Who has had roaches in their apartment?

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I've never had roaches, thanks goodness. They don't seem to be a thing where I live. Although I did have a serious mouse infestation and the little buggers were leaving their presents everywhere. I think there was a mouse family hiding and around my oven. Not the part where I insert the food, but there's a little drawer where I kept pans and stuff and it was full of droppings and mouse pee and I had to take everything out and disinfect it. I'm still finding mouse droppings in places and the amount of diseases I could get from them is frightening.

Apparently the increased rodent population was due to the pandemic. Because why not, it's to blame for everything else.

My mother me she's really got an ant problem and nothing seems to get rid of them. They must be overwintering somewhere in the walls of the house or something. And now that winter is over they're everywhere, she even found one in the microwave. But at least they're not roaches.

hmm Idk at least roaches are smaller and easier to kill, I don't like killing mice but in the last place I had there were mice so we ended up having to put traps. LIke I wish I hadnt had to because the mouse did get rather brave and would come out even while we were about...but their poop and pee can spread diseases so we had to put traps to catch it and if there were others. We did think about traps to juust trap them and let them go outside, but from what we looked up that sort of mouse would have probably just gotten eaten by a hawk or something anyways and it wouldn't take the bait in those traps anyways, so we had to get some kill traps(the ones that do it quick, definitely not the sticky ones where the poor mouse would suffer a lot. But yeah I suppose I have more compassion for mice than roaches. Like I feel worse about killing mice than killing roaches.

Idk maybe all those movies with humanized mice I liked growing up have something to do with it.

I believe it's that the tablets attract the roaches so that they nibble on them instead of ignoring them. I read that "they contain boric acid, which is a naturally occurring compound that roaches are attracted to". And "The EPA has approved the use of these tablets in homes with people and pets". "Pet Safety: While generally considered safe, it's important to be aware that boric acid can cause irritation if ingested in large amounts".

My guess is a cat wouldn't have much interest in eating boric acid tablets. Boric acid is used as an eye wash for people. So it's one of those things that kills bugs, but isn't really harmful to mammals. Diatomaceous earth for example kills bedbugs, but is also used in cooking.

Roaches aren't too common in Connecticut. Don't recall seeing any. Mice are more common.
Last year the heavy rains drove the rats out of the sewers. I was able to catch the ones in my neighborhood with rat traps.

The only times my girlfriend has seen roaches in person is when we visit my parents in Louisiana & seeing a couple fly really freaked her out. Cass's parents home is majorly falling apart & some other members of her family live in apartments they never clean & bring in junk from by the dumpsters but they never see roaches. I think roaches dislike Vermont climate. My dad does a good job keeping the house well maintained(he worked in construction most of his life) but roaches still come in during winter when my parents bring plants inside or firewood for the fireplace & roaches occasionally come inside other times as well. Before going on vacations my dad sprays poison along the walls inside the house & my parents sometime set the roach bait traps out. Using poison is risky when having pets that go inside so it's best to only use it when you'll be away from home for a while & your pets won't be there. I would also avoid having bait traps out when pets like dogs & cats may be inside. If you have pets that stay in a cage you could use the roach bait traps but I would avoid putting them in the room the cage is kept.

Me & Cass have had bedbugs in our previous apartment when we moved in. We used a few bug-bombs before leaving to visit my parents & we put Diatomaceous Earth around the walls after we were back. Diatomaceous Earth is a powder that kills bedbugs by cutting them when they move across it. It's safeish to use with pets like dogs & cats but I'd do research before using it if you have smaller animals that don't stay in a cage. I'd also be carefull to not breath it in when putting it down or moving stuff around by the power. I'm not sure if Diatomaceous Earth could kill roaches or not but it might be worth researching depending on your pet situation.

I'm using You in the general sense here because it's easier for me to word & I'm not talking to the OP specifically.

Does the Lorax use borax?

When I lived in the dorms my first year of college, there was a roach living in the laundry room. I named him Frank. He was very respectful though, he just stayed in the back corner and didn't get into anything.

