Cockroaches in New Orleans

If you have to ask then you know the answer. When the sun goes down billions of those huge roaches swarm the streets and walls of most of the buildings and parks. Jackson Square is particularly terrible. Yes, they do get inside more often than you want to know (for every one that you do see, there are 30 that you don't). New Orleans has the worst cockroach problem that I have ever encountered although many of your southern states are major offenders - Florida, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, etc.

NYC is the Roach Capital the World.

Those are june bugs/water bugs, not your basic cockroaches. But they are enormous--you can year them walking.

The sidewalks in uptown NO are crawling with those things at night. GROSS!

For anyone trying to picture these things, they're not smallish and brownish like the roaches in a NY apartment; they're large--about the size of my big toe (I have smallish feet)--blackish and have a harder shell. And you really can hear them moving around. And they're everywhere.

I live in the Midwest and I see those types of things walking at night under the streetlights all over the place. Are they the same?

Could be. I've always assumed they flourished in kind of semi-tropical conditions. They're around DC in the summer, too, but not nearly in the numbers you see them in N.O. When I lived there someone told me that they can fly. If I'd seen one flying I'm sure I would have had a stroke on the spot. Any NOLA DL'ers?

Are you talking about june bugs? R5

We call the huge flying roaches "palmetto bugs" in florida. You can smash one with a shoe,and it will shake it off and walk away like nothing happened.

No, R8. I think they're probably R9's palmetto bugs. I haven't lived in N.O. in a long time but they're pretty much my only unpleasant memory of the city. Well, and the TORRENTIAL rains on summer afternoons.

"Palmetto Bug" (common slang in Florida), American Cockroach, "Water Bug" (slang in Texas) - they go by different names but are all the same hideous pest. They grow to be huge (2.5", 3", 4", etc.), are VERY fast runners and yes - they do fly and and fly well. All have huge, spikey legs and wings. Some are almost black, others dark brown and I have even seen a few that looked almost red. Whatever the case, these suckers can be horrifying and are hard to kill (Raid often doesn't work unless you drown them in it). Most are not so afraid of humans and will crawl all over your face and body while you sleep at night (it's a blast waking up to swatting something off you face and seeing a 3" roach on the floor looking back at you). They gravitate to water (thousands can colonize quickly if you have an open pipe, hole, etc. on the outside of your home that is dark and near water), prefer tropical temperatures and are photo-negative and therefore more active at night (or in your kitchen/bathroom cabinets). If you must live in areas where these things are abundant - diatomaceous earth sprinkled all over the place does seem to kill them - but it makes a huge mess.

Since they do fly - they can enter your home from any spot (roof, eaves, etc.), love to eat decaying leaves in the gutters (and find a way in from there) and many times hang out on the ceiling when they do get in. My friend had a really cool 1970's era glass and cedar contemporary in the Atlanta suburbs and when it rained would often end up with dozens of those nasty things crawling on her 20 foot ceilings (and the support beams, etc.). You could not reach them to kill them if you wanted to. It's a blast when they decide start flying around the room way above your head.

If you keep the lights on do they leave you alone? Is there a time of year when they're less active?

They ain't shit.

They're massive and they are everywhere - no matter how much you spray, there will always be some.

Disgusting - and yes, I've seen scenes like the one below in my post. Wretching.

Bengal Roach Spry is your only hope.

Developed in Baton Rouge by LSU chemists.

Those folks KNOw roaches.

found one live in my cereal today, had been in the box and made its way craftily into my bowl, was bout to eat it !!! fuk!

They can stand on their hind legs and screw a chihuahua...

Both indoors and outdoors - Just bring your saddle and ride one into town.

I love this classic cockroach freakout

oh, jeez, during a live broadcast? I hope this is a spoof.

R21 - no, it is certainly 100% real although it was spoofed on The Big Gay Sketch Show.

I actually prefer the big ones over the little guys. Combat Roach Motels work fine for both - I find them dead mostly around bathrooms. In the summer the big ones live in my tub drain and they can be so numerous they cause stop the water from draining.

Find one in your salad and get a comp'd meal.

The climate in Southeast Texas is like New Orleans and the roaches here are as big as the palm of my hand. They are NOT june bugs. I've always heard that the big roaches come inside from trees whereas the smaller roaches live off dirty things. You can hear the big roaches moving around. I lived in the Mid-Atlantic for years and I only ever saw the small roaches. I feel like the small roaches are more aggressive.

