[HN Gopher] We turned the tide in the roach wars
___________________________________________________________________
We turned the tide in the roach wars
Author : tptacek
Score : 208 points
Date : 2023-12-27 15:33 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| munchler wrote:
| Let me save you a click and a long read: the innovation is Combat
| roach traps, which contain a poison bait that a roach brings back
| to the nest and transfers to other roaches. This resulted in a
| 93% drop in roach complaints in one survey.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| It was entertaining, though.
| leetcrew wrote:
| these do work well in my experience, but there is a tradeoff to
| consider if you live in a large apartment building. if you have
| roaches in your unit, your neighbors probably do too. if you
| use this kind of trap, you might attract everyone else's
| roaches to your apartment. it can be an unpleasant few weeks as
| they all stumble out to die, one by one. if the infestation is
| really large, this basically never ends.
|
| if you have a decent landlord, I recommend trying to engage
| them first. they can hire someone to spray _all_ the units, so
| you don 't have to turn your place into a roach graveyard.
| jghn wrote:
| The large apartment building issue is a big one. I lived in a
| building (10 stories, 70 units plus commercial space on
| floors 1-3) for ~10 years. The first several years were
| great, not a single pest of any sort. And then the roaches
| (German cockroaches) started to show up.
|
| The problem was that once they got into the building they
| were impossible to eradicate everywhere as no one, including
| the owners, were willing to bite the bullet and treat it as a
| whole-building problem. So instead you'd get little pockets
| of treatment and a never ending cycle was created.
|
| Years later in our house we found and killed a single German
| cockroach. And of course, living in a city, if you find one
| that means there are many more. We were terrified. But after
| a single treatment by a pest control company we haven't seen
| any other activity for several years. Still have no idea if
| somehow we *did* only have that single one or what. But I'm
| not complaining.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Years later in our house we found and killed a single
| German cockroach. And of course, living in a city, if you
| find one that means there are many more.
|
| Being in a city has nothing to do with it. Cockroaches are
| social, like sheep (or humans). If you live in a city and
| you find a spider, it was just the one spider. If you live
| in the remote wilderness and you find a cockroach, it was
| hundreds of cockroaches.
| jghn wrote:
| The point I was raising was regarding the different
| species of cockroaches. In rural areas there are species
| that primarily live outside but can find their way
| inside. German cockroaches tends to be more urban and
| indoors, so if you see one you can't hand wave it away as
| having just having hitched a ride into your house.
| jurassic wrote:
| I had the same experience in a big building. I basically
| rendered my own kitchen unsafe for human food preparation
| with all the poisons I tried, but still it hardly made a
| dent because there was a near infinite population of german
| cockroaches waiting to recolonize my unit from the walls
| and surrounding units.
| ne8il wrote:
| I had the same situation recently - a single German
| cockroach chilling on the front of our dishwasher. Being
| sufficiently terrified by reading r/whatisthisbug and the
| like, I had a pest control company out the next day to
| treat. They could find no signs of infestation and I
| haven't seen a single one since (and we did set out traps
| to monitor). The Orkin guy who came out said it's not
| uncommon for a lone individual to venture into a home.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| Interesting,
|
| Advion is what people in NYC swear by (It does the same thing)
| duxup wrote:
| Traps that do the same with ants has worked for me too. Put it
| out, they swarm it and after a bit ... they're all gone.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Doesn't work reliably against Argentine ants; they form
| supercolonies so even if you take out one or two queens, it
| may not be enough.
|
| [edit]
|
| AFAIK, it's still the best way, but it's not the near 100%
| knockout it can be against other ant species.
| Slevin11 wrote:
| Only thing I've had that worked against argentine ants was
| termidor sc. Non repellent, and slow kill time. Spray it on
| an active walkway, and it will slowly spread through the
| colony and kill them all off. Again, supercolonies, so it
| isn't a perfect solution. But it's the only thing that
| works for me for 6+ months at a time. Then, I have to spray
| again as soon as I see another Argentine.
| wincy wrote:
| We have effective pest control for roaches, probably developed
| around the same time. Using growth regulators like Gentrol make
| it so the cockroaches can't breed effectively, so after a
| generation or two they go extinct. Somehow roaches got into our
| suburban home and I was able to destroy them using this method.
| Pesticides and roach bait didn't do much -- the growth regulators
| were key in permanently removing the infestation.
|
| I'd guess the difficulty in a place like New York is similar to
| the problem I'm having with mice because we have a forest behind
| the house -- an essentially endless reservoir of new roaches
| living in the pipes and throughout the city.
|
| Source: was professional exterminator about 15 years ago. Growth
| regulators were the only thing that worked.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Yeah I've combined two products, Gentrol and Invict Gold. The
| combination nukes large populations.
| klodolph wrote:
| Speaking of New York--everyone's story with roaches is that
| they get them when a new neighbor moves in. You can't get rid
| of roaches in your apartment as long as your neighbors
| contribute the steady stream of new roaches.
| lbotos wrote:
| Its... wildly accurate.
|
| Neighbors decided they were tired of tenants and roach
| problems so they _removed the kitchen_ from their rented
| apartment.
|
| Roach problem went away for them and me.
|
| I will randomly get a few waterbugs
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_cockroach) which are
| alarming but it's usually when temps are dramatically
| changing.
| jghn wrote:
| I lived in a large building that developed a roach problem.
| They were able to identify the original culprit. It turned
| out that when they mapped the complaints about roaches in
| units, it was radiating outwards over time from a single
| unit.
|
| Not that that made life any easier once the buggers took over
| the building, but hey
| henrikschroder wrote:
| It is also unfortunately rather common that the person
| living in the source apartment never complains about having
| roach problems, never admits to having a roach problem, and
| certainly don't want to let people in to check or fix it.
| Which leaves _everyone else_ angry and in a perpetual loop
| of infestations.
