The Roaches Terminator From Borneo

(Third Saturday of November 2010)

The American Roaches and their allies

I have been staying in my on campus apartment for almost four months, and I am getting to love it. Apaporn and I like to beautify our apartment. Every time we go to the Wal-mart, we will buy home decorations and furniture. Both of us will decorate every part of our apartment with our own creativity. Apaporn helped me to decorate the living room with Borneo native decorations that I brought back from home. In the kitchen, I arranged two stalks of yellow orchid in a small vase and put the flowers next to my microwave. I could not believe the orchids made my white kitchen looked alive. I want to say my apartment as “My Home Sweet Home”. However, the sweetness disappears when families of American roaches and allies have made a territory in my kitchen.

Since the first day, of my stay in my apartment, I have a problem with this creepy insect. They will creep at night around my kitchen cabinets, looking for food. When I enter to my kitchen area, they will start to run away hiding from me. Once I am not around, they will have roach social events outside of my kitchen cabinets. There was one time; I met two big roaches sneaked around my living room. Both of them ignored me as the master of the apartment and played in front of me. It seemed that they knew I did not have extra money to buy the roach baits. I could imagine they laughed at me with their smirking smiling faces. I told to the both of them that they would get a big punishment from me. Anyway, they just ignored me and proudly crept in front of me before disappeared behind of a small closet.

I can categorize the roaches into three groups based on their sizes and colors. I call the first is the American roaches. They are bigger in size compares to the other groups and in red- brown color. The second group is Oriental roaches. They are almost like dark brown, big Bornean cockroaches. The last group is the tiny, light, pale color German roaches. Three groups from three different continents unite to invade the privacy of a Dayung. Before Apaporn staying with me, I had to cover all my food with plastic or keep in containers. I never let the roaches polluted and stole my precious food. They overruled me. The first war, they defeated me, but I never wanted to surrender to them. I just waited for the right moment attacking them back.

The war began

On the Saturday morning, Apaporn complained about the roaches. She noticed that the roaches were increasing day by day.

“Dency, the cockroaches are increasing now? They are so daring now. They even enter into my rice cooking pot.” Apaporn raised her eyebrows concerning about the roaches problem in our apartment.

“I can’t take it anymore. I declare a war with them. I already receive my allowance. We shall buy roaches baits. We will control their emergence.” I made a fist and pounded into the air, imitating Mohammad Ali’s punches.

That evening, we went to a mini supermarket that is located behind of our apartment, looking for the roaches baits. I bought two boxes and each box contains six baits. I put all twelve baits at strategic corners, especially in kitchen cabinets. The war between The Dayung and The United Roaches had begun.

Dayung won

The first day of the war, we did not see any changes in our kitchen. They still crept arrogantly in our kitchen. Second day and third day no changes at all. However, on the fourth day, Apaporn alerted me that ten roaches lay aimlessly on the kitchen floor. I was glad to hear the happy news, and immediately wrote down the total number of dead roaches on a small white board in the kitchen. Apaporn swept all the dead ten roaches out from our apartment. On the next day, the dead number increased to 17. The number increased day by day until on the fifth day, the dead number started to decrease. On the 10th day, the number of dead stated at only five. Since that day, the number maintained below than five deaths. I drew a statistic graft and the graft shape was just like a bell shape but skewed to the left of the graft. After getting a satisfactory result based on the graft, I declared the end of the big war between The Dayung and The United Roaches. I was satisfied as I managed to control the creeping insect in my apartment.

The big war has over, but the hardest groups still creep around my apartment. It takes a long period to terminate all of them. I need to figure out other baits that can kill all of them effectively. Probably I shall hire pest controllers to terminate this little insect. However, I need to fork out some of my allowance to pay them. I just resort for a cheap controlling insect method. In addition, I need to maintain high hygienic in the kitchen.

“Spam!” I kill a little German roach that walk in front of me, using my book. I am not a cruel person, but the roaches are very disgusting creature that can carry many diseases. When are they going to leave me alone or migrate out from my apartment? They can migrate to the garbage dirty areas or invade apartments that the occupants are willing to accept and feed them. I do not have the right answer for that question.