The smaller German Cockroaches will infest by the thousands/millions while the MUCH larger American Cockroaches (Palmetto Bugs, Water Bugs, etc.) only infest by the hundreds or so I am told (and are less likely to dine off dirty plates and more likely to colonize in walls and cabinets where unknown water leaks might occur). The huge ones will scare the fuck out of your dog or cat......and perhaps eat them if hungry enough. I have a huge phobia when it comes to the giant ones - they are so huge and loud that you think that you have rats. I grew up in northern Florida and we saw them all over the place. When I was a child my parents were sure that we had rats only to find a gigantic roach in the cabinet or in the bathtub. YES, they will find a way to invade your home - no matter your best laid plans. They will give you a huge scare and make you an insomniac when you can't kill the repulsive intruders (trust me, they are far faster than you are and usually either run or fly away at the speed of a Ferrari). My aunt from Grosse Pointe used to faint when she visited and saw one of those monsters - and she grew up in Saint Petersburg where Palmetto Bugs infest like crazy (just like every town in Florida for that matter). Northern parts of the US have a distinct advantage in that the winters are far too frigid for these huge creatures to survive (they are rumored to have been introduced from slave ships from Africa hundreds of years ago). Most desert climates are also not ideal for them - although R23's story shows that they can make it there as well. I have yet to see one in Studio City/Toluca Lake, but many say that they swarm Little Armenia, WEHO, DTLA, etc.. All this time I was assuming that LA must be immune to these giant pests...dammit.

Any Southern city is full of roaches (to be fair so are Northern ones) but in the South, they view exterminators as just another bill. You pay your, gas, electric, water and exterminator bills each month.

I remember visiting New Orleans a few years ago and seeing one on the street - it was HUGE!

But my hotel was fine.

r28 is it typical for the hotels not to have them?

Gross! Other than a couple of really shitty tenements in NYC, I've not been plagued by them here, but I could NEVER deal with giant flying roaches like they have in NO or Florida! I would freak the fuck OUT!

r29 I assume so. I saw the cockroach around the corner from my hotel but I had absolutely no problems with my hotel. I am sure many NOLA hotels make sure there are no roaches. I never once saw a cockroach inside while in NOLA

A really hot guy (tan, muscles, sexy face, amazingly huge round ass) graduated from my high school a year ahead of me but started dating a female friend of mine when we were seniors. We were all drinking late into the night and getting stoned/taking ecstasy at a party at her house (parents away for the weekend) and he ended up sitting that enormous bubble butt on my legs and laying his head on my lap while high as a kite and told stories of college. I fought back every urge to get hard and failed - probably poked him in the eye for all I know. As gorgeous as he was and as "cloud nine" as I was in that moment, what I remember most vividly to this day was one of his stories. The question of the "first apartment" was posed by someone in the group of trashed teens and he recanted his nightmare. Bubble butt was granted a football scholarship but the athletic dorm was full so he was instead given a paid lease at a local apartment and paired up with three other team members (2 guys per bedroom). The arrangement seemed better than a dorm so he was thrilled at first. 3 football freshmen moved in on the same Auguest weekend and noticed that the old shag carpet was sopping wet. By the next day it started to sour and reaked (this is Georgia in the summer). Management was generally rude but said that the carpets had been steam-cleaned and they should leave the balcony door and windows open in order to air them out. They did so. The forth guy moved in a few days later with a large gas grill, his clothes and not much more - he left the grill inside his bedroom and never bothered to set it up outside on the balcony. My gorgeous friend was paired as his roommate of course. Weeks went by and the place felt like a sauna; the sopping wet carpet never did get dry at all - it only became more wet and stunk to high heaven. Linens and clothing became moldy in the period of days and progressively became worse. The management ignored the boy's complaints as their rent was being covered by the school not them. Sexy friend started to sight a huge roach or two around the apartment but tried to just kill them and ignore. About a week went by and the carpet was now totally water-logged. The whole place smelled of rot and that nasty BBQ grill was smelling particularly foul - sexy stud reported. The rusty old steel was rusting (staining) the carpet as well. Friend comes home after a night of late drinking and stumbles into grill. As it topples over - hundreds of 3"+ gigantic roaches start to scurry all over the room at lightning speed (they were colonizing in the grill I suppose). He shreaks in terror and alerts the other roommates - they try to kill the ones that they can find/catch and are all scared shitless of the infestation. Days later the dampness and mold is worse than ever and they complain to the coach, academic counselors, anyone who will listen, etc. Friend is in the apartment the day that the maintenance crew finally shows up. They theorize that a minor leak from the kitchen plumbing is the culprit and need to take up the carpet to assess the source (the kitchen was carpeted along with the rest of the entire apartment). The moment that they begin to rip up the old shag and the carpet pad beneath it - literally THOUSANDS of HUGE, gigantic Palmetto Bugs scurry up every wall (some run and others take flight). According to him, thousands swarmed and the poor Latino work men ran screaming like little girls from the apartment, down the stairs and almost "walking on water" across the pool in the courtyard. Needless to say, he never slept in that particular apartment again - although he was stuck in the same nasty building for a year (with frequent unwanted "house guests")...

