Visitor

I've just had the fright of my life. I was sitting here at the computer watching an episode of Enterprise when a huge brown insect flew into the room and landed on my desk. Now, as you may know, I'm not too fond of flying insects, moths give me the heebie geebies but I've more or less got that under control, insects bigger than the average moth and flying faster and more erratically however... swearing does occur (although, interestingly, I don't scream).

Luckily I had a can of insect killer left here from my parents visit (they really didn't get on with the mozzies) so I ran to the kitchen, grabbed it and started chasing the insect around the living room. When it wasn't flying, it was running really, really, really quickly and I realised I had a cockroach - an Asian cockroach.

Now, let me put this into perspective. This insect was about 2 inches (5cm) long, brown and SCARY. I think I emptied half the can at it. It kept disappearing under one piece of furniture and reappearing somewhere else. And it kept coming towards me (I think the sweat attracted it). Eventually the spray got to it because it was flipped onto its back and couldn't right itself. I put a glass over it (thus getting a really close up and personal look) and lifted it using cardboard as a base. It didn't move (although the legs did seem to start kicking again) and I managed to throw it out of the window. Point of interest: don't stamp on cockroaches - the females carry eggs which are released into the flooring where they will hatch giving you a cockroach infestation.

I've just had a quick read up and it seems that they are attracted to bright lights and are good flyers - hence arriving here on the seventh floor. They are mostly active... well it seems anytime of the year with global warming.

I'm feeling all itchy and my windows are now shut.