I actually was't planning on doing one this week but your posts threw up some excellent songs so I decided to sit down and take the time before tearing off into town. And I really do need some insect related advice this week (Toffee look away now). I'm going down to Cannes for the Festival (and lots of hard work too) and have, in the past, had a wee bit of trouble with.... how shall I say this... night visits by unwanted guests? Frogprince tells me that it is no way a reflection on the quality of a hotel but in the South of France it is not at all uncommon to see cockroaches in your room. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhh! Us Northern Europeans naturally freak out at this so what I am after is a non-chemical, non poisonous way of repelling them. I just want to keep any potential visitors at bay, basically. What do cockroaches dislike? Any plants? Substances commonly found in a kitchen? I'd be gratful for any words of wisdom from the collective wealth of knowledge that is the 'Spill. I've never forgotten the invaluable help that Nilpferd gave me with architectural translation (and I'd been trying to crack that one for months...) so go ahead.And let me know if you're enjoying the Chunes!!!
36 comments:
Take this hammer!
Tee Hee. Right. At 3 in the morning with guests asleep just next door. I think not but nice try GF!
At the bottom of my post is the only viable temporary solution. Yes, it may be slightly chemical (and not necessarily within European norms of chemicalness) but it worked when I moved in with an extended family of roaches.
FP - met some of the little fellas in a hotel in London. Decided the only thing to do was ignore them and go to sleep - and I'm still here.
Will try and listen to the chunes later!
FP - Japan is a cockroach country too and even though we live on a hill on the fifth floor, these buggers fly! and we regularly get some pretty big visitors in the summer.
The best way to kill 'em is washing up liquid. Squirt it right on top and it stops them DEAD!
Hedgeapples are supposed to repel. How to come by hedgespples you ask? I know not. Catnip is supposed to work too, but I'm not sure how you get rid of the resulting cat infestation.
Be careful about using sprays. If you hit a nest, it has a party-popper effect and they come flooding out. Yes, I speak from bitter experience. Found one in the kitchen, then another and sprayed into the gap behind behind sink, thinking "must call Rentokil in the morning" and went off to a gig (Lightning Bolt, Black Dice and Boredoms if you are interested), came home at 1.00am and there were over 100 roaches all over the kitchen and making their way up the hall and into my bedroom. I spent the night at the far end of the flat, too afraid to fall asleep and clutching the last of the insect spray.
@ Ejay: intrigued about the name of that chemical...
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@Japanther: That's exactly the kind of tip I was hoping for. In the cockroach world, the maxi pack of fairy liquid is the uzi gun. I'll get a fine nozzled one for maximum aim precision. Nice one. Going into the suitcase.
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@ Shoey: Will find out what they are in French and try and get hold of some. I could just put branches round the skirting boards -no hassle. Thanks for that.
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@ Alimunday - you're made of sterner stuff than I... What bugs me the most is the thought of dropping off to sleep and them crawling up and...gulp.. into your mouth.Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!
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@ Mnemonic: Truly horrific tale. But I would have done the same. French folklore also says that you should't just crush them under foot as THAT brings out all the aunts, uncles and cousins as well....
That's Super Timor. Like I said, I had the pleasure of using it myself, and it may have caused me a runny nose and itchy eyes the rest of the night, as well as a scratchy throat, but in the end, it worked. I was half asleep, my sheet well tucked in around me, and periodically waking up, my insect repellent in hand (we had emptied the Super Timor on the bastards earlier), spraying the ones that showed a little too many signs of life to my taste. In the morning, there was a shovel full of them. I stayed in that room for a month, and I only had to spray a little bit after that, on the babies. I'm not proud of it, it was a massacre, a bit like Sodom and Gomorra. This was in Bamako by the way, so a bit further south than Cannes.
Is it safe to come in now? Have you got rid of them all? Phew...
@ fp - great playlist as always - pop rules and all you guys know it!!!
@ Ejay - that sounds like really heavy duty chemicals - but I'll keep the name in mind. Don't feel too guilty about your armageddon. Apparently the little blighters can survive a nuclear holocaust. Weird, therefore, that soapy water does for them. Very War of the worlds in a way.
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@ Toffee: They've gone. For the moment anyway. I tried to boost my indie-cred Brownie points with this list. Eels! Scott Walker! But the popstrel's never far from the surface...Chuffed you liked it!!
Sorry, I refuse to participate in this celebration of genusocide; having read archie and mehitabel at an impressionable age, I don't see cockroaches in the same negative light as the rest of you. Anyone else know this? It's about a cockroach called archie who types out free verse by hurling himself head first onto the keys of a typewriter (hence no upper case letters), and his relationship with the cat, mehitabel, who was Cleopatra in a previous life. Wonderful stuff; a brief extract:
"most of these rats here are just rats
but this rat is like me he has a human soul in him
he used to be a poet himself
night after night i have written poetry for you
on your typewriter
and this big brute of a rat who used to be a poet
comes out of his hole when it is done
and reads it and sniffs at it
he is jealous of my poetry
he used to make fun of it when we were both human
he was a punk poet himself
and after he has read it he sneers
and then he eats it"
You can read a whole load of these poems at http://www.donmarquis.com/archy/
Abahachi, I know and adore Archy and Mehitabel (toujours gai, my darlings, toujour gai) but even that will not reconcile me the the monsters in real life. I used to be afraid of spiders until I discovered cockroaches....
