my greatest pet hate.. I can't help it.. I quake at the knees.. I will literally run a mile if I so much as see one of these.. I will go into panic mode.. shriek mode.. anything. if I so much as see a long antennae waving cockroach.. I abhor them.. I really truly do.. possibly the worst insect on planet earth I can possibly think of.. not to mention .. they tend to fly right AT you.. in your face.. and I'm aware their bodies are also covered in a lot of vermin ..
they are the stuff of nightmares!!

Posted by: beth | June 27, 2008 07:21 PM

way to go this is great to hear i will definetly go see the movie!

Posted by: Gavin | June 27, 2008 08:52 PM

The roach is not the one

Posted by: the one | June 27, 2008 10:12 PM

He reminds me of the Short Circuit robot. I loved that movie :)

Posted by: Elaine Vigneault | June 27, 2008 10:17 PM

I love all animals, the warm blooded sentient kind. I'm as hard core in my conviction to protect them & fight for animal rights as any Peta member. But roaches, no way, I draw the line with any concerns of sparing their life.

Honestly, I have no compassion for the diseased home invaders. I'm from Louisiana where the humidity is very high. Huge cockroaches, small ones, all sizes & types in between infested homes because they flourish & multiply in a humid environment.

They breed & lay eggs inside your walls and invade everything from silverware drawers, food cabinets, inside the oven, even your toothbrush.

When it rained hard you'd see giant cockroaches covering the whole bark of a large tree, running up it to get out the flooding, very creepy. It's gives me shivers to think about it, they were impossible to get rid of & I'm happy to live in a dry state with no roaches in my home for 12 years!

One big cockroach bit my son when he was a toddler,though we had a pesticide co. spray every 6 weeks.

Anything that is germ ridden & threatens my family's health like roaches or mosquitoes, I will exterminate.

No such thing as humanely trapping a few in La. either, unless you plan to catch hundreds at a time. They have to be exterminated unless you want to risk them hurting the health of your family.

It might be wrong if you are a true activist, but I can't help how I feel from the bad experiences dealing with roaches & having one bite my son & leaving a whelp.

Posted by: Jenna | June 27, 2008 11:44 PM

that is a very touching story. that story brought tears to my eyes. i cryed so much i could not eat the rest of my kfc or wear my fur coat or kill any more bugs. could you people at peta please forgive me for my past sins of killing and eating animals in the name of food. even as i write this letter to you guys at peta i'm crying. may all the little furry animals of this world live free and happy lifes and may all of the meat eaters of this world burn in hell.

Posted by: william | June 28, 2008 06:23 AM

Great post.

Sadly, when I was in college I was terrified of insects. I saw a cockroach and took a huge stack of textbooks and slammed it down on the cockroach - incredibly it did not die, although it was probably seriously injured as it waddled away.

I am much less afraid of insects once I read about them. Cockroaches love human dwellings because they like having all sides of their bodies touching wood to protect them from predators. They also like the humidiy of our homes.

Cockroaches are repelled by flowing air, and I have heard that they do not like catnip. Cockroaches look for any type of crumb or household mess to eat - so keep your house clean and seal up food!

Cockroaches are important for the ecosystem because they are prey for toads, hedgehogs, lizards and birds

Posted by: Maya, C.V.T. | June 28, 2008 01:03 PM

Yep, humor AND a dystopian future, just like Half-Life 2.

And william, ease up on the hatred there, making the Left look worse than the Right.

Posted by: Dr. Breen | June 29, 2008 10:48 PM

Thanks Peta for providing creative ways to deal humanely with cockroaches.
I always appreciate the most misunderstood and detested being given a voice.

Posted by: lynda downie | June 30, 2008 03:05 AM

GO Will- good job on coming over to the good side. I also wish I could be forgiven for the many years of cruelty- veal etc. I am so glad with this story cause I think that all creatures great and small should have the right to live. Even insects. Unfortunatly my family isnt the same as me ( My auntie has a bunny scarf- EVIL) Well- GO PETA- U ROCK

Posted by: Rory | June 30, 2008 07:53 AM

A roach can survive in a nuclear war...we won't. So obvoiusly, they're doing something right...for eating crap all day!

Posted by: MeL | June 30, 2008 08:42 AM

WALL-E - great movie, great message.

The roach, however, wasn't in the movie that much. I think it was more as a pun than a "pro-roach" movie (the whole "If we have a nuclear war, the only thing that will survive is roaches and Cher" thing..come to think of it, woulda been KILLER if she coulda had a voice in the movie...)

(BTW Maya, I didn't know about the catnip thing..good to know..)

Posted by: Tabitha | June 30, 2008 11:29 AM

It is possible to humanely control roaches, but it does require a bit of determination and time.

A few years ago I moved into a new apartment and it was infested--even before I moved anything in there were tons of roaches crawling around the empty apartment.

I went to a hardware store and bought several tubes of clear caulking and essentially filled up every crack that they could squeeze through. I also started keeping plugs in drains when not using sinks or tubs. I wiped everything down with vinegar and added dried bay leaves to all kitchen drawers.