| trgn wrote:
| Yep. Prolonged vacancy is bad too. Usually pest problems are
| highest when moving in, and then keeping a place clean and
| occupied is the best way to maintain pest-free apartment.
| wincy wrote:
| Interesting, that makes sense. I lived in an apartment with 8
| units back in my exterminator days, and my landlord was more
| than happy to let me in to all 8 of them to do a thorough
| spray.
|
| It was much harder to spray apartment complexes with hundreds
| of units and treating for roaches in every single unit was
| prohibitively expensive (or my boss was a cheapskate, I don't
| know), so we'd only do targeted treatment where we had seen
| roaches and surrounding units.
|
| Single family homes were much easier to treat. I strongly
| suspect we got roaches in our single family house when a home
| care nurse brought them with her, along with a bed bug! I
| almost died when I saw that monstrosity, luckily we avoided
| an infestation, those are 10x worse than any cockroach. You
| do not want bed bugs.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Cockroaches can be imported by a _person_? How on earth
| does that happen.
| j4yav wrote:
| All it takes is one pregnant cockroach in a box
| somewhere. They will often hide in electronic devices.
| danielbln wrote:
| Step on one, eggs stick to the shoe and voila.
| mountainofdeath wrote:
| Coffee makers. I once picked up a nice, high-end Keuring
| machine for free from a neighbor. Later than evening, I
| noticed something moving around it. It was full of
| roaches. I put it in a trash bag and ran to put it in the
| garbage outside. The exterminator and landlord both said
| the warmth and moisture of coffee machines is a magnet
| for roaches and coffee is their favorite snack.
| reactordev wrote:
| One more reason to ditch the kcups for the real thing
| using a french press or pour over. Use a percolator if
| you must but ditch those kcup machines. They make tiny
| single serve french presses.
|
| Coffee grounds, cardboard, paper, compost, all favorites
| of the American cockroach.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| It probably doesn't help much against a roach
| infestation, but fully automatic espresso machines make a
| good cup and keep the convenience. Ours was $1500 and has
| already paid for itself buying whole beans instead of
| k-cups.
| Avshalom wrote:
| I once had found a nest of ants inside a laptop.
|
| The laptop was on a table in the middle of a 40'x40' room
| but one day I came in, turned it on and for the next 15
| minutes ant pieces flew out of the fan exhaust.
| Joeri wrote:
| I once had bed bugs, and can attest to how nasty they are
| and how difficult to get rid of. Eventually we learned that
| none of the bed bug repellent products work, and the only
| thing that actually works is diatomaceous earth.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| > It was much harder to spray apartment complexes with
| hundreds of units and treating for roaches in every single
| unit was prohibitively expensive (or my boss was a
| cheapskate, I don't know)
|
| I lived in an apartment with ~300 units and they sprayed in
| the units at least once a year. Not sure what they were
| spraying (they said it was pet safe).
|
| But if you're the exterminator, why would your boss being a
| cheapskate have to do with it? Wouldn't they be the one
| being paid?
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| I lived in an apartment that had the kitchen redone. Once
| that happened no more roaches.
|
| Now whenever I move into a new apartment I use space filler
| foam and silicon to seal around all the possible entrencences
| bugs could use to enter my apartment internally. So far so
| good.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| My own memory of New York is that if noticed an absence of
| roaches in your apartment, that meant you had mice, and the
| mice were eating the roaches. I told a friend that (she had
| happily commented about not having roaches) and she looked
| rather alarmed. I should have kept quiet.
| rngname22 wrote:
| So much of the problem of extermination is due to SEO and
| misinformation, agree or disagree?
|
| If a poorly educated, stressed mom working two jobs googles
| "cockroaches in kitchen", what percentage of online information
| she finds is naive, misguided, maliciously lies, etc?
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Agreed. And, maybe more subversive, it's like there's some
| effort to discourage the solutions that actually work (e.g.,
| poisons and growth regulators) in favor of "natural
| solutions" that don't do any good. For instance, here's the
| top of the Google page I get for "cockroaches in kitchen."
|
| https://img.bigchief.wtf/i/cf993b56-5831-4d4a-974f-4860158db.
| ..
| genewitch wrote:
| boric acid is extremely effective. I use _only_ boric acid,
| and i live in a forest. I put the powder under the stove,
| around the edges of cabinets, under the fridge, etc. After
| a new dusting (every 3-4 months or more) the carcasses will
| show up, maybe a half dozen.
|
| And if you want a spray to kill insects you can see and
| watch, IPA (rubbing alcohol) and mint extract works fine.
| Except against centipedes.
|
| For ants boric acid works sometimes, but so does talc or
| diatomaceous earth. However this stops them from tracking
| while you clean up whatever they're after. In my experience
| dealing with sugar ants, pissants, RIFA (fire ants from
| south america), fire ants (red ants in CA), and so on; the
| only 100% effective way to get rid of them is to put
| popcorn kernels in a blender and chop it till everything is
| smaller than 1/16" or so, and leave that somewhere moisture
| can't get to it. Ants eat it and bring it back to the nest
| to eat and then explode. I can't verify they actually
| explode, but that's the mechanism of action.
|
| AFAIK boric acid and DE aren't harmful to humans, and corn
| and rubbing alcohol are usually fairly safe.
| teamspirit wrote:
| Isn't that problem with everything now and Google search? I
| can't find information that I can confidently trust to be
| genuine. Just SEO spam.
|
| Recently I was looking for information on better food and
| treats for diabetic dogs and was inundated with so much bs I
| gave up.
| wincy wrote:
| I mean from a cursory glance, yeah Googling it doesn't look
| great. Baking soda, diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and bay
| leaves come up as the top results. I didn't even consider any
| of those having worked for a few years in my early 20s as an
| exterminator. Right when I quit we were starting to use the
| "green options" like eucalyptus oil spray if people requested
| but they barely did anything. They were mostly for paranoid
| people with too much money who didn't really have bugs in the
| first place. We weren't spraying apartment buildings (which
| often had the most problems) with that stuff.