...and that's a "toujours gai" from me too...
I suppose the best PR job for a cockroach was WALL-E. Did you get to see it? That almost reconciled me with them.
Almost.
wotthehell, wotthehell.
Mnemonic - that is a truly terrifying story.......I haven't read those poems, but cockroaches are the one creepy crawly that just give me the shivers.
That gig on the other hand sounded fan-bloody-tastic! What a line-up!
I've heard that centipedes kill cockroaches, so you could take a box of those along and let them loose...
Loved the cockroach in Wall-E
Centipedes to eat cockroaches? That sounds a bit like this brilliant idea.. we also liked the little fella in Wall-E..
Oh, we're very obedient to our centipedal overlords.
Free yourself from the centipede tyranny, Steen- or face a lifetime of darning socks.
Theoretically, I'm with Aba on this one. I've lived with silverfish and wood lice (which are really quite cute) and never been put to the test with cockroaches but I'd like to think I could handle the situation without freaking out (I don't particularly like spiders but can remove them humanely.
I did a 'temple tour' of Tamil Nadu a few years ago and at one magnificent Chola temple (at Gangaikondacholapuram, one of those names you can't forget...) the temple-keeper let us in to see the lingam (Shiva's, not his). As he swung the door open we could see literally hundreds of huge orange roaches covering the walls and floor. In somewhere like that, you have to appreciate that everything has its place in the cosmos and not go to pieces.
I'm sorry, Nilpferd, what were you saying? I couldn't hear you over the sound of our daily mantra "100 legs good, 2 legs bad..."
Fight it, Steen!
Tie their shoelaces together and escape on your bicycle!!!
OK OK I'll try to be tolerant and respect the fact that we all inhabit this planet. I'm just wanting 12M2 of insect free space for two weeks in May thangyouverymuch. They can overrun the place when I'm gone.... And I actually quite like centipedes.I used to give them lettuce leaves as a kid. Does that make me a better person?
BTW, FP, I'm amazed you haven't posted this..
Great call Nilpferd. Just remembered I wanted to buy their new album. Both the PSBs and ROYSKOPP have new albums out and I got the royksopp for my sister but forget to get the PSBs for me. Thanks for reminding me. Wishing you all a successful week at you respective occupations.
And a bug free abode :-))))
All of this reminds me of the time (more than TEN years ago now, sheesh...) when I and three other 18 year old friends went on my one and only 'lads' holiday to Crete. Think Tom Jones doing 'Sex Bomb' and Mousse T's 'Horny' on endless repeat and the era/locale should be fixed for you.
We arrived in our resort in the middle of the night and found our apartment. As four young men of the world (well, alright, three men of the world and sulky no-hoper me) we arrived in high hopes of manly adventures.
Within 30 seconds, however, this air of machismo was broken by the scream coming from the bathroom. Bob, token drunk clown, had entered the loo to find the biggest cockroach any of us had ever seen waving at hime from the floor.
Cue at least an hour of shamelessly fearful manoeuvring as we all tried to decide how/who to get rid of it. The final, inelegant solution, involved a glass bowl, an awful lot of very slow sliding and the tipping of a concrete slab on top of the offending beast. But at least we worked as a team...
Tired, wired and terrified we all then proceeded to fail spectacularly to sleep almost at all. Which means it was probably quite a good job I didn't mention the second one that I saw when I went back to the toilet later on.
Scariest of all, though, was the discovery in the morning that it had survived the slab-tastrophe and was once more free and at large. Honestly, the amount we had to drink just to be able to get some sleep on that holiday...
If you want to consider a humane, relocation approach to the problem ... then Google 'bug vacuum'. Amazon have even got a spiderman version. I've used similar bits of kit for nature study fieldwork but handy to have around the house for any unwanted visitors. Better for your Karma and nicer than having to clear up after any frenzied poisoning, squishing carnage that you might otherwise unleash. Heck you've even got relocation options then; a simple tap out of the window to take their chances in the wide world or set to blow and you can waft them under someone else's door.
Excellent story Snadfrod! Complete with soundtrack....
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Tatanka. Oooh temptation. I'll add that to my list of hotel on business gags. The other, of course, being to order full English breakfast for two on room service for an early 4 o'clock departure.
Cackle.
Donds for "The Green Negro Women". No idea what they are banging on about - but very fine band.
Shoey they are phenominal. I think the smart money might be on them for the list this week. Not sure how francophone/phile Rob is mais on verra! All power to MmeChoucroute if they make it. If I have time at the weekend I'll post a wee deezer 'best of' for you. They really are amazing.
And I do remember that the title is a rude word play on the word meaning penis. Go on Ejay - explain.
What, you want me to tell him about the bird and the bees?...
B'dum tish!
In all, erm, seriousness, a zob is slang indeed for wee-wee, or ding-a-ling, or willy, and they play on it in the last verse.
There's a translation here:
http://www.elyrics.net/read/l/les-negresses-vertes-lyrics/zobi-la-mouche-lyrics.html
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