Another fun fact - If you ever stay at a motel anywhere in those lovely tropical areas of Florida, Texas and the Bible Belt, you might want to avoid the outdoor ice machines. Those giant Palmetto Bugs love few things more and are VERY active at night.

Giant flying roaches in Peru scared the shit outta me - my cousins all just laughed at me with their jajajas. Also, I accidentally disturbed a fucking tarantula sleeping behind the door of a balcony. The flying roaches were scarier, the unpredictability!

My mom visited me in Tallahassee once and saw one scurrying on the floor. Because of its size, she thought it was a mouse!!

I'm from Europe and I don't think I ever even saw a roach before in my life. But just reading this thread makes me feel all itchy.

R36 you are VERY fortunate. They are actually worse than they sound - trust me.

R35, one of my German instructors was an Austrian woman who married and moved to Houston. She said when she first saw a giant roach she knew that's what Kafka had in mind when he wrote [italic]die Verwandlung[/italic].

Do they bite you?

They are more prone to crawling deep into your ear or nostril - requiring an emergency room visit R39. Google it - it's a thing.

We stayed in the best hotel in NOLA and on our second night we had one of them in the bathroom. We put a glass over it. On the last night of our stay we freed him and he scurried away as if he'd just been patiently waiting, no worse for the wear. He was big enough to put a saddle on and ride to Omaha.

That is disgusting!! So it doesn’t matter if your house is spotless, they still come? Gross!

Jesus H. Christ, what an eye opener. Makes me appreciate living here in the Northeast. Next time I’m dealing with a snow storm, I’ll just remember that this weather is keeping those critters the fuck away from here.

We have a rat issue in one of the nicest parts of the city-Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia...the park is adjacent to the alley of restaurants and the rats come out at night, scurrying about. They also live in burrows underneath the park, and they raid the trash cans at night. The city won’t get rid of them because the same poison that kills them also kills the squirrel population...never mind that the rats also kill the squirrels...

Yes I am glad I live in the north east too! I hate summers coz all the bugs and critters come out. I’ve seen roachs on streets, I’ve killes 2.

I used to jog around Washington sq park in the morning and rats are a common sight.

I've been there probably a dozen times, and I don't ever remember seeing them. Of course I wasn't crawling down an alleyway at night, nor staying in a gross, cheap motel.

My mom, who had a nervous disposition as it was, would totally freak out when they got in the house. One time she got dive-bombed by one, ran screaming headlong into a closed door, and bloodied her nose. My sister and tried to tell her, "Mom, it's not like they can hurt you," and she replied, "No, but they make me hurt [italic]myself[/italic]!" LOL

You don't need to walk down alleys or stay at cheap motel to see them r46.

I lived in a gorgeous condo in downtown Honolulu. It was fairly new, upscale, well maintained and full of roaches. Had to keep anything edible in tupperware.

The ones as big as a toe would run over your feet walking on the Fort Street Mall (brick blocks in downtown/China Town.

Anywhere that is sub=tropic or warm and wet is going to have them.

[quote]I've been there probably a dozen times, and I don't ever remember seeing them. Of course I wasn't crawling down an alleyway at night, nor staying in a gross, cheap motel.

I was at the Royal Sonesta when we found one in our room.

The other issue is that they hitch rides into every town (no matter the climate) via grocery trucks and hundreds of other vectors. There is always a possibility of coming across one just about anywhere. The differentiator is that they die in cold weather and therefore do not have much ability to breed and multiply - thank God. I used to think that dry/desert communities killed them as well - but I am hearing too many stories of Palmetto Bug sightings in California and Arizona. And don't forget that once in your home - they will have a temperate environment with access to water.

Stay the AC Hotel, OP. Marriott brand. Say hi to this bartender. Nice guy.... always wondered if he's up for stuff.