|
| More broadly to your point, I am certain recipes and diet
| advice at least are totally captured by SEO with bad advice.
| My cooking has improved so much now that I stopped Googling
| recipes and mostly consult Kenji's Food Lab book. For fat
| loss, I've lost 80 pounds mostly eating tons of fat and
| completely cutting out sugars/grains. The Internet is in a
| sad state where a Google search that can make someone money
| will often steer you wrong.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I guess growth regulators must be pretty well tested because
| the concept is inherently quite scary, but it is still a bit
| scary to an uninformed person like myself, haha, so I'll ask
| the dumb question. No side effects in humans, right? Your
| customers could still have kids?
| wincy wrote:
| It's a good question. I treated my own apartment building for
| roaches many years ago, five years later had a completely
| healthy kid, she's 8 now. For the sake of full disclosure, my
| second kid has a pretty major birth defect (spina bifida) but
| this was after the first healthy kid and before we developed
| a roach problem at our current house (one of the home care
| nurses actually brought them in) and treated for that, and
| many many years after I'd stopped being an exterminator, so
| the timelines of exposure -> birth defect don't really line
| up.
|
| The spray isn't an aerosol, you apply it under corners and in
| places kids shouldn't be able to reach. I'm not a chemist,
| but I know you'd have a real bad time if you drank it
| straight.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I always worry about the poisons for creatures that want
| our food because, well, they seem likely to track it into
| the place we keep our food! But I guess the plan is mostly
| not to eat food from containers that the roaches have
| gotten into in the first place.
| wincy wrote:
| Indeed, chemicals are scary, we trashed our entire
| pantry. It's just not worth the risk. When you spray the
| focus for roaches is generally on cracks and crevices
| though, places roaches like to hang out and places humans
| shouldn't be very often. It took about three months after
| spraying the growth regulator to have them fully
| disappear from the house.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Hm your anecdata is pretty concerning..
| wincy wrote:
| I don't disagree with you, but I wasn't going to exclude
| it from the discussion. I'm not trying to convince people
| to use IGRs or other potentially dangerous chemicals. We
| all have our risk tolerances and while I don't think it's
| related, it's also worth stating.
|
| If I thought there was a correlation, I'd for sure sue.
| But the birth defect my daughter has is often caused by a
| lack of vitamin B at a vital part of the gestation
| process. I hadn't been an exterminator or sprayed my
| house for bugs for that matter for over a decade when she
| was born, and my wife and I had a perfectly healthy kid
| three years before. The roach treatment in my house
| occurred years after my daughter with a birth defect was
| born. The correlation is extremely weak at best.
|
| Furthermore, while I'm not saying it's impossible, but in
| my mind it feels very unlikely, especially as my wife was
| never exposed to any of those chemicals. Also, it's not a
| genetic defect, which would come from the father, but
| more a mechanical one in gestation (failure to fully
| develop and build the spinal cord).
| bee_rider wrote:
| Anecdata is not a thing.
|
| I think this kind of data must be collected systemically,
| and if it isn't, it is a failure to ask lawmakers about,
| not ex-pest-control professionals.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Anecdata is recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary
| [1] and has been around since the 1940s.
|
| That being said, the usage here probably doesn't mean
| what the downvoted commenter was implying.
|
| [1] https://www.oed.com/dictionary/anecdata_n
| pandaman wrote:
| Given that roaches were affected by the GHI it appears they
| were immune to other pesticides and were not simply evading
| bait/poison? It could be the issue with the pesticides sold to
| consumers being too weak (understandable, as some consumers
| _will_ try to consume those despite any warning labels and the
| vast majority won 't be using any PPE while applying).
| wincy wrote:
| I don't think it's an issue of pesticides being "too weak for
| consumers". You can buy all the same stuff as an
| exterminator[0] (use PPE and follow the labeling, don't break
| laws, etc), but when you spray you'll notice a huge
| knockdown, hundreds will die, but it only takes a breeding
| pair to get right back to an infestation in a few months.
| Generally when doing roach infestation treatments you do a
| multi tiered approach, with max legal mixes of pesticide +
| growth inhibitors in your spray then putting down bait in
| spots that you DID NOT spray (or they won't ingest the bait).
| They're just resilient little buggers. Spiders are actually
| harder to treat, but most people don't end up with spider
| infestations. And then bed bugs are in a class of their own
| in terms of awfulness and difficulty of elimination.
|
| [0] https://www.domyown.com
| rascul wrote:
| Which roach bait products have you had success with?
| pandaman wrote:
| I do buy industrial strength pesticides on Amazon but
| apparently if you were to buy off a reputable supplier
| you'd need to give your exterminator credentials. I spray
| Bayer's Polyzone outside and use Tempo between walls/floor
| and cabinets and see a dead roach inside every quarter or
| so (there are commercial food establishments nearby so
| roaches are just roaming the streets). Never bothered with
| GHI as the pesticides already do a great job.
| tsss wrote:
| In Germany you certainly can't. They would outlaw handsoap
| if they could get away with it.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| Thanks for this link and your replies in this thread. As
| someone who had to feverishly dust boric acid around my
| kitchen last summer (because in Washington state, it seems
| many online stores like Amazon don't want to ship anything
| effective. Maybe regulations?), I'm looking forward to
| trying out Vendetta Plus or something similar if these
| German roaches return.
| naremu wrote:
| Incidentally I've actually found "natural" solutions like
| boric acid and diatomaceous earth to be wildly effective
| (in killing/reducing established populations, not
| preventing new ones), if a bit unsightly and inconvenient
| to have lying around in piles to actually force the
| critters into crawling into them.
