SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

Roaches !!!

5K views 35 replies 16 participants last post by  bfloyd4445 
#1 ·
There are roaches walking around on the dock at night here.
Others have asked me if I have seen any on my boat. Until now
I haven't. But my 17 year old crew member reports that she squashed
two of them already.

I have been reading about roaches and getting rid of them.

What advice can you give me?

I read that they need. like, and hang around water. So that means
the bilge and maybe the kitchen sink, maybe the head. also.. water collects under the engine pan.

Is it possible for me to poison the bilge water?
 
#2 ·
only one way I know and that is powdered boric acid, not granulated like sold for eye wash but powdered. Get at the drug store. Sprinkle it around where they have been seen and put up with the white dust for a month and then they will all be gone never to return unless you bring them home again.
 
#7 ·
roaches and waterbugs are same same same whether big red b-52s or lil brown german omg yer done now nasties, or what ever varietal of the day you found, they are roaches. guess what--you gotta tent to rid self of all of em. sad to say. they adapt and you never get them out of your boat unless you sink and refloat , tent,or burn it to water line. seems to me the easiest is to tent it.

oh,and the magic stuff is borax. but you will still have em despite this ..or any other stuff until you sink, burn, or tent your boat.
.
 
#12 · (Edited)
My wife is an expert on killing them... she has 6 yrs of Caribbean experience

First go to home depot and get the ammo!

Treat the lines and fenders with Ortho insect spray to help prevent them getting aboard. You need a gallon!

Boaric acid in all the bilges and cupboards.

Bag or remove all food from the cupboards and refrigerator and then bomb the boat twice while you are in a hotel.

Repeat all of the above as necessary.

It works but you need to do it quickly before they breed for the tenth time.

Change marina!
 
#16 ·
all those chemicals are dangerous some listed human carcinogens except for boric acid. Boric acid< powdered> is approved even for food use and will kill all vermin of this type and their spawn in three weeks or less. Please don't add more chemicals to our water that will add to the man made chemical load we have already added to our water. When I was a kid the water was clean now we cant eat the fish because of toxic buildup from mans chemical factories. I'm 66, worked for EPA for 24 years. Just imagine what the fish consumption will be in another fifty years if we keep adding to the pot?
I know they say you can eat a couple of servings a week but I don't trust them do you? The old timers used to put funnels on dock lines to keep vermin from getting aboard
 
#14 ·
I would struggle leaving acid in the bilge for any length of time, especially vinegar. Drop a nail in dillute vinegar for a day or two, if you want to see what happens. Stainless, if you prefer, same result.

Roaches look for food. Once you get them, you'll have to bomb. However, keeping zero crumbs or cardboard or containers they can eat through, is the only way to keep them from coming aboard.

Nothing like a good cold winter up here. Has its advantages.
 
#15 ·
borax is better and cheaper and easier to find....BUT even that doesntr kill all of em, nor does bug bombing aboat..there ar emany nooks and crannies in joinery, in steel boat weñlds, in fg layups for bugs to hide well and avoid contact with the poison for loooong times. that is why i suggested tenting boat and fuill out poison.
borax and other stuff we use will only keep the bugs at bay, not kill all of em. we were lucky in louisiana that the bugs liked the dock better than the boat..
i spray the dock, my lines, the deck, and coach house roof and all the crevasses and corners where wood joins wood and where wood joins fg...everywhere..keep them out , and spray everything in and outside boat if you see even one. spray sails and covers also. as the critters fly,also spray booms and masts.
cucaroch is a national bird in some places, and a state bird in many states. yes the red alleged water bugs ARE cucaroches....b52s
 
#18 ·
Boric acid sprinkled in the bilge, and paper towels soaked in a sugar water/boric acid mixture as a "bait" (put it inside a small throw-away food container with a hole cut in the top). Also set up a half-dozed sticky traps (e.g., Roach Motels) to monitor for continuing and/or new infestations.
 
#25 ·
PLEASE understand that I am NOT trying to inflame any one!

BUT, let's look at the reality of life aboard a boat! If you are weekend/short vacation sailing in known first world areas, You what ever you need in small quantities you feel is required.

OR, live with a small problem during the short time aboard. :puke

We were cruising full time (24/7) for years at a time and most of the time in some very remote areas, areas with a known large cockroach infestation.

Our option was/is to live with a large infestation or take action. Living with roaches is NOT an option for us!!!

MANY options exist to combat the bugs, some better than others, and some that are no good at all!

