Indoxicarb
I'm constantly procrastinating on deploying roach bait throughout my apartment, and that’s probably because I’m not sure if it’s the right move. If you get daily roaches (we don't!), then sure, you use the bait so that it comes up to your radiator, smuggles the food back, and then accidentally poisons the nest. But if you have a yearly roach, wouldn’t the bait just bring more roaches up into your walls?
In any case, I see this landlord-granted vile on my radiator everyday as I make my morning coffee. It reminds me how William S. Burroughs would inhale roach poison to get high when he couldn’t find drugs in Mexico. I asked GPT for more details (ie: is roach poison stronger today than it was in the 60s? Answer: yes).
I look on the ingredients of the tube, and it says: “Indoxicarb 0.6%, Other ingredients 99.4%.” This is a fascinating detail! +99% mystery? Is this because there are over 167 other ingredients and Indoxicarb is the most concentrated? Or is Indoxicarb the only one they’re legally required to disclose? What the hell is Indoxicarb?
Indoxicarb leads to a slow and painful death by paralyzing an insectoid nervous system. It takes days, sometimes weeks. The reason it’s good for nest-nuking is for its “tertiary transfer.” This means that when other roaches feast on their just-poisoned colony-mate, they too catch the bug.