|
| I probably ought still spend a day off sealing everything
| I can, though. Probably more pragmatic and less
| technically barbaric.
| capybara_2020 wrote:
| Any suggestions for mosquitoes? It feels like the roach problem
| is a solved problem. But mosquitoes not so much.
| mshockwave wrote:
| I know many tropical countries have successful stories
| fighting mosquitos by simply removing every single place that
| might contain water: ponds, flower pots etc.
| wincy wrote:
| Mosquitoes I'd normally focus on doing a full yard treatment
| of a granular, we'd use bifenthrin back in my day, no idea
| what they're using now (but bifenthrin is still on sale), you
| can use a spreader from Home Depot and it just takes a light
| dusting.
|
| But as a sibling comment said, making sure your gutters don't
| have standing water, or that there are little ponds without
| fish, is going to be your best bet. A big problem is going to
| be stuff near you, as their range can be 1-3 miles.
|
| So, live in a well developed area with lots of people around
| taking care to avoid mosquitoes? You're right it's a hard
| one.
| notatoad wrote:
| it's not going to eradicate them, but if you just want your
| patio clear for an evening thermocell (and the knock-off
| refills from aliexpress) work great.
|
| removing standing water on your property is a good start, but
| mosquitoes are a lot more mobile than roaches, so you'll need
| to do a lot bigger area than a normal residential lot for it
| to be very effective.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Deet. You just need to keep em off you.
|
| Also fine fly screens reduce it to an outside problem.
| 1ifecoder wrote:
| Totally agree about using bait with reproduction control for
| roaches. I tried almost every roach control thing from Walmart
| and Home Depot and called multiple exterminators, but then I
| found Vendetta Plus Gel Bait. It's a birth control-based Gel
| bait that kills all German roaches hiding in the house. Wish
| the big stores would sell only that instead of all this other
| useless crap.
| artur_makly wrote:
| do they make one for Argentine/Porteno roaches?
| plasma_beam wrote:
| Interesting, wasn't previously aware of Vendetta. I feel like
| all conversations about eradicating roaches need to
| distinguish between 1) getting rid of german cockroaches and
| 2) getting rid of any other cockroach. I've had less success
| with the former, especially within a row home in Baltimore
| built in the 1910s. You need to get in the walls and under
| floorboards to eradicate the issue with the germans.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > essentially endless reservoir of new roaches
|
| We have a similar problem with box-elder bugs. About 3 years
| ago there was a massive explosion of them statewide and now we
| have thousands coming into the house every fall and staying
| until summer. They don't seem to live very long, but reproduce
| rapidly and since we have a lot of box-elder maples on the
| property, among many other trees, there's a constant supply of
| them.
|
| They're harmless, but ugly and annoying as hell and so far
| impossible to get rid of.
| mountainofdeath wrote:
| Also, cats. I now have two cats and now I average 1-2 American
| roach sightings a year.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Getting rid of an infestation of roaches in a detached home is
| much easier than out of an apartment. It is pretty much
| impossible! But you can seal up holes.
| kleton wrote:
| This kind of filler-laden writing will be quickly eradicated,
| like the cockroach, but by AI. I had bing or copilot, whatever
| microsoft is calling it in the edge sidebar answer the question I
| clicked the bait for.
|
| > According to the article, they solved the cockroach infestation
| by using a new product called Combat, which was a bait that
| contained a slow-acting poison that could kill roaches through
| various mechanisms of transfer, such as feces, vomit,
| cannibalism, and necrophagy. The bait was attractive to roaches
| and could wipe out entire colonies, even if only a fraction of
| them ate it. The product was developed by American Cyanamid, a
| chemical company, and tested by Austin Frishman, a cockroach
| expert. The product was launched in 1985 and became a huge
| success, reducing cockroach complaints and populations across the
| country. The article claims that this was a forgotten achievement
| in the history of pest control, and that the roaches are slowly
| coming back due to behavioral resistance to the bait.
|
| Source: Conversation with Bing, 12/27/2023 (1) The Cockroach Cure
| - The Atlantic.
| https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2023/11/cockroa....
| (2) Cockroach Infestation - Signs, Prevention, and Control of
| Roaches. https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/cockroach-
| infestation.... (3) How To Get Rid Of Roaches - This Old House.
| https://www.thisoldhouse.com/pest-control/reviews/how-to-get....
| (4) How To Get Rid Of Roaches - Forbes Home.
| https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/pest-control/how-to-....
| makeworld wrote:
| It was entertaining to read.
| oconnor663 wrote:
| I think it's a transcript of a podcast, to be fair. But yeah I
| had the same reaction.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| >This kind of filler-laden writing will be quickly eradicated
|
| It's a transcript of a podcast. I agree it was annoying to
| read, but the purpose of a podcast is not maximum-efficiency
| transmission of information.
| throwawaysugar wrote:
| > It's a transcript of a podcast.
|
| That's almost the perfect definition of "lazy journalism".
|
| Not to mention it litters the actual cockroach topic with
| writerly pontification on a specific subset of NY culture,
| some distorted view of valor, and generational differences.
|
| It's tiring. It's also part of what makes NY so unattractive
| these days.
| striking wrote:
| Is it such a travesty that someone decided to include a
| personal anecdote as a throughline? Does every article
| published need to be hard-hitting _" journalism"_?
|
| Sometimes it's nice to listen to something with some
| personality, something that isn't so plain. I'm not in a
| rush today.
| throwawaysugar wrote:
| There's a whole world between "including a personal
| anecdote" and "making the entire article about your
| anecdote and sprinkling in some actual content"
|
| No, I don't care about their kids and whether they are
| brave or not. What does that have to do with cockroaches?
| Who _cares_ about their kids? Why are we even talking
| about kids here?
| Hovertruck wrote:
| >> It's a transcript of a podcast.
|
| > That's almost the perfect definition of "lazy
| journalism".
