I shared your prejudice as a child. But then my job took me aboard one
of our rich uncle sam's big grey yachts. I was sitting in the wardroom
at near midnight yearning for a snack when an officer came in with a
nice steaming bowl of soup. Where? Midrats, down on the mess deck. Off I
went to get in the line, my mouth literally watering at the soup's
scent; but when I got to the big whaddacallit of soup there were a dozen
or so roaches swimming in it!! Noting my hesitancy a sailor said "Here,
lemme show you. Dip the ladle to the bottom, shake it back and forth,
then pull it up quickly!" With that he matched word with deed and handed
me a roachless bowl of soup which, acknowledging that I'd been eating
out of that same "mess" for days, I promptly ate with great enjoyment.

I have been on one of those yachts and noticed the bread. Those weren't caraway
seeds. What is a weevil or two. Added protein.

Sorry to tell y'all this but Ms Rosalie's right: almost everything we
eat contains insect and/or rodent parts and droppings.

Sometimes where you least expect it.

Leanne
S/V Fundy

"Horace Brownbag" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 19:53:18 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"Jack Rye" .# wrote in message
news:gXVlb.33432$Rd4.2825@fed1read07...
Thanks. Don't mined if I do. Cheers, and may I toast you on such an
astute
observation.

Dirty secret. If I'm up at 4:00 AM because the neighbor's dog is out
making
noise, I'll sometimes dose my cat (Rosie the Horrible) with catnip, let
her
out, and toss cat treats along the fenceline. Drives the friggin' dog
nuts,
and there seems to be no limit as to how much the the cat's willing to
spend
along that fence. The dog ends up with its neck and legs completely
wrapped
in its chain. Much more fun than calling the cops to enforce the noise
ordinance, which doesn't work most of the time anyway.

I wouldn't call it in as a noise violation.

I'd call animal control. If they are that irritating there is a
possibility of abuse.

I think there would be a greater probability of achieving a favorable
result.


Interesting point. Frankly, my definition of dog abuse is letting average
people introduce two dogs for purposes of making puppies. For this reason,
my cat's vet has stopped using the term "golden retriever". She calls them
"hip problems".

"Keith" wrote in message
...
Boy, where was THIS discussion when I had a barking dog as a neighbor.
None
now that I live on the boat, but I sure would have used these ideas!

Well, let's continue collecting ideas. Here's one: Cook a large northern
pike and give it to the bad dog - the whole fish. Ever seen the Y-bones of a
pike's skeleton?

"Vito" wrote in message
...

Sorry to tell y'all this but Ms Rosalie's right: almost everything we
eat contains insect and/or rodent parts and droppings.

There are actually printed guides for "permissible levels of insect parts"
for food products. Candy is especially interesting, for obvious reasons.
Anyone who thinks Hershey can cook up sugar and chocolate all day and not
attract ants is a complete idiot.

My GF grew up in Yauco, in SW Puerto Rico. Her housing development was built
20 years ago on top of old sugar cane plantations. Nice house, nice
neighborhood, but the ants never left. You can wipe down the entire kitchen
with Lysol or bleach, walk away, and 20 minutes later, there'll be ants on
the counter, looking for whatever it is they're looking for. They're tiny,
and they wipe up nicely with a damp paper towel.

It bothered me on the first visit, but it was obvious that her mother was as
obsessive about a clean kitchen as I am, and everywhere I went, people had
the same problem. The standard comment was "Of course...everyone has them".

I think we worry too much about some bugs.

"Julian" wrote in message
...


If there was a way to kill eggs before they hatch then I have
such a hate of roaches that I would seriously consider
creating a decontamination chamber on deck somewhere
and try to process any material coming onto the boat in case
there were eggs in it.

Hopefully, you'd also plan to wash everything you decontaminated before your
children touched it, right? And things like boxes of noodles wouldn't be
processed that way.

I assume you know that there never has been, nor will there ever be a long
term study of the effects of pesticides, especially on children.

"Keith" wrote in message
...


