Here is the story. I found a bunch of old kitchen cabinet sets for sale; they are being pulled out of a huge tenant building. The cabinets are nothing special, however, they will be fantastic for the garage and the basement.

I asked what the cockroach situation was like and the guy said for sure, the building has them. He went on to say the cabinets were all sprayed down when removed and before they were loaded into tractor-trailers for storage. I saw the cabinets today in the storage units and can indeed verify the smell, these things were sprayed.

So, here are the questions.

If a cockroach is exposed to a couple weeks of below freezing temperatures will it die, or will it just go dormant only to live again when warmed up?

Same question only as it applies to a sack of cockroach eggs, live or die when exposed to 2+ weeks of below freezing temperatures.

Not bad for $175

 

Maybe a "bug person" can answer, but if there was ever a cockroach in an item I wouldn't knowingly bring that item into my home, EVER!

I lived down south for a year. We had a nice little apartment freshly painted, the whole bit. The ex was in the Army and the apartment was close to the base. My first night there, I got up to get my son a bottle and a cockroach was dancing in the kitchen. I was totally creeped out.

The apartment complex had 12 units on each side. Only I and one other person across the street bothered to get the exterminator in. Those bugs were even in the rented furniture! I was grossed out beyond belief! The exterminator came but since no one else on my side bothered to have the bug man come in, the little bugs ran away only to come back.

We moved from that area of the complex to another part where there were fewer apartments per building, and, for some reason we didn't have the same issue... Never saw another roach in the new apartment.

 

My understanding on roaches is that they are very resilient. I have no doubt that an egg sack would survive the freezing cold of winter to hatch hundreds if not more little roaches to run over everything you own.
I only had to deal with them twice in my life and only in apartments. Once in Ohio in a so called safe living area. When I moved to the so called unsafe area, we never saw any of them.
The second time was in Illinois, we lived across the street from a Keebler cookie factory and those were the largest roaches I had ever seen.
BTW I cannot eat Keebler cookies anymore. Just the thought, yuk.......

 

Trust me, I know!!!

I lived in NYC for a while, on the 2nd floor above a food supply company. When I packed up and moved back up here it was a project of incredible proportions. I had to clean everything before packing, and then I had to unpack everything outside when I got back to Rochester and reclean, I was not going to take a single box from NYC into my new rochester apartment. I threw away all my electrical stuff like answering machine, telephone, radio because I know roaches love to live and breed inside them. It was hell, but I pulled it off.

I do not have lots of extra cash laying around to buy new. I'm 100% sure I'll be buying these, setting them up outside for a while under a tarp and taking this one step at a time. I would love however to hear from a true entomologist who could give me the straight answer about cold weather.

 

I don't think they like the cold much. I turn the thermostat down at night and a couple nights ago I caught several of the little buggers trying to push the "up" button on the thermostat.

Sprayed them with some RAID and they seemed to enjoy the experience. Tried to step on one but he threw me using a classic judo move. I thought about getting my gun but one of them would probably have just taken it away from me.

 

Between spraying the cabinets and placing them outside, you should be safe. Freezing temperatures will destroy the eggs if there happen to be any egg cases hidden in the cabinets.

 

Is that the Oklahoma guarantee? Should be safe?

Dean. See you in August?

 

And Dean, you say this because you are infinitely wise, or just want to pull my leg and enjoy the future threads about my home being taken over?

 

Neither is the case. While I am not an entomologist per se, I am a biologist and very family with class Insecta, particularly the domestic species. It's well established that freezing will render the eggs inviable. Trust me.

 

One never knows for sure. There could be the Keith Richards of the cockroach world living in those cabinets.

I hate to say it, but it's looking doubtful at this point. We're renting a house in Maine in July and I don't know that we'll be able to return to NE for the meet. I'm going to be up to my ears in faculty meetings, etc. just before classes resume during the last part of August. ISTBM.