Honolulu Lite
Now, let's allow that to sink in for a moment so you can fully consider the revolting ramifications. Yes, while you are sleeping, roaches may be nibbling on your toothbrush; the same toothbrush that you will ... well, you get the picture.
I received this particularly vomitous piece of information from Linda Smith, a public relations specialist for Combat, the roach control company.
I came to be talking with Ms. Smith because of Combat's yearly contest to find the five roachiest houses in America. Winners receive a free home treatment in June considered the Roach Solstice by nationally renowned Combat field scientist Dr. Austin Frishman, known in the business as "Dr. Cockroach." The winners also get $500 cash.
I'm not sure which is worse: receiving a surprise visit at your house by Dr. Jack Kevorkian or Dr. Cockroach. The prognosis in either case is not good.
The Combat roach contest has been going on for three years. Naturally, my question was how many winners came from Hawaii, which is home to some of the largest, fastest, scariest and generally most disagreeable roaches in the world. The answer is none. I was shocked.
Why, it's an insult! In the history of the contest, 11 homes (the first year there was only one winner) have been picked as the roachiest domiciles in the country and Hawaii does not even show up on the roach radar? It's an outrage.
I called Ms. Smith to express my righteous indignation and find out why Hawaii has been slighted. Basic ally, she said, they received no entries from Hawaii. So, that sort of shut me up.
"We'd love to get entries from Hawaii," she said. "We hear the roaches there are really large." Of course, the contest is not to find houses with large roaches, but to find houses with lots of roaches.
"I'm sure we've got some of the roachiest houses in the country," I told her proudly. "Sometimes, there are so many, they have to work in shifts."
That's when she started sharing with me little-known roach facts and control tips. And that is when I about lost my breakfast. She claimed that for every roach you see, there are 15,000 in the walls. Considering that most houses in Hawaii have single-wall construction, I found the claim a bit dubious. You have to expect a company that sells roach-control products to exaggerate a bit.
But they have done a lot of tests to see what roaches like. And that's when they found out that four out of five roaches (ironically, the same proportion of dentists) prefer Colgate toothpaste. Well, not just Colgate, but any toothpaste. Clearly, leaving your toothbrush hanging, open to the world, in one of those little toothbrush holders is not advisable. It's best, she said, to keep toothbrushes in roach-proof containers and to keep the sink and counter clean with a mixture of bleach and water.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Smith feels that using Combat products such as bait stations and insecticide gel should be part of any roach-control effort. (The gel, it should be noted, is to be spread on cracks in the wall, not on the roaches themselves.)
But the other main thing is to keep food in air-tight containers, don't leave rubbish cans open, and generally keep a clean house. That way, at least in Hawaii, the only roaches you see will be those big fellows that sneak in at night and dance with your nose.
I assured Ms. Smith that I'd alert Hawaii residents to the contest. If you have a roachy single-family house, send a one-page description to: Combat, 55 Union Street, San Francisco, CA 94111.
Our honor as Roach Capital of America is at stake.