|
| They produced, edited, interviewed multiple people
| including one of the people who worked directly on the
| project in question, and then provided a transcript of
| their conversation to make it accessible to a wider
| audience and that's lazy journalism?
| moogleii wrote:
| Agree there was a lot of filler, but to be fair, your odd
| out-of-place zinger is just as annoying as the podcast.
| Fairly unattractive. And the cycle continues.
| throwawaysugar wrote:
| Except this is a comment section for discussion, so it's
| appropriate to discuss and point out this issue which
| IMHO contaminates nearly all forms of media today.
| webdoodle wrote:
| All good conversations ebb and flow, and the interview
| process is just trying to distill the conversation to some
| entertaining or useful end. Some would use A.I. in an attempt
| to distill it more, and may find some gem or morsel worth
| consuming, but miss the depth and value of the conversation
| itself. It may be time saving for information transfer, but
| at the expense of the connection that a conversation grants
| the participants (and to a slightly lesser degree listeners).
|
| Remember that this technology was developed for the NSA
| because of the data deluge it's surveillance systems created.
| Who had time to listen to hours of recorded phone calls
| looking for potential dangerous activity? Speech to text
| helped alleviate the problem for a short while, but when the
| internet took away the monopoly the phone companies had on
| long-distance calls, the volume of international calls went
| ballistic, and the NSA needed a way of filtering the data to
| something more useful. In comes A.I. to the rescue!
| IshKebab wrote:
| Who wants to read a transcript of a podcast. 99% invisible
| does this so much better - a long podcast with all the
| details, accompanied by a short article with photos. More
| work of course, but that's what the AI solves.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| People who can't hear, just for example?
|
| And fwiw, "this isn't condensed enough" could be applied to
| 100% of novels, achieving a 100% compression rate, since
| none of it is useful.
|
| I'm very sorry if you're the one person with a cockroach
| infestation that _has_ to be eradicated _right now_ and you
| critically depend on the information in this one article
| and don 't have access to any other resources, but maybe
| just accept that there are different writing styles for
| different things, audiences, and even over time for the
| same person.
| IshKebab wrote:
| > People who can't hear, just for example?
|
| I don't see why people who can't hear would like to read
| a transcript of a podcast rather than an article either.
| datameta wrote:
| While I will certainly find AI summarization useful I think in
| this case the summary misses the human experiential component
| that we get from the recollections of the host and guest.
| ninkendo wrote:
| Precisely what I don't care to read. Especially when they
| start the article giving background, tease that there's an
| important thing coming, and then instead of getting to the
| point, it starts an interview which resets the conversation
| back to talking about the background again. I absolutely
| hated everything about the way this article was written.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Might you share what your question was? Or did you simply
| say "summarize"
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| I understand what you mean, but if you subscribe to the
| Atlantic it's because you actually want long form writing from
| some of the best essayists of our time.
|
| It's not for everyone. Especially when our attention spans are
| shorter than ever.
| joenot443 wrote:
| To be fair, this one is a transcription of a podcast. It's
| not really the kind of long form writing Atlantic is famous
| for, so I can understand the GP wanting a shorter version.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I agree about the writing, and I gave up on the article.
|
| How do you know it's accurate? How do you know which details
| are accurate? For example, was it called Combat, or was that
| another product in the article (maybe a failed one)? What
| important information was omitted?
|
| Issues like that make the summary useless, IMHO. (Not a
| criticism, but a point about the value of information with
| unknown accuracy.)
| graphe wrote:
| AI summaries have been common on Reddit for almost a decade
| now. Where does the problem of "accuracy" come in? They
| weren't even using LLMs
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How does that address the issue? Being common on Reddit (or
| any social media) isn't evidence of a good idea. It could
| be just as accurate or inaccurate on Reddit, for years.
|
| > "accuracy"
|
| How could there be scare quotes around accuracy? You
| question its reality or importance?
| graphe wrote:
| Where is there ANY evidence that these summaries aren't
| accurate? Until you produce it, it's as substantial as
| ghosts and evil spirits.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The burden of proof is the reverse, in any field of
| knowledge it's on the person making the claim. I could
| make up anything in the world (and many people do); it's
| the requirement for support that separates truth from
| fiction, science from fraud, fact from misinformation.
| You can't publish a scientific paper without evidence,
| and say 'it's true until someone proves otherwise'; it's
| false until you prove it. Same in a courtroom or anywhere
| else.
|
| Until there is sufficient evidence that the summary is
| accurate, there's no reason to believe that it is.
|
| fwiw, all caps is against HN guidelines. I'm mentioning
| it because there seems to be a rash of it this week.
| graphe wrote:
| > The burden of proof is the reverse, in any field of
| knowledge it's on the person making the claim.
|
| You made an unprovoked claim of inaccuracy based on what?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The universal, clever retort! Let's agree then that
| nothing is demonstrated without sufficient evidence.
| gumby wrote:
| The TL;DR is that a product was developed in the 80s that
| poisoned the roaches, but not immediately so they could return to
| the next and spread the poison. And it worked for a long while
| until the only survivors are ones that aren't attracted to the
| taste of the poison.
|
| This approach was used to suppress rabbits in Australia, us in
| the disease myxomatosis. The infected rabbit didn't die
| immediately but would return to the burrow to spread it. When I
| was a kid you could see myxie rabbits outside, dying, with pus
| coming out. Of course the survivors eventually were the ones
| immune to myxomatosis.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, you are always supposed to cycle through insecticides.
|
| And, of course, you won't ever be able to contain an species
| that occupies an otherwise unfilled niche. Make sure to
| preserve the predators and clean any artificial niche or
| populate it with some alternative species.
|
| I believe people already knew that in the turn to the 20th
| century, but somehow almost no big project anywhere does the
| full set of actions.
| troad wrote:
| > Make sure to preserve the predators and clean any
| artificial niche or populate it with some alternative
| species.
