Do you know that the cockroach is one of the most feared insects in the world and eradicated by the millions with heavy eco-destroying insecticides?
Killing a cockroach is killing a living being. Every existence has a reason and we should adore life in all its forms. In this post, I will take it up for this poor little bug.
Do we have valid reasons to fear the cockroach?
I honestly don’t think so but before I go into that, I want to bring some awareness to possible usefullness of this most hated bug.
Unique properties of the cockroach
Cockroaches eat almost everything. Whether it is fruit or bread, paper or glue, hair or skin flakes, leather, dead insects, you name it, they will eat it.
Cockroaches reproduce like hell and they don’t smell
How cockroaches can be useful
Cockroaches are simply amazing for composting. Composting is the transformation of organic matter into a nutrient-rich soil enhancer.
Let’s go back over the properties. They eat every possible leftover you could have, they reproduce like crazy, they don’t need maintenance and what’s more, they are very efficient in their waste elimination meaning that there are lots of nutrients in the dense and small droppings they make.
Practically, you can just throw your organic leftovers in your cockroach infested composter tank and the rest happens automatically. Every 6 months the tank must be cleaned out and you end up with a super high quality compost.
Cockroach-composting falls in the category of horticulture, composting with insects.
Here is a picture I took of cockroaches actively composting
I hear you already: But they are disgusting…
I must say it is not my favourite animal to look at, a close-up reveals some very unattractive hairy scary animal but with many people, it is much worse than that.
Katsaridaphobia (cockroach phobia)
Zillions of people suffer from katsaridaphobia or cockroach phobia, the cockroach is apparently the number one insect feared by humans.
Personally, I don’t find a good reason to fear cockroaches. They don’t carry diseases and they don’t feed on our blood or skin. They carry a lot of filth but is that a reason to fear them?
Although mosquitos are the world’s deadliest animals by carrying diseases and feeding on our blood, we don’t start screaming when we see one, do we?
Specialists examining the cockroach phobia claim it has a lot to do with the experience of the child when the mother jumps up from seeing one, a kind of generation-transfer of fear.
So think again next time you see a cockroach. Declaring war is never a solution, world peace can only manifest from local peace with your surroundings.
Take care,
bub
Very nice post @bubke, i might look different to cockroaches now.
I am not disgusted by them. Only bugs I don't like are the ones like ticks, fleas, mites and stuff that might try and live off of my body!
Even then I don't ever try and eradicate them, just protect my self and home from their infestations.
Thanks for sticking up for the cockroaches, live and let live I say. Humans have a major superiority complex and whether they realize it or not it is killing them.
Humans desperately need to re connect with life and nature. Harmony is the key.
Blessings∞§∞
Wish everybody on this planet had your insights @quinneaker. Happy you're spreading them through Steemit. Much love.
Thanks you and I hope to inspire at least a few to a world of more harmony.
I appreciate you contributing to a similar goal.
Blessings~*~
Nice post @bubke . I've got nothing against any creatures and wouldn’t kill anything just for being ugly - especially if it's basically harmless. Cockroaches are actually quite amazing and beautiful if you look at them a certain way, though I still don't really like to handle them. I think the reason people have a reaction of disgust (which is not the same as fear, which is what people feel when they see a spider or snake, for example) is that cockroaches live in dirty places - drains, bins etc.. It's one thing having them in your compost pile, another having them running all over your kitchen. Same as worms. Good to have loads of worms in your compost, bad to have one in the apple you're eating - but half a worm in your apple is even worse!
Disgust is indeed a much better word than fear, great contribution!
Ha, finding half a worm in your apple, that's where you start to understand the word disgust i guess :-)
Just looove your post!
I'm sitting in my bed now and I'm looking on the floor at my trap for cockroaches. I stay in a rented apartment and I can't deal with all these problems. But it's something different that I want to tell you here...
Yes, I have a few cockroaches and e live in peace :)))
The trap is for catching them, but not o kill them, it s a plastic cup from icecream! I have skills to catch them with a paper towel and than put the cup over it and get him out safe :))
Now please don't imagine I have a colony of living bugs here, but they have to live somewhere...
:))
I'm not brave but I surely respect life in all it's ways...
Keep up the good work!
Enjoy @nature.art
Interesting way of catching them @nature.art. We first put the plastic cup and then slide a paper underneath it. If i understand it well, you do it opposite so you have to get the roach on the paper first?
Thanks for your nice comment and for being nice to everyone on this planet :-) Much love.
no! I put first the paper towel on it, to stop him from running away, then the plastic cup above, to be sure he's not running away (with the paper towel I just slow him down a little bit because they are fast), and then I carrefully lift the cup and take him with the towel, avoiding touching him. Then release it outside, I live at the ground floor.
Be love!
Keep up the good work!
Enjoy @nature.art
aww you are so sweet. :) Do no harm. I didn't know all of those fun facts about Cockroaches. Thanks for that.
@bubke you are such a wonderful man. You are right, most people hate the cockroach, I guess because the are everywhere. In Hawaii we call them the B-52 bombers because they are so huge and they fly at you. But now, every time I look at a cockroach, I will think of you!
You do bring up very valid points of what they do. It is good to know. How big are your cockroaches? Ours are about 1 3/4" to 2 inches". They are huge and can fly all around. Sometimes they hit you in the face or arm and are very hard and prickly. In Hawaii, we grow them big and huge.