Houston here. They are disgusting, huge and fly but they aren't really an infestation problem like the smaller German ones. The ones you see inside are usually lost and looking for water. They can be controlled by regular extermination. They are impervious to most other things. Shoes thrown just make them pissed off. Don't fuck with them if they are making a snack in your kitchen.

Oh, and one night I kept hearing something. I turned my light on to investigate. It was a fucking palmetto bug on my celing fan and it was so big it was making it sway. You can hear them really well walking on paper too.

I remember in primary school,we learned that roaches lay eggs in “cases” 16 comes from one case.

My ex had a huge roach problem in summer in Chicago. I don't remember seeing them in the winter there, but every summer we sprayed and put out powder to no avail.

Interesting, R55. Yeah, you see those open cases all over the place in Florida.

I think I'm right that it's the small german cockroaches that tend to infest homes. Those big guys often come inside via the plumbing pipes.

Clients in New Orleans loved going to a popular restaurant in the French Quarter. On one visit I took about 10 clients for a week night dinner. The dining room was dimly light. We ordered two sampler platters for the group. When they were brought to the table. I was horrified that the food was covered by German cockroaches. I quickly told the servers to take them away. No one else realized what was going on with the food. They enjoyed the rest of the meal, me not so much. Twenty years later the restaurant is still open and very popular.

I'm going to have nightmares about this.

You are all a big buncha babies.

Roaches dont eat much. Big deal.

Was it Antoine's, R59? I got to eat there once while I was in NOLA for a college journalism conference. The food was delicious, but the men's room was absolutely filthy.

That would have been my guess, too.

[QUOTE] We ordered two sampler platters for the group. When they were brought to the table. I was horrified that the food was covered by German cockroaches. I quickly told the servers to take them away.

Horrifying.

How is this my first time hearing about such a problem with that region? You’d think it was all anyone talked about.

Spray them with foaming Dow bathroom cleaner. Seriously. They’ll fall from the ceiling and run. But if you spray them again until they are covered in foam, they’re toast. Plus, you can wipe up your floor afterward. Trust me. The stuff works.

^ Saw one on my ceiling last night and sprayed it with what I happened to have in my hand - a bottle of Fantastik. It fell and tried to run but was moving slowly as soon as it hit the ground. I sprayed it a couple more times and smased it.

Because the locals seem to not give a shit, R64. See R61 for example. When it comes to the huge Palmetto Bugs - I have never seen them bigger or in greater numbers than in Florida and Louisiana. Those two states are just infested with the creatures. That said, most of the South is full of American Cockroaches - and YES you have a monthly exterminator all year long. Even dead they are alarming - 3" giant roach laying on its back with huge, spiky legs up in the air. R58 is correct - the much smaller German Cockroaches can infest a home by the millions and since they are better suited to live in human residences, they can really be a problem almost anywhere on earth. If you see one, assume that there are 200 that you don't see in your walls. If you see 10......... A very decorated PhD once told me that if you removed EVERYTHING solid from every home in Florida - you would still see the outlines of every home clearly due to both the German and American Cockroaches left behind. The German ones tend to really like dirty plates, open food, trash piled up, etc. The big guys like it too - but not as much. American Cockroaches love damp, wet rot - leaves, drywall, plumbing, rotting wood due to a leaky pipe, etc.

Here's what else the German roaches like: glue, the kind used on paper grocery bags (when we still had them) and cardboard packing boxes. When dealing with a bad and seemingly spontaneous infestation years ago in I house I'd just moved to, the exterminator pointed to my packing boxes, which I'd gotten from the local supermarket, and said that was probably how they came in--either because there were traces of food in or near the boxes when I got them or because they were eating the glue used to hold them together. He also told me never to get paper bags from the grocery, because you can bring roaches home that way. If you get a really terrible infestation, the roaches will get into the bindings of books to eat the glue.

We live in Austin and if we don't keep up our insect treatments, they'll start appearing - both the large and the small. Ugh.

Do they have mice and roaches in high rise buildings? I’m talking like over 50 stories

sure. why not?

I just need to find something to love about them and my fear will go away. I used to be afraid of spiders and now I love them. If I come across a roach in NO I'm going to try to pick it up.

Stink bugs are worse.

[quote] I was horrified that the food was covered by German cockroaches.

Nein, nein!

[QUOTE]Stink bugs are worse.

No, they’re not.

4th vote for Antoines R59. Overpriced crap and they keep the place dark to hide how filthy it is.

