Cockroaches? myth or reality

I've lived in Japan well over ten years and in all types of accomodation and I have come across hundreds. In meguro I moved into an old apartment, clean and renovated but the bathroom was infested...a nightmare. We had to let the cockroach bomb off. That got rid of most but big ones would appear from nowhere now and again. I am now in a concrete apartment and this summer have had three big ones ...one that ran down my leg and nearly gave me a heart attack. The sprays work but they will run for a minute or so after. I've also used washing up detergent and that stops them in their tracks and no poisonous fumes. They come through pipes, windows and I saw one drop out of the air conditioner.UGH! They like damp dark places and will wait outside the balcony or hang around black or brown colored things ..like shoes! I also don't advise going to izakayas in summer. I've often seen small ones crawling around tables chairs etc. Osaka and Nagoya tend to be more humid so you get the flying ones when it gets to around 30 degrees. But the rats in Osaka were pretty scary running in groups of around twenty in the side streets.
Just to end with a friend woke up with a cockroach drinking from his eye...they like moisture! Please beware and be prepared. The Thai cockroaches are worse perhaps not only because of hygeine but Thai people are true Buddhists and they do not kill them. The ones in Thailand are big but brown....Japanese ones are big, black and look like aliens....scared you will be!

10 years here, 3 in the suburbs of Tokyo. There are definitely roaches and they are big. Some one else posted this, it is the reality, whether u like it or not. (although this summer wasn't bad for humidity) "Tokyo has many fairly large roaches, some hornets, and is phenomenally humid in summer".

Big bee's don't worry, haven't seen many (and even then, only in the country) Their sting can be fatal but very rarely. Roaches, if you're lucky you won't see any. They do hang out on balconies, get the traps that poison them, that way you won't see how many you actually trap with the sticky traps (or how big they can be) like I did, the actual truth, that freaks you out even more. Tokyo that is reality, like it or not, I don�ft but what can you do if you live in Japan( Hey they eat them in Thailand, I would rather eat the grasshoppers here but remember to take off the legs they get stuck in your teeth)

All the best�c.

My girlfriend works at the second biggest realistate company in tokyo called KEN Realistate. This place rents apartments from 100,000 yen a month up to 900,000 yen. So these are not little crapy aparments. These are pent houses. Anyway, she says the biggest complaint she gets from customers is cockeroach infestions. Appearntly if you pay over 100,000 yen (1000usd) a month for your box apartment, the landlords will spary for you for free, but if you are paying less you got to do it yourself.

I also had a German teacher who was hired by the Japanese government to help build ''better homes.'' He told me alot of crazy stuff.

1.Many pipes in homes are filled with gases, and dioxins which bad for peoples health, bugs can crawl easy thru them. 2.Windows that do not keep the air out (or the bugs out)
3.no inselation, so the house is freezing in winter.,,,

Really Japans living standards are horrible. You pay this huge prices for nothing. I dont mind if its small, but atleast make it modern. Since the late 70s all japan is building are expensive shacks.

Anyyhooo enought with my complaning...As for me, I lived here for 4 years. Lived 2 in Osaka, and 2 in Tokyo. Both places filled with roaches, termites, BIG SPIDERS, and geckos. uhh I like the green geckos. ;)

Until I moved to the US from Japan, I though all cockroaches are big and flew. Imagine my surprise the first time I saw tiny ones in the US. It's true that Japanese ones are big, dark and, they fly.

Geckos? Where in Tokyo did you live? I've never seen one around here, but I live about 10 minutes out from Shinjuku station.

Large spiders also a rarity here except at the parks. No termites in our new ferro-concrete building but I bet there were in the old wooden building I used to live in.

Cockroaches, sadly, are everywhere, although I haven't seen one actually inside our apartment yet.

The summer comes, it gets hotter and hotter and everybody is worrying about flying cockroaches.
I never saw one, but I heard many terrible stories about them.
I live in a student hostel in Tokyo. The building is pretty new, but some of the people don't consider it to be necessary to keep the kitchen clean...
We already have a moth family in there, so I hope that the cockroaches won't join them. :(
Mostly I'm worrying about cockroaches coming to my room.
Can they fly very high? Will they be able to reach my balcony on the 8th floor?*shivers*
Anyway, if they get in I hope my cat will kill them!;p

What I already saw in Tokyo: lizards, big spiders, other big insects ( not cockroaches...don't know how to call them), frogs and a snake. That's all. :)