Hope you are doing well. I actually learned sometime from your post. Take care Bubke! :D
@cabbagepatch, you make me always so happy with your positive comments :-)
Oh no, that's not the idea, I better write about Jim Morisson next time :-)
You gave me the biggest laugh and I am still laughing. You are too funny and hilarious!!! Now for sure when I see a cockroach I will say, "Oh, that reminds me of Bubke!!!" This must be a sign that I should never forget you because Hawaii has tons of cockroaches all over. I am happy because you make me happy and smile. I am still laughing! :D
Such a refreshing take, @bubke. They watch the dawn, you know. If they can. The head to an east-facing window and stare at the sky......I guess that's what they're doing anyway....seen it in the UK and here.
Sometimes we have a cockroach in the house. It's inevitable when you live in the tropics. I simply pick them up with my hands and put them outside. In the beginning that was a bit creepy but they don't bite. They are actually closely related to the praying mantis and nobody seems to fear those.
Thank you for creating more awareness for this harmless critter.
That's part of the beautiful tropical life i guess. We got 3 times a snake in our house, that requires a bit more planning, especially if you don't have a clue how to get them out in a safe way, I am absolutely not the hero that gets them nicely around a stick and carry them out. One time, I just made smoke and more smoke and that helped. Another time, we lost track of it and we had to go to sleep a few nights knowing that the snake was in the house, that was really scary and it is these kind of experiences that make me realise the cockroach is absolutely nothing to be scary about :-)
I just scream like there is no tomorrow when I see them. Don't get me started on the flying ones. Those are my nemesis.
That point about generationally healing those fears is very valid! Thanks for sharing.
Wow, I'm really surprised by this, I would have said it would be spiders!
I mean some countries have some poisonous ones, so a very valid reason to not like them!
Maybe it's because I live in the UK and we don't have cockroaches, so I'm oblivious to the fear of them.
I've wondered about fears, spiders in particular. So many people are afraid and where does this come from? Seems like it is in our DNA or some mind matrix that gets passed through the generations!
Very informative about all the good that cockroaches do. I still hope I don't encounter one when on holiday! :)
If you google for top 10 most feared insects, the spider is always there and the cockroach barely shows up. I made the mistake of making this statement based on 1 BBC article, thank you for pointing it out.
Studies about the fears point indeed to something that is passed through generations, it precedes all reasoning, some comments above point that out nicely, the one from @szuri turns a smile on my face every time i see it ("I just scream like there is no tomorrow when I see them"). Thank you for nice comment @michellecarter and nice to meet you!
Thanks for your reply. That's interesting as I commented on what I instantly felt! I was feeling 'no spiders have to be more feared!' Well we know not to trust the BBC! They've gone done in my opinion over the years. Being English, I used to think they were great!
Yes fears are totally beyond reasoning, we react way before the logic has a chance to do anything and once the fear has been set off then logic is not going to work! I do energy work and releasing fears is amongst the hardest to do!
Nice to meet you too @bubke! :)
Yuck! I upvoted even if I saw that photo haha. They are the enemies of the world, aren't they? I have a phobia of these little creatures now and really bad experiences with them. Sometimes, I am just imagining things now. They can also fly like a butterfly, but they are nothing more but a cockroach. I actually lived in one of the coldest places just to avoid these pests.
Ok no more war with them! My pet tarantulas love them, but the clean ones lol.
Thanks for the inspiration, I might post about this soon!
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
- Albert Einstein
All right, ok. Just don't do a post on spiders.
In my home town many cafés, restaurants (even the very posh ones) have a cockroach problem due to our hot springs and so did we in our anarcho café.
So one of my friends studied the subject a bit and came to the conclusion that in terms of hygiene regarding food, flies are actually much worse because they spread germs and disease. So cockroaches don´t really pose a problem, people just think they are unhygienic and spread disease, maybe because they look a bit nasty.
I have to admit though, when I met my first big flying cockroach in the Philippines, flying almost in my face, I was also a bit shaken.
This is the 2nd time somebody speaks about the flying cockroach. I travelled more than 40 countries in my life and i don't recall ever encountering a flying one. The fact they could fly straight in your face makes it all a bit more 'scary' i must admit :-)
Your advantage now is your knowledge that there are cockroaches that can fly.
I did not know that at the time, so it was quite the surprise when it came flying towards me.
lol, I have this advantage.
good man! although you should see the cockroach i saw this morning! scarey!!! but i didnt kill it ;-)))0
The German cockroach is the worst :-)
I'll have to work on that one 😉
If you put it like this, yes it sounds like we're being unfair to the poor creature.
I think this phobia goes back a long way and it comes from the cockroach being associated with filth and disease (wrongfully or not!).
I was always mystified by the ones who came all the way up to our forth floor apartment. I would ask my mom why didn't they go to the second or third floor instead of climbing all those steps!
interesting post like it and upvoted!
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STOPThank you for this post!
I have some questions.
How do you clean the compost bin, and how do you extract the compost?
I mean, what happens then with the animals living there?
Does the compost stink less because of cockroaches eating things?
sorry for the super late reply on this but the whole concept went wrong, we had cockroaches everywhere and we still didn't get rid of them :-)