 
In other news, I blame the scruffy hipster next door 

Got some more bad news for ya Bud.  If you see one, well, you know. 

I'm waiting to see what copy-cat threads they attempt for this one....

Reminds of an excellent book I read in school......
 

 

Asian or European? The Asian roaches certainly are huge and disturbing to look at but they tend not to "infest" as pervasively as the smaller European ones.
 
I didn't mind so much seeing one of those big suckers bumbling along through my place because I knew it was probably just passing through to somewhere else (I learned early on how to NOT give them anything to eat). They're also easy to kill.
 
If one of those smaller ones showed up though it was Blitzkreig time because you just KNOW there is a little swarm of them lurking somewhere in the shadows and if not dealt with eventually the bathroom and kitchen gets overun by the little beasties. Then it's BRUTAL to get rid of them... especially with roomates or filthy idiot neighbors.
 
Haven't had those little buggers since my mid twenties though because I got REALLY good at wiping them out and keeping them out. Before that, being new to city life (I had never even SEEN a cockroach until I moved to the city) and being a typical krust punk slobbo yahoo a few apartments got totally overun by the bastards (and my roomates made any efforts pointless). Like the floors and counters literally moving with them and covered in their little micro poops.
 
YUCK!! Can't believe I ever lived like that. Nasty.

I think this was an Asian one. There's definitely not an infestation of them like you get with the small ones. I go in a lot of people's apartments for work and it's surprising how many people just seem to tolerate roach infestations. You see them zipping along the countertops and in the sink and crawling up the walls. They make me wince big time.

The other night I had a daddy long legs on my wall. I hate those buggers too - way too gangly and spindly for my tastes. And they move at a terrifying speed, I just don't feel safe lol....

Last night my wife woke me at sunrise as a mouse was climbing the bedroom curtains, presumably to the light looking for a way to get out. So I got up and set 6 traps. Still nothing today so I suspect he got back out the way he came in. I live in the woods so at this time of year with the acorns falling, they tend to eat their way into the garage to store them, but it's been a long time since we had one in the bedroom...
 
I'm not sure I've even seen a cock roach as I've never lived in a city...
 
Mesh, Metamorphosis was one of my favorite short novels back in school. I got to go back and read it some day :)

The ones down south are huge. We had em'  when I was growing up and I hated them. Lots of homes down there built on block foundations with no basement because the water table is so high, so the roaches can usually find a way in from underneath. They can get  2 1/2" inches long or longer and they fly. They like the darkness so I would look up and see one on my curtain in the bedroom at night and a few seconds later you would hear it fly across the room hoping it wasn't landing anywhere near you. I get the crawlies just thinking about it. My dad still lives down there and he isn't the most aggressive at eliminating them. The last time I was down there there was one on it's back laying on a counter presumed dead. I didn't want to touch it and he didn't move it, so there it lay for like three days. Finally I could take no more and decided to use a cloth to pick it up and flush it down the john. The bastard came back alive when I picked it up and fought to stay out of the john. This really creeped me out that it layed there unmoving for that long and came back. Must not have been dead.
Thankfully the place I live in now is so far insect free other than the few ants that come to the counter in the summer time and the occasional small spider.
I can't tolerate roaches. I'd be calling the exterminator or setting off a mist bomb. 
 

Some keep them as pets
 

 

Mesh
Reminds of an excellent book I read in school......
 

 
That was no dream!