Las cucarachas

Poison!

It’s all fun and games until Harmony hears secondhand that cockroaches bite people in their sleep.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we spotted a multi-legged visitor while cruising around the Sea of Cortez. I picked up some cockroach traps in Los Mochis a couple weeks back and thought they were working (they use pheromones to attract the cockroaches, then kill them with poison). Unfortunately, while washing dishes the other night, I saw several of them just hanging out (the cockroaches here seem so nonchalant, no sense of urgency). THEN when I told someone at the marina about it, he informed me that they have been known to bite people while they’re sleeping. I don’t know if this is true, but I’m not planning any scientific experiments, and I’m certainly not going to wait around to find out. It’s clearly time for our uninvited guests to leave.

Cockroaches prefer dark, damp, enclosed places. It just so turns out that our boat is basically a network of dark, damp, enclosed spaces. A cockroaches dream come true. I cleared the boat out yesterday, cleaned any compartment I could access and sprayed a fumigant that claims to be “safe for your family.” Though, I tend to not trust Johnson and Johnson on most things relating to my personal or familial safety. Tack and I took a “field trip” to the dock, while we let the fumigant settle.

Another good way to combat the creatures is to not feed them – cut off their food source and starve them out. Most (if not all of our food) is in airtight containers, so that helps. Unfortunately I’m sure there are enough crumbs scattered about to sustain a small army.

Today I’m on the hunt for more traps and boric acid or diatomaceous earth, which I can sprinkle in all the nooks and crannies (we used to use diatomaceous earth around the house when our family dog had fleas). Apparently, you can also make some pretty lethal cookies – just swap boric acid, diatomaceous earth or baking soda for the flour and don’t scrimp on the fat and sugar (the things that cockroaches crave). Baking soda works by making them so bloated that they die (a terrible way to go). Maybe I’ll prepare some cookies on our passage…I’ll let you know how this little domestic battle progresses.

Having cockroaches on our boat is like a rite of passage in Mexico. I swear that I have bonded with countless people over our mutual desire to rid our homes of cockroaches. In some weird way it makes me feel less like a tourist here.

On a side note, even though I’m about to get all Xena Warrior Princess on these cockroaches, I just have to acknowledge how incredibly cool they are. Did you know that there are more than 4,000 species and they’ve been around for about 350 million years? Neither did I, but it’s pretty impressive.

 Update: I can’t find boric acid or diatomaceous earth to save my life (partly because I have no idea how to say diatomaceous earth in spanish). Even baking soda is hard to come by (oddly enough), though I can find baking powder? Are these different things? I also picked up some caramel like poison goo that the guys at Home Depot told me was top shelf roach killer.