For dry foodstuffs, you can microwave it when you bring it on the boat,
but
obviously this doesn't work with metal stuff. I've also heard that when
you
store rice, flour, etc., seal up a little piece of dry ice with it and the
CO2 will kill them. However, how many of us carry dry ice in the real
world?


There are plenty of truly airtight containers available into which you can
transfer dry goods before bringing them aboard. The simplest and best are
Ball canning jars, if you don't have little kids who can't manage glass
safely. In addition to the usual ring and cap lids, which are really meant
for canning, they also make plastic lids to fit both sizes of jars. In the
same section of the supermarket, you can usually find funnels made
especially to fit the jars, to make it much easier to pour stuff into them.

Paul
They'd just don scuba equipment and go wreck diving. :-)
Paul
"Paul" wrote in message
able.rogers.com...
Brilliant idea, but why not just remove the transom plug and drown the
buggers?.

x-no-archive:yes
"Doug Kanter" wrote:

"Vito" wrote in message
...

Sorry to tell y'all this but Ms Rosalie's right: almost everything we
eat contains insect and/or rodent parts and droppings.

There are actually printed guides for "permissible levels of insect parts"
for food products. Candy is especially interesting, for obvious reasons.
Anyone who thinks Hershey can cook up sugar and chocolate all day and not
attract ants is a complete idiot.

My GF grew up in Yauco, in SW Puerto Rico. Her housing development was built
20 years ago on top of old sugar cane plantations. Nice house, nice
neighborhood, but the ants never left. You can wipe down the entire kitchen
with Lysol or bleach, walk away, and 20 minutes later, there'll be ants on
the counter, looking for whatever it is they're looking for. They're tiny,
and they wipe up nicely with a damp paper towel.

It bothered me on the first visit, but it was obvious that her mother was as
obsessive about a clean kitchen as I am, and everywhere I went, people had
the same problem. The standard comment was "Of course...everyone has them".

I think we worry too much about some bugs.

Yes I agree. When we lived in Key West we had three kinds of ants -
sweets ants who would be all over the counter the day after we sliced
a watermelon there, fat or meat eating ants, and crazy ants. The
crazy ants appeared mostly in the bathroom, and they ran around like
crazy - never appeared to be going anywhere in particular.

When we lived in Pensacola the ants took up residence in the shower
head. Since my husband took 'Navy showers', he would inevitably get
sprayed with ants when he took his morning shower. I guess eventually
the ants moved elsewhere, or else my husband learned to run the shower
for a couple of seconds before he got into it.

Ants are very clean and I don't mind them much as long as they don't
bite me. I don't like fire ants.

grandma Rosalie

Thanks for helping straighten out my memory :^)

Larry Demers

Jack Rye wrote:

Phosgene COC12 also called Carbonyl Chloride. First came into use during
World War 1. Where it was used alone or mixed with Chlorine. Inhalation of
the gas causes sever lung injury. With the full effect appearing several
hours after exposure. Carbon Monoxide and Chlorine in the presence of a
catalyst produces Phosgene. Phosgene reacts with water to form Carbon
Dioxide and Hydrochloric Acid. Phosgene COC12 also called Carbonyl
Chloride. a colorless, chemically reactive, highly toxic gas. Having an
odor like that of musty hay.

Jack
"Larry Demers" wrote in message
...
I thought that mixing ammonia and chlorine produced Phosgene gas..as you
say..exceedingly deadly.




Jack Rye wrote:

Here is one of my best tricks at getting rid of roaches on a boat. Make
sure that you can open all the windows and hatches from outside the
boat.
You do not want to go inside the boat to open the hatches. Put a 5
gallon
container inside the boat with a few fans to circulate the air. Pour
equal
parts of Clorox and Ammonia into the five gallon container. Now run like
hell and get away from the boat. Clorox and Ammonia mixed together
produces
a vary deadly substance called Chlorine Gas. Chlorine gas is odorless
and
colorless, and highly deadly. Chlorine Gas will kill everything and
anything
in a matter of a minutes. Many a house wife has died from mixing the
two
chemicals together by accident.

I MUST REPEAT CLOROX AND AMMONIA MIXED IN EVEN SMALL AMOUNTS WILL KILL
YOU
VARY QUICKLY.