In that vain, we looked at and used MANY types of weapons against the buggers! We first started with boric acid, then boric acid with additives like sugar, condensed milk, cookies, etc.... The strait acid is a powder and only sits on flat surfaces and needs to be replaced often. And you breath the fumes as it's stirred up around the boat. Wash or vacuum and you need to start over.

Our video (posted in my first reply) above shows what we found works, and works well. Since moving aboard in 1996, to date, we have NO cockroaches! And we even had cardboard (from very remote stores) aboard at times.

*** LET ME RESTATE THAT, since 1996 to date – NO COCKROACHES ***

Weather a product is OK for a human to eat (as determined by the government) has NO baring on the subject. Sorry, but don't get me started on what food is safe for us, GMO & all!

The “chalk” we use is never in anything we eat! It is used to mark the sides of the hull and areas where the bugs crawl. All the sites are normally out of sight to us. AND, it stays in place for months and years and still works!!!!!!! In the years, it would have taken 10s of pounds of boric to do what one small chalk stick has done!

In the USA, we have found it in discount stores and Asian markets.

What ever a captain chooses to use, all of the option and usage should be weighed, What it is, how dangerous it is, how much is required, how often must it be used.

Sailing & cruising is dangerous in itself, we all try to lower the risk, the fuel & oil are not safe to eat, but we use them. We try to keep all unsafe chemicals out of our water, after all, it's where we live!

Greg
 
#26 ·
I have no insecticide phobia, I just like to keep things to a minimum. Re. borax, I think it's great stuff, just not food.

The EPA gets rather vocal about the chalk...
Insecticide Chalk | Pesticides | US EPA
... and I can see their point about labling and kids. Not much of a concern for retired cruisers.

Wiki on the other hand said it "contains the pesticides deltamethrin and cypermethrin" and "Despite its illegal status, 'Chinese Chalk' is still imported from China and sold in Chinatowns in the United States. Worldwide, the product remains very popular due to its effectiveness in rapidly controlling crawling household insect infestations without fumes, foul smells or sticky toxic residues, and its relatively low overall toxin content compared to other insecticides."

The ingredients seem to be thought relatively safe.



These are used in the US. Thus, it is only the packaging that the USEPA hates, which makes sense. Seems like a good product to me, specifically because application can be so well controlled.
 
#30 ·
I have no insecticide phobia, I just like to keep things to a minimum. Re. borax, I think it's great stuff, just not food.

The EPA gets rather vocal about the chalk...
Insecticide Chalk | Pesticides | US EPA
... and I can see their point about labling and kids. Not much of a concern for retired cruisers.

Wiki on the other hand said it "contains the pesticides deltamethrin and cypermethrin" and "Despite its illegal status, 'Chinese Chalk' is still imported from China and sold in Chinatowns in the United States. Worldwide, the product remains very popular due to its effectiveness in rapidly controlling crawling household insect infestations without fumes, foul smells or sticky toxic residues, and its relatively low overall toxin content compared to other insecticides."

The ingredients seem to be thought relatively safe.
Deltamethrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cypermethrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are used in the US. Thus, it is only the packaging that the USEPA hates, which makes sense. Seems like a good product to me, specifically because application can be so well controlled.
This looks like some good stuff. I understand why the EPA would not like it, first they did not get there money to approve it, but more importantly it does look like a child would think it was chalk, and we all knew a kid in grade school that ate both chalk and paste (what ever happened to him?) and that could easily be deadly. So if you have children around, especially if you frequently have guests with children, I think it would be safe to say do not use or have around the boat! But if you are an adult and understand to not eat chalk, especially this chalk then you should be OK. I like the way it looks like it can be used in a very controlled fashion. But don't like that it looks like a child's toy.

To my idea looks like a use with caution product.
 
#32 ·
It would be very easy to get rid of I think, not like a house. A boat cabin is a very confined space. Just seal up the hatches, cover up your food and water supply, and take out every panel and open and empty every drawer and cabinet. Then empty a bug spray can. The cloud will be confined and will go in between the keel stuff down low too, or you could start there.

If you just concerned about the bilge, pour some ethylene glycol down there. It will also prevent any water that you can't get at from freezing.
They may like the sweet taste, but they'll be dead fast.
 
#33 ·
AndyF,

I expect you could do what you suggest if you are aboard for short times like weekends.:)

Doing what you suggest is very, VERY difficult for a live aboard! And even worse if you are actually cruising. Where do you put the stuff during the fumigation? On the dock in a foreign port? And it's the foreign ports that you are more apt to contract the problem.

Just saying.....

Greg
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top