I saw one, in our NO hotel bathroom, when we first arrived, but none after that. I imagine they hang out in the unoccupied rooms, OP. I was living in FL at the time, so not overly phased by them. In my FL townhouse, a 2" long Palmetto crawled out from inside my electric tootbrush stand. If you don't get somewhat comfortable with these critters while living in the southern states, you'll drive yourself mad. I tried to focus my anxiety on the venomous snakes and the occasional alligator.

I've since returned to the NE US.

[quote] I was horrified that the food was covered by German cockroaches.

This would have never happened if we still had the Kaiser.

The way to test if you have them is to get up in the middle of the night and turn on the light in the kitchen.

If you see something scurrying, you have roaches.

the first crappy apartment i lived in, i was sitting in the living room with my roommate watching tv and felt a tickle on my arm. It was a 4 or 5 inch roach. i screamed and jumped out of that chair so fast, it followed us all the way to the kitchen where it finally died in a pool of windex.

Haha. True story - one night I was taking report from a fellow nurse in our 5 bedded cardiac care unit, so she could go on her break. All patients had a swan gang catheter, arterial line and an LA line. These lines were hooked to a monitor and gave a variety of waves and numbers that we obsessively watched and recorded on our critical care sheets. So she’s telling me that the patient had a run of rapid Afib earlier that was treated and resolved. All of a sudden she grabs my arm and her face goes white as a sheet. She’s pointing at the monitor and screams “Oh no!”

I turn around & run for the crash cart, thinking the patient went into V fib or something. I get to the bedside and start clearing things away when I notice the patients waves & numbers were fine. felt like an idiot. It was a water bug walking across the monitor that she was pointing out. And I had fucking nail marks on my arm from her digging them into me.

One night I came home from a bar restaurant about 3 am. I lived with my parents at the time. They were asleep. I felt a branch go past my neck as I passed the bushes The the front yard. I walk inside the bathroom, turn on the light pee and as I’m walking out I see something splayed across my neck. It was a water bug. I had never seen one before. All I knew was giant legs were on my neck. I screamed like a banshee! My mother jumps out of bed, runs in, sees me frantically clawing at my neck and SHE screams. She has a bug phobia. We finally got it on the floor and splatted it. It made a loud crunching sound.

My father never woke up.

Little did I know I would move into NYC and see these things routinely on hot summer nights - indoors, outdoors, in restaurants, cafes, etc

Anywhere south of the Mason Dixon and they are ubiquitous. You're going find them everywhere.

[quote] My ex had a huge roach problem in summer in Chicago. I don't remember seeing them in the winter there, but every summer we sprayed and put out powder to no avail.

We used to have “roach season” where I live. Swarms of flying roaches by the millions. They were attracted to light. You could turn on the porch light and watch them mob the screen (naturally, you keep the glass door closed)

We don’t have them anymore. Apparently, they were “farm roaches.” The neighborhood was built on an abandoned farm field. The roaches swarmed for about two weeks, then went away til the following year. So many people put insecticide on their lawns now that it kills them. Also kills lightning bugs - I’m the only one who still has lightning bugs because I don’t use pesticide.

R70 - the good news is that they don't fly that high, the bad news is that they can itch rides on elevators and climb/fly up stairwells. I have no scientific basis for saying this, but I always assumed that a high floor condo/apartment would have LESS roach issues - at least the giant Palmetto Bugs anyway. I had friends in Dallas who owned a gorgeous condo in a very swanky building. They had the misfortune to live on the second floor. I was told that if they ever opened windows (despite the new and tight-fitting screens) - Palmetto bugs scurried into their home by the dozens. They avoided ever opening the doors to the patio for the same reason. Horrifying. This was the sort of apartment that had huge sculptures on pedestals, blue chip art and fine antiques and whatnot. They stopped using their multiple balconies at night for the same reason - giant cockroaches were crawling all over the walls, potted plants, chairs, etc. They hired a monthly exterminator but never could make a dent in the giant Palmettos that lurked outside. This building was on Turtle Creek - a gorgeous waterway and park in a lovely part of the city. Again, these huge monster roaches LOVE water. So bottom line, my friends were prisoners inside their own gorgeous apartment - afraid to ever take in the view and park right outside their patio doors.

[QUOTE]The way to test if you have them is to get up in the middle of the night and turn on the light in the kitchen. If you see something scurrying, you have roaches.

I think I’d rather just not know.