Apparently diatomaceous earth can get into the joints and stuff or roaches but many seem aware of that danger so they won't cross it, so it may not kill them as sometimes they wont cross it because somehow they know what it will do so they don't risk walking into it. Still makes it a good deterrant so we already had thought of getting some to spread along cracks but also my boyfriend looked into this clear caulking we could also put along the floor board edges to help keep them out as we are not so confident the caulking already on it does as good of a job as it should. But yeah I guess we want to see if we can

Seriously outside of the stupid bugs, its nice....apparently there is a county order that fireplaces are not allowed, so we have what used to be a functional fireplace as our entertainment center shelf which is kind of cool looking. Then we have a second room that is almost as big as the living room we can use to have some table top gaming people over in and actually have room for it to be a cool space and then we are using the smallest room as our bedroom cause all we do in there is sleep and have sex. So we are actually using what was meant as the master bedroom as a table top game area as its bigger and made more sense to make that a second lounging area with a bit more of our table top stuff back there and using the small bedroom for our bedroom. So once we get unpacked we are basically going to have two living rooms and one bedroom So it is big and spacious enough to make it nice, we just hope we can keep the nasty bugs at bay

idk I don't think we ever really dealt with that problem before. but that said before we moved in other residents did mention roaches so we did move in aware that it could be an ongoing problem. But the place we put a lease down right before didn't even give us a secure unit, like i think people were climbing in, which would explain the heater unit looking ripped from the wall if people came in and stepped on it. But yeah my boyfriend was glad we didn't move in there before they fixed it becasue they revealed the maintenence people didn't have the key, and so then my boyfriend was like well why was that heat unit ripped out even more if no one had gone in there. Cause also before we even stayed there a night we were told our unit reeked of weed, And we hadn't even stayed the night yet cause we were still staying at my sister's place and like werent ready to unpack yet. But idk then he mentioned the heater needing to be fixed, and they said maintenance didn't have the key but we saw the thing was pulled even further out of the wall and so he asked like well who does have the key then because someone came in and ripped the unit further out of the wall. They had no answser and so we bailed, my boyfriend threatened that we would put a lawsuit for unsuitable contidtions if they didn't just give our money back, and well they sent us our money back after my boyfriend had to threaten them with legal action a couple times.

The landlord's stooges come round occasionally to spray selected bits of the place. They say the stuff is safe once it's dried but they haven't told us what it is, and I wonder whether it's as safe as they pretend, especially if it happens to get wet again. Frankly the last sprayer seemed to be a tad incompetent. He opened one cupboard and sprayed the open bit at the back where the water pipes are, and when he couldn't open the other cupboard after 2 seconds of trying, he just squirted the stuff through the door so it probably went all over the contents. No food in that cupboard. I'm not sure whether roaches are more dangerous than the insecticide.

Arkansans seem generally more gung-ho with insecticides than the British are, but that might be related to differences in the climate and insect sizes, and there are some very dangerous insects that thrive in Arkansas. I can understand why they'd get panicked into using chemical warfare. It's not so easy to insist on organic solutions when you're surrounded by species that would kill you as soon as look at you. Balance of risks and benefits.

I've never seen a roach here. There are holes behind and under the cupboards under the sinks in all apartments, which are connected to each other, and those "corridors" are big enough for a small cat to get through and pop up in any apartment they like. I had to do a day's work blocking them off so my cat couldn't escape. She did escape that way once but she came back again after a couple of hours exploring. She thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. That's when I decided to block access to the holes.

We get a few insects coming in when the weather's warm. Mostly tiny gnats and fairly small house flies. The gnats get stuck on my fly paper but the last fly we had was a clever little varmint that annoyed us for days before I managed to drive it into the bathroom and swat it there. I'm not a violent man these days but I make an exception with some species. The Victorians used to cover their food with paper "fly cages." I'd like to try a couple of those. They might also stop the cat sticking her nose into my food when she's hungry.

I like the idea of chilling the place down till the cold temperature kills all the insects, but I don't want to freeze the cat, and there's not much to do outside the apartment on a roasting hot day. And it might overwork the cooling system and knacker it.

I don't think Arkansas law requires the landlord to do anything very much. It's a Trump/Republican stronghold and I don't think they're much interested in helping anybody apart from business people.