|
| Rabbits are not native to Australia, and they have no natural
| predators on the continent. Introducing new species to
| Australia's wildly unique ecosystem is rightly frowned upon
| (see rabbits, introduction of). Neither of these solutions
| would be effective.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > And it worked for a long while until the only survivors are
| ones that aren't attracted to the taste of the poison.
|
| I used that product in a vacation house in Spain and it really
| worked wonders. And that was around 2017/2018. So not all
| cockroaches have evolved yet!
| cptaj wrote:
| Another amazing product is Bravecto for ticks and fleas.
|
| I've had dogs all my life in a very tropical climate. I've
| battled with ticks for ages. It was always a combined-arms war of
| attrition just to keep them in check.
|
| But then came Bravecto which is basically a WMD/Genocide machine
| for fleas and ticks. Just one simple pill and it eradicates them
| all. It stays active for 6 months too so it really just wipes
| them out from the area and the dogs stay clean for over a year
| after that.
|
| This is a massive technological conquest, IMO
| ericmcer wrote:
| How does it work?
|
| I have always wondered how flea and tick medicine works. It
| makes your blood poisonous?
| huytersd wrote:
| It's not for people but yes, it makes the dog's blood
| "poisonous".
| krisoft wrote:
| > It makes your blood poisonous?
|
| It makes the blood poisonous to the central nervous system of
| the ticks.
|
| Here is an article about them if you prefer reading:
| https://www.petmd.com/how-do-common-tick-medications-work-
| pe...
|
| Or this video about them if you would rather watch and
| listen: https://youtu.be/4QDDHjRZIZM
| hackernewds wrote:
| if it affects flesh that way wouldn't it have clear effects
| on the internal organs? or are the biology of insects so
| much different vs mammals
|
| this kind of technology perplexes me
| positr0n wrote:
| Lots of poisons (and herbicides, and medicines too) work
| by targeting a single chemical pathway. E.g. binding to a
| specific receptor or doing something to a specific
| protein.
|
| I think insects and mammals do have pretty different
| biology, but even if they didn't it would only take one
| chemical pathway that insects used and mammals didn't
| that you could exploit.
| krisoft wrote:
| > if it affects flesh that way
|
| I assume you meant to write fleas? But in case you meant
| flesh: it does not affect muscles directly, it affects
| neuro transmission. (which of course paralyses the
| muscles)
|
| > wouldn't it have clear effects on the internal organs
|
| Excellent question. And yeah it seems invertebrates have
| different molecular mechanism enough that these drugs
| affect them and not us vertebrates.
|
| This does not appear to be 100% though. There are some,
| admittedly very rare, reports of neurological effects in
| pets. There is this[1] case for example of a
| Kooikerhondje exhibiting neurological symptoms. Luckily
| it seems at least in that case the symptoms cleared up on
| their own after about 10-11 hours.
|
| > this kind of technology perplexes me
|
| oh yeah. As far as I'm concerned "this is witchcraft" is
| actually a more satisfying answer than the reality.
|
| Caution: There is a quite distressing video embedded in
| the article showing the dog exhibiting symptoms. You
| might want to skip this one.
|
| 1: https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s
| 12917-...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| For sure. Fleas used to be impossible.
|
| Also, pantry moths. My sticky pheromone traps have pretty much
| eliminated them.
| khaki54 wrote:
| You can also buy the wasps you release to kill the pantry
| moths, haha
| AlbertCory wrote:
| let's see: on the one hand, a sticky trap I can put
| somewhere out of sight, and gives visible evidence of its
| effectiveness.
|
| On the other hand, a bunch of little insects that fly
| around and catch the other little insects.
|
| Tough choice.
| latchkey wrote:
| Is it just me or is this stuff stupid expensive (and going up
| in price over time)? I found the other one, NexGard, worked
| better with my dog for some reason. Not any less expensive
| though. That said, you are right... it works surprisingly well.
| nkurz wrote:
| > It stays active for 6 months too
|
| Are you sure it's 6 months? It's possible there might be
| different versions internationally, but the US version seems to
| claim 12 weeks (~3 months):
| https://us.bravecto.com/dogs/bravecto-for-dogs/
| cm2012 wrote:
| Roaches are very easy to exterminate with gel bait + gentrol +
| maybe powder for cracks. About $70 worth of equipment for a big
| infestation (I've solved a few for friends in NYC). It's just
| that 90% of exterminators in cities are useless, its a minimum
| wage job and its in the pest control company's interests to not
| solve the problem permanently.
| faet wrote:
| Gel bait has been huge for me. We're in an area that gets
| roaches pretty frequently. They still get in, but we'll find
| them dead and in much smaller numbers than when we used a
| spray. About 2-4/year now always dead vs ~10-15/year half of
| which were alive.
| kilolima wrote:
| The best solution to roaches I've found is to support your
| local ant colonies! Healthy ants will eat all your other bugs
| and the only drawback is having to keep your dry foods in ant-
| proof containers.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| Won't they evolve around this too at some point? I feel like the
| only truly effective way to eradicate pests long-term will end up
| being swarms of little robot predators that wipe them out by
| force.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| The article covers that point near the end.
| spydum wrote:
| But then you are just introducing two new types of bugs..
| bazzargh wrote:
| inevitably, because evolution acts on the regular expression
| of genes.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| When I was a landlord - i found foggers that I bought at Home
| Depot very effective. Nuked roach populations between tenants
| multiple times. Had personal experience living in the same unit -
| after putting out traps, fogging, and subsequently keeping the
| place clean - no more roaches. But as soon as nasty people move
| in, they come back.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| By the way, you mileage may vary based on construction etc, but
| in brick row homes where I rented - I found that roaches from
| neighbors weren't an issue. Once eliminated in my unit - I
| didn't see them coming back from the neighbors.
