cockroaches

Hi all you spanish dwellers,

I would like to know if there is a cockroack problem in  new homes in spain? Is there a problem with ants?

or indeed any other horrible insect.

I've been surprised at how small the little bug problem is.  We visit our place in CB South and have never seen a cockroach (saw plenty when we lived in Malta and Cyprus) except for one dead one in the bucket when we once visited.  Never had any ants (flying or crawling) and certainly less flies than we get in UK during the summer.  The odd little zzzzzzzzz sound at night but a quick spray round the bedroom tends to get rid of that.

Considering 6 months can elapse between visits, it has been a pleasure to go in and find no signs of little pests having moved in whilst we've been away.  Obviously, Spain is a very big place and each area will be different.  I understand Cartagena and south of that had a big problem with mosquitos this summer but it wasn't a problem where we are.

Hi Gem

I have just come back from my apt in Estepona and found ants everywhere on main terrace, they are eating my Cacti ..

I then had a roll and popped out when i got back ants were all over the crumbs in kitchen, i alaos found them upstairs  in spoare bedroom, they seem to get in through cracks/holes in walls,   i tracked them down to basement and there getting in through pipe work...

As long as place is clean and free from crumbs or left over, they stay away,  i have been plugging every hole/crack i can find...

Cheers

Rob - Costa Galera - Estepona

Ants can be a problem in Spain but there are plenty of products around to treat them.

Mercadonna sell Biokill (spray bottle) great for any that you find in the house.  Carrefour have a powder (Z top I think it's called) which I put along the entrance step to the kitchen. 

As Rob says you learn quickly that if you remove the food source then you don't get so many visits. 

I've found that you only see where the ants are getting into the house in late afternoon/evening, if you mark the area with a piece of chalk then next day you can fill up the gap. 

As for cockroaches I've only found one in four years and that was dead.  It still made me shiver but nothing that a mop of the floors didn't fix.

It is a hot country and these insects/pests live there quite happily, as long as you adopt a clean environment then you will live there happily too.  Copy the Spanish, mop your floors, balconies and hose down your patios daily.  There's always a reason why this is done and not just because someone is houseproud.

Are the bugs a lot worse if you live in a finca in the country?

Laury

Oh yuk.

Are you in a finca Fly?

Do you get geckos eating the bugs?

Laury

I've had a couple of cockroaches but they aren't generally a problem. You do tend to get more out in the country but you can buy sprays to kill them off.

Ants can be a problem anywhere, here or the UK but once again there are plenty of things that can get rid of them.

As Semi said they live here quite happily and you do learn to live with them even though the 'roaches' are horrible things. 

Someone told me that cloves on the windowsills stop ants coming. I don't know if it works but I will be trying everything.

I noticed that the Spanish ants are 10 times bigger than then ones in my garden here.

Thanks for the info folks.

Laury

I don't know about cloves I have read that bay leaves were supposed to keep them away.  I can remember in my first house in UK sitting at the breakfast bar and seeing something moving nearby, it was a line of ants.  I had left an ice cream syrup container open in cupboard and that's where they were heading.  Anything sweet in the cupboards will attract them.

Buy the biggest fridge you can and keep all your food in there and become very very houseproud that way the ants will stay in the garden.

You will see very tiny ants in the kitchen they look like specs of dust, when I went out in May I found loads of them.  Luckily my sister came out with me so together we went through all the cupboards, we found a container of chocolate powder which I used to sprinkle on capocino's.  Within a couple of days most of them had gone, I put some bleach in a spray container and not many of them survived a direct hit with that.

My neighbour calls these house ants and it's another thing you have to learn to live with

When you look in Supermarkets and Todo stores there are loads of products to deal with ants and other bugs plus containers in all shapes and sizes.

Also consider installing mozi screens to keep the flies out, I found rolls of it in a garden centre which I have attached to my door grills and in June it kept out the majority of the flies. 

Thanks Semi.

The new windows we are fitting have mossie screens built in and we'll buy door curtains too.

Thanks for the tips on fridges and containers. I'll certainly bear it all in mind.

I hope I do see the tiny ants if they're in the kitchen.

These days I need specs for reading and might not see them!

Over here in the UK. I seem to have a plague of spiders at the moment.

Can't stand those either.

Laury

We had an ant problem in the communal garden, so had the whole area sprayed. Next day, there was a long line marching silently up the building to the top floor, where they had decided to make a new nest in my window box. Must have known I was the president and had ordered the cull! My PC is just inside the same window, and I first noticed the problem because the ants were coming out of my tower. I've heard of worms infecting a PC, but ants?

Cockies are basically slaves to their stomachs, so will only be a problem if there is a food source available. The problem is, they eat anything! One neighbour in our block runs a "100 peseta" store, and has stashed loads of cardboard boxes full of merchandise for the shop in the apartment. Cockies definitely will live on cardboard, and coupled with rather slovenly hygeine standards, the tenant of this apartment has proved a magnet for the little blighters. And of course, they then spread out to neighbours. Big headache for el presidente. Fortunately, we're at the other end of the block! However, just lately, we've had a couple of big roaches literally fly in through the window. These are the ones that live in the drains in the street. usually you'll nly see the little ones indoors.

Flour in packets seems to attract tiny little bugs - especially, it seems, if it's imported self-raising flour from the UK. Put it in tightly sealed plastic containers as soon as you get it home.

Well, I certainly started the ball rolling on this one. I can't stop scratching.

I HATE cockies. Having worked in an old hospital on night duties, they really spook me. I had a ritual on nights. I used to boil the kettle up and empty the boiling water on the outside windowsills (god help anyone standing underneath) I was on the first floor. The amount of cockies that used to flow with the water, out of every nook and cranny. Then I used to get some plastic specimen containers (the ones you use for wee samples), place cockies in them and leave them on the window ledge of the kitchen for the day staff to find.

Thought I would share that one with you all.

My 26 year old son says he might want to move with us to Spain. I won't let him after all your comments. He never clears up after him, leaves food lying around. If he did wipe a worktop down, bet your life its all on the floor. He's staying in Blightly. I think I would become paranoid my neighbours are clean.

Found a huge one in our apartment in Malta. We used to leave the doors of the apartment open onto our patio of a night because it was so hot (no air conditioning) (it was secluded). Got up early hours of the morning as we were going to Sicily for the day and it was in the kitchen. It moved so fast. Managed to trap it in the coffee container.  

When we were in Majora, we couldn't sit out on the grass or on the brick wall as it was covered in ants as son (referred to above) found out (it was a pleasure to beat the ants off him!!! )We used to watch them marching in line up the tree and up the post to the apartment above.

Smiley: "better to tip them on their back and let them die a slow and really painful death".

Do they not go into a death roll?

In Mexico they love em so much they write music about them. In Spanish it is La Cucaracha

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/la-cucaracha/386027568

Arriba

John