To avoid sweating to death though we bought some of the nets mentioned above. Coop (in the bau & hobby ones definitely) sell these "Fliegengitter", which fit easily around your window. The coop ones were about 9CHF for a 130cm x 100cm net, with prices increasing the larger you get. There were also some in Migros for a similar price.
Since putting these up and leaving the windows open we haven't seen any big bugs.
Last summer, I saw hundreds of bugs that looked like German cockroaches but didn't behave like those. They appeared in our home in northwestern Lower Michigan (Grand Traverse Area) in early July, but they could also be found outside the house, even on the plain asphalt of the nearby road in full daylight, which would be totally atypical for German coackroaches. By mid August they were numerous enough to be a real nuisance, crawling across the dining table during meals. They disappeared around the end of September and showed up again this year in July, about as numerous as last year.
No one had seen a significant number of them ever before, and none of the locals seem to know what species they are. They are all over the place, not only in our village, and people say they are annoying but harmless. I mean, it's no fun when you have to check your toast for bugs before you shove it in your mouth.
I assume they are a species of what is called "Waldschaben" in German (forest roaches), but I've yet to identify the species, not exactly an easy tast for a non-entomologist.
I started a thread more recently as well. I had waldschaben in my appartment. Decided to move since I live on the top floor (5th!) and they still come in but they do not seem to fly ???
I would have died if I had seen them do this though.
TOld the landlady even caught one and then I get a written response that they can not do anything about it (with pictures) I fainted...EW!
ANyways I am mpving away form gardens and will be buying nets, like most of you I am praying for winter!
I hate those bugs!
Cheers!
ANgela
The house is one of those typical US-American constructions with walls consisting of a timber framework with glass wool insulation between the beams, drywall boards on the inside and fiberboard plus plastic (PVC --- yikes!) on the outside, in other words, with crawling space for at least a few hundred trillion bugs inside the walls, floors and ceilings. We haven't found the cracks yet through which they enter the house.
As for screens -- those that are sort of standard in may areas of the USA are made to measure (window frame dimensions always come in full inches anyway), the aluminum (aluminium for you Britons) frames are extremely light and available in many colors to match the house, and they are cheap to boot. You put them in some time in spring, remove them in fall and store them in the basement or attic over winter, where they take up very little space because the frames are less than 1 cm thick.
My humble self easily carrying a screen of more than 1.5 square meters
with one finger. Please note that the French window of the doorwall has
a sliding screen, which can be moved with one finger too.
The fit of the screen frames is pretty tight; not even a fruit fly can get through. However, the forest roaches (or whatever they are) seem to enter the house through tiny cracks between the hardwood flooring and the walls.
Good luck!
ANgela
It was underneath a flourescent light, was very very pale with really long antennae, was not at all afraid of me and moved quite slowly. It didn't look a thing like roaches I've seen before (I worked in an animal shelter in the US and we'd get them there, but they were a completely different type).
Suggestions, anyone?
Crossing my fingers that it was the harmless type......
I have never seen a cockroach here in Switzerland. If its only one, then it isn't the kind we see in warmer climates.
The most effective solution for cockroach is to not kill them. Instead, get some finely powdered boric acid. Sprinkle it on the cockroach. They take it back to their nest, and I think they have a hard time reproducing or something.
Maybe the critter you saw was just another bug. It's still summer. Leave the boric acid in the basement closet.
My question is, how bad is the cockroach problem here in ultra clean, but urban, Switzerland? How do the brown German differ from the black NYCer. Who is better?
Obviously I do not have a degree in Biology and know nothing of insects - but my bet is on NYC.
Nasty. And hilarious in a sick humor Monty Python sort of way. So where you once had roaches you now have roach bits? We used to have wood roaches in north Carolina. Big two toned things that came in via the floor heating vents, ran across the floor and went back underground. Mostly in the autumn. Ick.
I had the same problem when i lived in Kos many years ago and someone told me to sprinkle cinnamon around the windows and doors and wherever i saw lots of ants and it did work. You also need to meake sure there's no food/crumbs etc on any surface (floor included).