|
| Mice however, were much harder to control. I was never able to
| completely eliminate them. Nearly but never entirely gone -
| they travel between shared walls. In a single home - I was able
| to completely eliminate them relatively quickly and easily, but
| not in a row home.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I lived in the lower unit of a duplex that was a converted
| 1880s house and saw mice in the basement and heard neighbors'
| complaints of mice upstairs, but we never had them on the
| first floor.
|
| Later we moved to the upper unit and found that when the
| kitchen was put in to convert the house to a duplex, someone
| had cut a big hole for the kitchen pipes that left a clear
| view down to the basement-- and a perfect tunnel for mice. We
| covered the hole and didn't have any more mice after that.
| jjgreen wrote:
| If you've got mice, you've not got rats ...
| quantumsequoia wrote:
| If they kept coming back, that means you never really
| exterminated the population, just got their numbers low. You
| need to make the population go extinct
| jghn wrote:
| Unless the new tenants brought a new colony with them. It's
| pretty common for people to have eggs inside their
| electronics and furniture when they move.
| chuckadams wrote:
| Awesome. Now do bed bugs. Please.
| elwebmaster wrote:
| Total nonsense article. The tide on roach wars was indeed turned
| but much later by the invention of PfDNV in Wuhan.
| astrange wrote:
| It doesn't appear that's the kind of cockroach they have in
| NYC. But it was the kind we used to have in Atlanta.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokybrown_cockroach
|
| vs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cockroach
| elwebmaster wrote:
| https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-
| doc/pleins_textes/p...
|
| At least four species have been shown to be susceptible to
| PfDNV including the American cockroach. It's basically Covid
| for cockroaches.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| This is a great article, but man, the tone of news media used to
| be great. Can you imagine an NBC journalist writing something as
| funny as "Congressman Silvio Conte, dressed to kill today,
| proclaimed a war on Capitol cockroaches." particularly about a
| Republican(gasp!)?
|
| Polarization is so much worse now, but the issues people faced in
| this period were nuclear annihilation, the ozone layer falling
| apart, Iran shitshow etc. Crime was 10x higher.
|
| I miss when things were a bit kinder, I guess. Everyone is such a
| dick now.
| kibwen wrote:
| In this context, saying that he was "dressed to kill" was not
| the journalist complimenting his dapper attire, but rather
| making a corny pun. TV news networks force their anchors to use
| groan-worthy lines like this to this day, as a way of keeping
| the audience's attention.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Obviously, but it's still fun and witty - instead of
| "TRUMP|BIDEN - A TRAITOR - IS HERE TO FUCK YOUR KIDS" that
| you get from the mainline media now.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Conte was dressed as an exterminator (it's mentioned further
| down in the piece). It's a pun.
| PKop wrote:
| Too many "like's" and "I mean" filler words. Things become
| unreadable/unlistenable when when every other sentence has an
| unnecessary like injected into it.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Yeah, transcripts of verbal conversations are like that.
| PKop wrote:
| No I don't think we should excuse speaking this way, which
| isn't something everyone does nor something so many people
| did years ago. It is a particular style of speaking that is
| over-represented in certain journalist types.
| kibwen wrote:
| The use of "like" in this way has been attested since the
| 1920s, and had been overwhelmingly common in colloquial
| American English for around 30 years.
| PKop wrote:
| It's, I mean, distracting and unpleasant to, like, listen
| to when every other sentence has, like, meaningless words
| injected into them which, I mean, could, like, be removed
| without changing the meaning at all but which, I mean,
| would be more, like, concise and sound better.
|
| No, it is certainly not true that people have been
| talking this way since the 20's nor that radio shows,
| media, journalists etc presented information in this
| sloppy manner.
|
| It is trivially verifiably not just a default way of
| talking by listening to podcasters or journalists that
| exist right now that don't do this but also
| watching/listening to older media especially. This is
| akin to vocal fry, another recent grating social
| phenomenon that has become acceptable for a certain type
| of public speaker that is drastically different than most
| people and media types spoke even in the 80's and 90's
| let alone decades prior.
| hackernewds wrote:
| This is a transcript of a podcast - but I hear your point about
| impressive communication
| PKop wrote:
| Quite obviously this is a podcast, that's why I said
| "unlistenable" as well. At least with written word you can
| sort of skip over it and don't have to hear it. In any case
| this isn't a universal requirement of the genre; it is a more
| recent thing where it is acceptable to speak this way and not
| everyone does it nor did so many used to do it.
| pers0n wrote:
| I always have a bottle of silver powder and when I get a new
| apartment (every year) I pull out the oven, fridge and dishwasher
| and put that stuff down after vacuuming the area.
|
| One time the situation was so bad I also had to use the
| diatomaceous earth power in combination.
|
| I stored all my food trash in my refrigerator for months an no
| food was left out that wasn't in a sealed plastic container.
|
| Along with having the apartment spray I was able to get it under
| control.
| aqme28 wrote:
| The audio plugin does not work on my Firefox
| ww520 wrote:
| Boric acid works, too. In fact it works well against any insects
| with a shell exoskeleton, like cockroaches, ants, or termites.
| The boric crystal punctures their exoskeleton causing them to
| lose body fluid.
|
| It also works against the colony as it's a slow acting agent that
| the insects can bring it back to the colony. The insects
| communicate by touching so the powder is spread from one to the
| other when they rub each other's antenna during meeting.
|
| Boric is really cheap. A large bottle in Home Depot is about $4
| to $5.
|
| Edit: story time. My parents used to live in a mixed use condo
| building where the commercial ground floor had a number of
| restaurants. They had a bad cockroach problem. I got him a bottle
| of boric acid and sprayed around the pipes and corners. He never
| saw another cockroach again.