Nyan,

Don't fret... they'll get to you even on the 8th floor, annd they won't even have to fly.
As you already seem to have learned, the best way to minimize the problem is just not to feed them. ;-)

I was living in Osaka for a while and there was a ridiculous amount of spiders! I mean, they were EVERYWHERE. Not a day went by without me spotting one. On the street over storm drains there'd be tons of webs and on bus stop areas there'd be webs under the chair, above the chair, lining the canopy... Also every now and then I'd find spiders in the house I was living in. Keep in mind though, this house was very high end, always clean and the mother washed the floors every single day. Most of the spiders were in the genkan or in the bathroom(the ofuro room). And on weekdays I'd ride my bike to school. Everytime I approached my bike there'd be a new spider there, a walking stick, or a praying mantis on the handle bars. Talk about a surprise!
Asides from those and mosquitos, there were all kinds of critters around but not in large numbers.

We live at a military base that's about 40 minutes from Tokyo by train. In the summertime, I can't even leave my house after nightfall because there are cockroaches everywhere outside. They don't even bother to hide.

Luckily, we haven't had much of a problem with them inside (just two: one came in on my husband's boot, the other came in through the open balcony door), but they are tremendous and terrifying and abundant outside.

What is truly terrifying in Japan is the mukade, giant centipedes with a painful, poisonous bite. Amazingly I saw a 10cm one (a small one) in Shibuya station 2 weeks ago.

Cockroaches may look scary but at least they are harmless...

Was jumped by 6 big red cockroaches when I moved into a uni owned ground floor apart in
Kyushu. Really fast, quite smart, could fly.
took me an hour to hunt them down and chuck em outside. So if you're unlucky you might meet them or their offspring sometime. And I tell you, I'm not squeamish at all and I was scared.

one problem with cockroaches all around the world is that as soon as they smell a spray they seal their mouth or whatever with some sticky substance. They can live for months like that. Some scientists say that if atom bombs killed all the humans and animals the cockroaches would survive!. But traps do work...

I spent 2 summers in Osaka / Kyoto. The roaches there are massive and they come out in force from April. We had glue roach traps the size of the rat traps in New York. And they fly. Have lived in Tokyo since January, but we're in a brand new highrise, so not expecting any roaches.

The thing is, a lot of big buildings, if there are any humans inside producing food waste, are going to have roaches. If they aren't in the apartments, they'll be in the basement, or the garbage area. The trick is to keep them out of YOUR apartment. This means keeping surfaces clean, and eliminating standing water. So don't let your dishes sit around in the sink filled with water and food particles. Make your apartment unattractive to them, and it won't matter if they're in the one right next door.

It depends on the quality of the building, how well it is cared for, and how well your boyfriend takes care of his apartment. For the first few months I lived in a crappy weekly apartment (it was a mansion building but it was old and not well looked after) and there were cockroaches. Not alot but I saw maybe 2 or 3 in the 2 months i lived there. I've been living in another mansion building for 2 years that has a building manager and it's kept very clean and I have not seen even 1 cockroach. I know friends living in older (usually wooden but not always) buildings that arent cared for and they have cockroaches. Also know people who dont clean very often and leave out food for awhile and they have cockroaches.

If you live in a guest house or an apartment ran by one of the guest house companies, count on cockroaches. Ive lived in three and all three have been infested, though Ive never seen one in my room until my first day at my new place, which obviously wasnt my fault.

Last night was the first time I saw a roach inside my apartment, in Yokohama. It was probably after that last bit of chocolate that I was saving. Needless to say, that's one less roach to worry about. No one messes with my chocolate. The only other time I saw a roach was outside, in the corridor. Since it wasn't doing anything, I let it live to see another day.

they stick to places with garbage around

last night i was walking down a street and came across a cat chasing a cockroach around the street. the insect went under a rock and the cat couldn't get it anymore, so i tipped the rock and the cat ate it, hehe good cat!

I just chased one out of my apartment 5 minutes ago. I've got like 15 poison traps and half a dozen sticky traps set out from a month ago when I saw the first one in here. Apparently it didn't do any good.

I was just sitting on my bed minding my own business and he waddled out from under the bed. I chased him outside onto the balcony but who knows where they are getting in. Its only a matter of time until I see him again.

God I hate cockroaches. :(

Flying roaches, spiders the size of small melons, CENTIPEDES?! I'm going to Japan next week for 7 months, possibly longer.... oh god.