This process was time consuming and took me nearly 2 weeks of work, but it paid off in then end because my apt became 100% roach free and I never had to think about it again.

Aside from being inhumane, sprays and traps need to be consistantly re-applied. Fixing the problem once and for all was much more satisfying and effective for the long term. :)

Posted by: Mylie | June 30, 2008 01:31 PM

Will go see the movie, sounds cute. But Jenna, you need a little therapy...you are kind of scary. No need to condem folks to burn in Hell, instead......educate!

Posted by: bunny girl | June 30, 2008 02:16 PM

Wait. Did I seriously just spend 5 minutes of my life reading about how to humanely kill COCKROACHES? Really??? People, come on.

Posted by: Carrie | June 30, 2008 04:11 PM

What next, ban fly swatters? Ban antibiotics?
Sorry, PETA, I'm a vegetarian who loves and greatly admires about 80% of what you do, but it's stuff like this and the rest of the 20% that keeps me from wearing PETA shirts or bearing their stickers.
I say we protect sentient and intelligent life forms (sorry roaches and e coli).
I have a feeling that at the core of this ethical dilemma is that some in the animal rights movement place humans at the same value as all other animals, including cucarachas. This is a very dangerous, slippery slope!

Posted by: Mojave | June 30, 2008 05:45 PM

re Mylie's prevent roach infestation solution .. my guess is that most likely they all scuttled off pronto to someone ELSE's apartment instead then ? ..

Posted by: bet | June 30, 2008 07:39 PM

Even though roaches have a higher tolerance for radiation, most would still die from other factors, such as no humans to feed them.

Posted by: Dr. Breen | June 30, 2008 10:50 PM

You hug a roach and lemme know what it does for you. My guess is- you will get germs and have allergies by the time the hug is over. PETA- sometimes I am on your bandwaggon and I have even given up eating meat due to a 30 Days documentary on animal rights. However, you need to draw the line somewhere. It is impossible for people to live in harmony with roaches. They bring nothing to the table but their nastiness. Let's get real here. You should choose your battle's wisely. I don't find anything wrong with killing a roach. A roach and I will never be "friends". And a roach isn't smart enough to "settle a score" nor does it have any common sense. I have more by getting rid of a pest that carries diseases that could potentially get me sick. Even if I saw this movie- my beliefs wouldn't be swayed.

Posted by: BBR | July 1, 2008 12:36 PM

I love cockroaches! I personally think they're sooo adorable! I totally want to get one as a pet just like WALL-E!!!

Posted by: phill | July 1, 2008 01:47 PM

BBR, I know what you mean, it sure is hard to feel any sympathy for insects who can make our lives a living hell!

However, it's worth noting that traditional trapping methods only get a certain number of cockroaches, then people are surprised when more just replace them.

At this point, people will resort to spraying pesticides, which ironically kill many cockroach predators. Insectivorous migratory birds eat thousands of insects every day.

But pesticides are causing widespread extinction of many migratory birds, plus many cockroach predators!

We're killing off our non toxic, natural insect control species, while using toxins that are extremely detrimental to children and humans in general. We might even contribute to cancer and alzthimer's disease by using these chemicals.

Exclusion is the best way to rid our homes of cockroaches, rodents etc. Sealing up the home is non toxic and saves us on energy bills. It is a long-term, eco friendly solution.

;)

Posted by: Maya, CVT | July 1, 2008 04:43 PM

I guess at the end of the day.. all creatures have a right to live (yes..sigh .. including cockroaches).. except roaches sharing same habitat with humans (frankly with any other creature) is highly exceedingly undesirable.. due to their high vermin toxicity.. and the way they will scuttle about over anything yes. including you!!

Posted by: bet | July 1, 2008 05:09 PM

*beh* There's roaches in my apartment too. They're totally harmless. Perhaps maybe I'm just in the Pacific Northwest I guess.

The thing is, just trust those roaches and try to work with them, especially while moving them out and away. FIRST IS FIRST! No food scraps around. They LOVE grains and processed noodle crumbs.

One bit of those attracted LOTS! Once I removed the food bits, they just keep away.

I mean if the whole apartment worked together in repelling roaches....things would work out. I mean leave a bit of minimal food elsewhere...so they'd stay out.

Besides, it's always good to do yer best, especially with all forms of life. No guilt, no regret, "change is a constant" as they say.

Posted by: pest | July 1, 2008 07:29 PM

Cockroaches are Earth's headcrabs [pests]

Posted by: Dr. Breen | July 1, 2008 10:23 PM

You chaps seem confused. Apparently you are all for not killing things provided they don't inconvienience you or your home and provided they don't look horrible.

To kill a roach must surely be against priciples held by PETA.

And I think 'the awesome folks at Pixar' helped create Finding Nemo, a film that has led to the clown fish being very much in danger of becoming extinct and on ever kids 'pet list'.

Posted by: Paul | July 7, 2008 11:13 AM