|
| We had a swarming of termites outside around the house after a
| raining season. Called the termite guys. They came out and said
| it's the subterranean termites under the ground outside and the
| water disturbed them. They drilled holes around the house and
| injected liquid solution into them. They sprayed the crawl space
| underneath. I asked them what the solution was. They said it's
| basically boric. Oof. Their service charged $2800 and the
| material was boric.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Isn't inhaling boric acid in indoor settings going to produce
| the same effect for our lungs?
| ww520 wrote:
| Human and pets have soft tissue that don't seem to be
| bothered by it. I meant inhaling a large amount of fine
| powder of any type is a problem. Boric acid seems to be
| pretty heavy that they're not airborne easily.
|
| Boric acid was used in detergent, pool cleaning, eye wash,
| mouth rinse, toothpaste, skin treatment, and some food
| preparation.
| uxp8u61q wrote:
| Asbestos was used everywhere, that's not proving that it's
| safe in any way...
| Zak wrote:
| The acute median lethal dose for boric acid in humans is
| estimated to be several grams per kilogram body weight, which
| is not very toxic. Chronic consumption in lower doses may
| cause kidney problems. As pesticides go, it appears to be
| pretty safe.
|
| It's probably a good idea to wear an N95 mask when applying
| it, apply it in areas where it won't be easily disturbed, and
| make sure it doesn't contaminate food or water.
| hackernewds wrote:
| not to mention, pets sniffing it up?
| ww520 wrote:
| Pets have soft tissue and not bothered by it. It's a fine
| powder causing sanding problem for the thin exoskeleton hard
| shell of the insect. It might cause scratching on the nails
| or claws of pets but they are so thick.
|
| Edit: research suggests that consuming a large quantity of
| boric acid causes problems for pets or small animals.
| asvitkine wrote:
| Internet suggests that it actually has to be ingested by the
| insects, not just have contact with their exoskeleton. So for
| example it doesn't work on bedbugs since they won't eat it.
| ww520 wrote:
| Could it be the bed bugs don't communicate much and don't
| have a central colony so the boric infection cannot be spread
| among them?
| joquarky wrote:
| Diatomaceous earth is damaging to insect exoskeletons.
|
| Don't breathe it in though.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| You're mixing up Boric acid and Diatomaceous earth. Boric acid
| works by the overloading the roach's weak digestive system, it
| also kills ants. They key is to get pure, do not get the
| formula with the 'attractant'. Diatomaceous earth needs to be
| 'food grade' there is a much more dangerous form for pool
| filters. But that stuff is more for out doors as a perimeter
| defense and maybe garages and say exterior basement stairs.
| Boric acid works well but the true solution to urban roaches is
| exhaustive sealing all your walls, baseboards, electric
| recepticals, any entrance of piping and weatherstripping your
| exterior door. I keep boric acid on my apartment door stoop.
| Boric acid is great in they cant evolve against it and they eat
| their dead so one east some and it takes out 5-10 others back
| in the nest. But the key is the effort to seal your walls, and
| I've encountered very challenging situations with metal
| cabinets in a friend's place. I got this experience living
| upstairs from an South Asian Deli in Manhattan. But I'd say
| I've been roach free 19 out of 20 years here. Two outbreaks,
| one I broke down and got an excellent exterminator, which I'd
| normally move heaven and earth to avoid. But we get less than
| about 6 per year total. as their hiding spots are death traps
| and we do keep our kitchen shelves and cabinets cleaned out
| periodically.
| prpl wrote:
| Who would have thought Joe's apartment would be unrelatable?
| Solvency wrote:
| I don't understand why we don't just create a genetically
| engineered cockroach that wipes them all out by outcompeting and
| then dying off? The same way they want to with mosquitos. Almost
| nothing subsists on cockroaches. It wouldn't disrupt the
| ecosystem at all, especially in cities like NYC.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimic_(film)
| linusg789 wrote:
| https://ghostarchive.org/archive/OJMMe
| gagabity wrote:
| You need to go to your local China Town and get the real poison
| the type that Amazon/Walmart wont sell. Roaches start moving out
| on their own when they see that stuff.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| Yeah combat and all that shit at home depot doesn't do jack.
| Bengal is the only thing available from mainstream ecommerce
| retailers that actually works. Not sure if the best version of
| it can be shipped to california though.
| gen220 wrote:
| Living in a big + damp city for years, roaches are unavoidable
| (especially in the summer months).
|
| We adopted cats in 2020, and haven't encountered a (living) roach
| since. I'm afraid our cats aren't very cost effective as pest
| control, but they do the job!
| borbtactics wrote:
| I have a legitimate fear of cockroaches and sometimes I wish
| editors would refrain from putting a gigantic roach picture at
| the top
| genewitch wrote:
| What makes the fear legitimate?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Every fall our house in the mountains has an invasion of dampwood
| termites. Never very many, at most you'll see about four or five
| a day, for 2 or 3 weeks. And then they're gone. But they are
| relentless, and always at the same time of the year. We've called
| four different exterminators and they all say the same thing.
| "They only eat damp wood. Find it and get rid of it." And then
| they leave.
|
| But we're surrounded by redwood trees so... we're just screwed I
| guess.
| blastbking wrote:
| I think they're celebrating a little too soon. A few years ago I
| lived in a roach infested apartment in Seattle and we used every
| form of pesticide imaginable, essentially to no effect. We were
| finding them in our food, inside kettles, etc. It maybe wasn't as
| bad as the waves the post described.
|
| I guess this quote from the article even admits that roaches have
| become wiser and are on the rise again:
|
| So, roach numbers are slowly going up again. And if you read
| publications of the Pest Management Association newsletter, which
| maybe I've done recently, you can see that there's, you know,
| there's some chatter about how roach calls are increasing.
|
| Okay, so I pulled some numbers. I went to the American Housing
| Survey from the federal government. In 2011, 13.1 million
| estimated households had signs of cockroaches in the last 12
| months. In 2021, 14.5 million.
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