I live in the French Quarter and one watering the plants for one of my neighbors who was out of town. While in his courtyard, I noticed an old Purina Dried Dog Food bag (one of those huge ones) that was empty and sitting in a dark corner. Being the neighborly thing to do, I picked it up to throw it away into the trash can...and compressed the bag to get all the air out and to make it fit in the trash. As I compressed it, the air came out like I had just turned on a leaf blower...and so did literally hundreds of roaches that had been living there and feeding on the dog dried food scraps. I was barefoot and shirtless wearing shorts and was absolutely covered in roaches within seconds from my head and hair down to my toes...and was squishing them on the brick courtyard as I jumped around barefoot. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. And amazingly, within seconds, they had all disappeared into whatever crevice they could find. I have relived this nightmare for years since and still cannot look at dried dog food...especially in a dog bowl left outside overnight...knowing what else was feeding there before the French (Quarter) poodles had their breakfast.

Jesus Christ r87

r87 My. Lord.

It reminds me of Creepshow!!

Did anyone else clutch their pearls while reading R87's story?

I certainly had a strong hold of mine.

Yes.

Then again if R87 was equipped with a caftan instead of dressing half naked like some jezebel, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.

Mother lived for a while in New Orleans. She stated that they were so numerous that if you did not have them around or in your home at one time or another, there was something seriously wrong with you.

Smell Violet Venable at R93!

[quote] - the good news is that they don't fly that high, the bad news is that they can itch rides on elevators and climb/fly up stairwells.

That happened once, when I first moved to NYC. I was living in a building full of roaches and mice. The funny thing is that my parents and friends were making remarks about how I would have vermin if I moved to the city and I rolled my eyes at them....rubes!

A very old building. You walked down a few steps to get to the door, opened the building doors and walked down more steps into the gross lobby with 50 year old carpet. I was on the night shift. Came home one morning, took the elevator to the third floor. The door opened and a huge water bug was standing with its back toward me. It nonchalantly turned around and hopped into the elevator as if it had been waiting for it. I “hopped” out (about 3 feet in the air).

That building was disgusting. There was a small park next door full of bums (that’s what we called them before they became “the homeless”). They left food in the park and on the 4 ft high brick wall outside. One night I walked to work and as I got close to the wall, I saw movement - scores of mice dining on a half eaten sandwich some bum had laid on the wall, as if to feed the wildlife. Every floor had a garbage room. No chute, just a big garbage pail that was always overflowing. Gee, wonder why the building was filled with vermin?

I couldn’t wait to get out of there and into one of the newer buildings our hospital rented. But there were people who’d lived there for years. Most of them were older Caribbean women and waterbugs were like ants to them. They would tell me stories of outhouses back home - no indoor plumbing. “Oh lord, you did not want to have to use the outhouse after it rained. It was crawling wit de water bugs, hundreds of them, flyin’, landing on you. We’d get bladder infections cuz we’d hold it in, trying to put off using that outhouse.” To them, a water bug here and there was laughable. “Oh honey, you should know what it’s like to have them flyin into you the dark, landing on you, so dark in there you couldn’t see them, but you could hear them as soon as you walked in that outhouse cuz it disturbed them and they’d start flyyyyyyin!”

Holy shit those women were brave!

I love this thread. It's terrifying but I can't look away!

If one is not afraid of lizards and you live in parts of the country where these massive Palmetto Bugs thrive - buy 50 or more Chameleons (released both inside and outside your home) to ensure that these giant bugs do not scare you to death on a daily basis. Bearded Dragons and leopard geckos are great helpers for eating these nasty bugs as well.

Good advice, R99... just beware of any Daniel Boons (sic) lurking about.

[quote]Another fun fact - If you ever stay at a motel anywhere in those lovely tropical areas of Florida, Texas and the Bible Belt, you might want to avoid the outdoor ice machines. Those giant Palmetto Bugs love few things more and are VERY active at night.

Should I avoid the outdoor ice machine because there will be bugs crawling around near it? Or will they actually be inside it?

R99 Must be awful big lizards to eat those 2-inch flying aircraft carriers. I live in Hawaii and those huge mofos are everywhere!

Well R99 has solved the problem—just release 50 large lizards onto your property.

Both, R101.

How can they live with ice? My mom is a neat freak because In her 20s she lived in an apartment where roaches lived in the tv.

They are attracted to the inevitable dampness both inside and underneath the unit and also the heat that the motor gives off (I am sure other factors are at play). Ice machines inside are also breeding grounds as well - if the establishment does not keep up with rigorous pest control practices.