Roaches at PetSmart

[Nomadinexile]

does that mean we should stay away from all humans?

That's the best idea in the thread yet!

Seriously though, for those of you in an urban or suburban location, with concerns about roach "cleanliness" or disease, I would recommend this:

read online microbiology reports of swabs taken from restaurants, floors, bathrooms, shoes, door handles, and most recently, elementary schools and Soda fountains at Fast food restaurants, (that stuff will kill you without parasites!),....

Then read about the chemical analysis of your local water supply from an outside source, the water companies hide stuff, and call things whatever they want. For example, there are only 2 types of fluorides added to water supplies. Yet there are over 64 "fluorides" used in some locations tap water. There are not 64 different fluorides that can even be put in water!!!

So anyway, back to my point....
Roaches are exposed to all of this and more in an urban setting.
I don't want them crawling on my silverware, and I'm not feeding them to anything, but as far as spreading disease everywhere, I don't think they can compete with people. Not even close...

 

[Galapoheros]

I have noticed an odd smell when I've caught them. It's a smell that some would think is bad and some others wouldn't. I've fed them to my inverts too, you can smell it right when they get caught. And does anybody know what the sticky stuff is made up of they can secrete from around the head area? Or is that from a diff species I've caught, I can't remember. I know where I could get 100's of them and thought about raising them as feeders but they are so fast and nimble, it's pretty impressive how they can escape when being chased down. If they couldn't climb, they'd make great feeders imo. I bought my house almost 14 years ago, never used pesticides and never a roach problem, too many spiders in the corners. I just have to clean up the bodies they drop now and then. I wouldn't worry about the roaches carrying diseases, I just think and try to recall when that's ever been a problem, I can't think of any time that's been a problem and hit the news, not that a story hasn't been in the news about it. It's a good thing for the "pest control" biz to flash it around though. Also it seems to me that when some people hear an animal carries diseases, it's as though they assume the animal is born with the disease. They have to come in contact with it first, somewhere. If the disease doesn't exist where they are, they will not carry the disease. I know that's obvious to most but I think some get the wrong idea when they hear an animal carries diseases.