Getting rid of cockroaches in the end was the least painful solution and the company did a good job. And the flat is quite good, at least for Geneva, it has a large terrace and view of the Old Town and the mountains. I did not regret taking it.
Of course we tried to break the contract. But our old flat had already been rented and we could not go back. To quickly find a third flat in Geneva would have been extremely difficult and there was no guarantee that another flat would be cockroach-free.
I am pleased for you that it all worked out in the end, and a nice story for the person in the falt with roaches, that this can be remedied.
I've never seen a roach in Switzerland my whole life. Lived in Asia for 7 years and fought them almost on a daily basis. I am terrified by those things...yuck!!
Good luck for you. I'd just move out or poison, poison, poison...
we found bed bugs in an apartment we just moved in 3 months ago. i heard the place was filthy before us (the apartment was completely renovated before we moved in) and we're not sure if the bugs are from the previous tenant, or from the moving van/storage. what are the chances that i would be able to get the landlord to pay for a professional to come in? thanks for any advice!
When you say bugs, what kind of bugs?
I read a very interesting article in Toronto about the resurgence of bed bugs last week. They are even scarier than cockroaches. They bite by night, hide in the walls by day and are impossible to get rid of. They are picked up in hotels, crawling into luggage left on the floor. You can check the mattress seams for them.
If you are in an apartment, the adjacent units should all be sprayed and probably the whole building or they will be back.
I have a question about cockroaches. The past 3-4 nights I have seen one bug (which I think is a German Cockroach or Deutsche Schabe) in our apartment per night. Once in the kitchen, once in the living room (although this is pretty open plan) and once in the bedroom. All of these times have been relatively near to areas where we've had windows open slightly.
I reported it to the landlord who seemed a little confused, and suggested I try some spray for now and keep him informed if it gets worse. Up until 3-4 days ago I had never seen one of these things inside or outside of our apartment, so it seems really weird to see them now. I am wondering if it is because of all of the hot weather?
We keep a really clean home, but we're on the ground floor with garden surrounding us. Could they be coming from outside rather than inside?
On a warm summers evening, just after dark I see a few cockroaches climbing on my windows trying to get inside. I just make sure I close the windows.
When I see one inside I have an instant kill policy - it isn't getting away from me I haven't seen one inside for about a year but they do hide in the window cracks and try to run inside when I open the window.
we get some small light brown cockroach looking things in our apartment every summer - but there was a thread on here a while back saying they weren't actually cockroaches but something else, (i will hunt out the thread) anyway they look enough like cockroaches to me - but am glad they are not big ones!
If you find the thread - please let me know! These things look almost identical to internet pictures of the German cockroach, but they could also be an Asian cockroach apparently...
Either way I will be unleashing chemical hell on them later today...
Have a look at this thread (its not the one i was thinking about) but it explains a bit more about these little cockroaches
Thanks for the information. Well, I followed the advice and reported it to my landlord, but he didn't seem to bothered. If it gets any worse he will be hearing from me again, with a much stronger suggestion to do something about it.
I get this too it drives me mad! I called my landlord about it as I found some after moving in and they sent someone round to look at it right away,but luckily it appears that they are the outdoor "flying" kind and not the indoor kind. I show no mercy and kill (hoover, to be precise) on sight, and I haven't seen one in a few days. However it is a nightmare having to keep your window closed while the room contains a PC, a plasma TV, a light and some other elctrics... feels like i'm in a bloody sauna sometimes. I can't wait for winter and the blessed cold...
You really need to kill them since they will start breeding in your hoover
Err... will they actually seriously breed in my hoover? I thought about that but dismissed the idea as I thought it would be hard for a male cockroach to get it up while spinning through the air repeatedly at 60mph, but now you have me worried.
I had a serious bug problem very recently. There were ants outside our guest room window and came in to the house through loose wooden panels at the window. I called the landlord immediately, he was out of town and asked me to contact the hausmeister as it was an outdoor problem.
Hausmeister threw the ball back to the landlord saying that it was only affecting our house and they will only be involved if its a building problem affecting the other 2 households as well.
I got fed up, bought bottles of Baygon from the apotheke (about 14-15 CHF each) and waged war on the blasted ants. Sprayed them from the inside and emptied the whole bottle of Baygon by spraying on the outside perimeter of the windows.
Repeated same steps for the next 3-4 days. Ants are gone. Sod other products - Baygon is the way to go.
EDIT: forgot to add that I've since used Baygon on moths and spiders. Works wonders - but, as its highly toxic, remember to clean it up with water after you've sprayed on certain spots especially if you have children or pets around.
See the black stuff? Its not dirt.
That's the only ones I see in the summer. Is that what everyone is writing about here? Or are the big cockroaches to be found here?? The brown ones fly in at night if the light is on and window open.. we catch them and throw them out but luckily this year haven't seen that many.
We have the same problem -- found 3 cockroach-like bugs in our flat in the past two weeks. They look very much like German cockroaches (same tan/brown colour, same size, same cockroach-like behaviour), but much more prominent wings and can actually fly. We called the régie and they promptly sent someone to take care of this.
They told us that these were wood cockroaches and these apparently do not infest homes. If they come in large numbers, there is a repellant that can be placed outside on the roof, but otherwise they are perfectly harmless.
One thing that helps prevent cockroach numbers from increasing too much is to miniminise the amount of paper and cardboard you've got lying around in the flat.
Go to any DIY store - they should have nets you can stick to the windows.... keep your window open and the light on as long as you like - the buggers are not coming in. Get one.. it helped me from being stung every night by the bloodsuckers but still getting fresh air in...
As for the breeding in the hoover... not something I want to imagine crawling out when I finally have the heart to do some cleaing in the appartment...
I wondered whether it was these ones, the outdoor types, but we still don't want them in full stop. They didn't fly though, and when I was trying to beat them into a pulp tried to run away rather than go airborne. But, one of them was on the ceiling and started hopping around rather quickly to try and avoid me.
Anyway, I bought some Baygon today and we're doing a controlled experiment by keeping all of the windows shut. I'm just wondering at what point it would be considered an infestation, rather than just a couple of inquisitive cockroaches seeking a bit of light and warmth.