Thursday, July 24, 2008

Found out what the moth balls are for

The house where we are staying has a strong odor of moth balls. Every sink and shower drain has 2 or 3 moth balls sitting in it. I had no idea what they were for (besides moths) until today. The moth balls keep the cockroaches from crawling up drainpipes and into your home. In this tropical climate cockroaches are a problem, but I've never seen one in this house.

This afternoon I stopped off at the store to get a couple things for Erik. While I was there, I picked up a carton of apple juice for the kids. I got home, took the apple juice out of the bag, and a little black bug was racing around. I killed it, and the thought occurred to me that the bug might have come from the store. I checked under the lip of the carton, and 3 small cockroaches were tucked away, hiding in the dark cramped lip of my apple juice container. I killed them all, but wondered how many got away.

It's a good lesson. When we move into our permanent house, you bet I'll be checking the nooks and crannies of my items before I purchase/bring them home.

1 comment:

Nar said...

I thought that's what moth balls in the sink were for! I'm currently living in Istanbul, and sometimes the public restrooms have mothballs in the sinks.