The generator trick works well and the smell will be gone after airing
out
the boat.

Jack
"Jack Rye" .# wrote in message
news:WQSlb.33413$Rd4.31832@fed1read07...
Because they are cold-blooded organisms, insects do not survive very
well
in
extreme cold or hot temperatures. Each insect species has certain
temperature and humidity conditions where it thrives. Although there
are
some differences between species, it should come as no surprise that
our
domestic cockroaches are best adapted to temperatures that we maintain
in
our homes. They do not develop or reproduce when temperatures are too
cold
(below 45degrees F) or too hot (above 115degrees F).

Hot and cold temperatures can be very effective in killing
cockroaches,
but
the adverse temperatures must be maintained for a period of time. Hot
and
cold treatments are also most effective when they "shock" the
cockroaches'
system. If cold temperatures are gradually lowered, insects have
physiological mechanisms that allow them to survive the cold. But, if
you
take a jar of cockroaches from room temperature and put it into a
sub-zero
freezer, the insects will be dead within a half hour. They just cannot
adapt
that quickly.

Because cockroaches cannot survive temperatures above 115degrees F to
120degrees F, it is possible to use heat to eradicate cockroaches from
restaurants and food service establishments. After all heat sensitive
equipment is removed from the building, the temperature is increased
to
about 140-150degrees F for five to six hours. It may not be possible
for
the
homeowner to increase the heat that much inside the home. But if a
small,
infested appliance has many small crevices and can withstand
150degrees F
heat, a similar procedure can be used. The procedure is simple --
place
the
heat-proof metal appliance in an oven, and after several hours at
150degrees
F, the roaches will be dead.

Cold can also be used to kill cockroaches, but it takes a prolonged
exposure
to low temperatures to kill egg cases. Appliances or furniture can be
left
in a garage when temperatures are below 0degrees F for several days.
If
moving, leaving possessions in a truck or van will do the same thing.
Infestations in wall voids or indoor cavities can be subjected to
extreme
cold by using a CO2 (carbon dioxide) gas canister. This will freeze a
localized area. Infested appliances can also be fumigated with CO2.
Place
it
in a plastic bag or other airtight container and inject carbon dioxide
gas.
Allow freezing to occur. If a small item can be subjected to freezing,
it
also can be placed in a freezer for several hours (or overnight) to
kill
the
cockroaches.



Jack

"Steve Christensen" wrote in message
...
In article , Rosalie B.
says...

x-no-archive:yes "Paul" wrote:

Errr....why not just go buy a chunk of dryice, toss it in and
close
the
boat up?

One extra Oxygen molecule.

But it's not available is it? I thought it would be bound up and
unusable.
We spray it on a fire to choke it out so I figured it may have
oxygen
but
it's not available. For that matter, water has oxygen too doesn't
it?
But
you can't breathe it since it's not available.

I may be wrong ... I'm just wondering.

Carbon dioxide (from dry ice) is a simple asphyxiant. If it
displaces
the oxygen in the air it will kill you, but it takes quite a bit of
it. You can be exposed to 30,000 ppm for 15 minutes and still be
OK.

Carbon monoxide at 1500 ppm may lead to death, and the 15 minute
exposure limit is 35 ppm for an hour. This is because without the
extra oxygen molecule, CO has a 200 to 300 times great affinity for
hemoglobin than oxygen does. So even if there is enough oxygen
present, the CO will kick it off the hemoglobin and you will die.
So
it isn't just a simple asphyxiant any more.


Roselie is correct about the CO being more than an asphyxiant. But
the
object
of all this is to kill roaches, right? It's been awhile since
college
zoology,
but I don't think roaches even have circulatory systems, let alone
hemoglobin.

I have frozen roaches in liquid nitrogen (when bored during a late
night
in the
lab) only to have them thaw out and crawl away. Hardy little
beasts.
Does
anyone even know whether depriving them of oxygen (with CO, CO2, N2,
whatever)
will kill them? I bet it's damn hard to do.

Steve Christensen

You get phosgene when you burn trichlorethane 1 1 1