Like modern cockroaches, the roachids were probably swift litter inhabitants living on a wide range of dead plant and animal matter.

I then got to work cleaning up the stinking mess in the kitchen. And then the cockroaches came.

I threw that away too. But it was the beginning of an onslaught.

Besides keeping the kitchen clean and living spaces free of clutter, the final element of my defensive strategy was setting out poisoned bait along the cockroaches' known transit routes.

Besides researching online forums about how to roach proof my house in Japan, I've consulted the literature, such as the excellent Understanding and Controlling the German Cockroach.

Cockroaches also generally stick close to walls, and choose the same route when searching for food.

In cold weather these cockroaches may move indoors, seeking warmer temperatures and food.

Now there was one less to keep the cockroaches away. So, I've put away my glue traps for good. Hopefully, the cockroaches will not come back.

About a week ago, a Chicago newspaper, The Colombus Dispatch, published a cartoon that depicts Iran as a sewer with cockroaches crawling out of it.

If the poison doesn't kill the roaches outright, they take it back with them to the harborage, where it is ingested or absorbed by members of the colony.

Next, I set out roach motels glue traps baited with a pheromone melange in each of these locations.

The cockroach's tendency to dine on its own feces as well as dead cockroaches was both its strength, and its liability.

However, during certain times of the year, these cockroaches may move inside a house from outside.

Habitat American cockroaches generally live in moist areas, but can survive in dry areas if they have access to water.

A friend of mine says he no longer kills cockroaches (he 's also stopped playing shogi, the Japanese version of chess, as he no longer wants to compete with and defeat others). He feels sorry for them, and instead catches them and places them outside.Of course, he lives out in the country surrounded by rice fields, where he has an advantage I will never have a resident Huntsman spider in his back garden, nearly ten centimetres across, who takes care of any cockroaches it comes across.

Known in Japanese as yamori, or protector of the house (家守), geckos feast on cockroaches and other insects.

Winter remembered a story a friend told him about how crickets can start to chirp in the middle of the day as the moon covers the sun during an eclipse. So, he told his colleague that story.

I was still scared of egg spraying, and continued to catch them with a cup or a bowl, kept handy in a cupboard in case of a cockroach emergency.

In recent years I have become even more determined to confront the cockroach menace head on, mostly because my kids are deathly afraid of the big, shiny black bugs.

The other day, doing my regular morning roach motel inspection, I noticed something quite un cockroach like stuck in a glue trap.

However, none that we know of reached near the size of today's largest tropical species, the modern 'giant cockroaches', such as the famous Hissing Cockroach.

I decided to execute a strategy of defense in depth. First, I identified likely intrusion points into our house the door to the back garden, the lavatory, and the shoe cabinet in the entry hall, where I had regularly discovered cockroaches.

They were often kept three to a cell, sleeping on the floor, struggling with cockroaches and suffering poor hygienic conditions owing to lack of water.

Once a cockroach eats poisoned bait, it either dies, or returns to the harborage. If it dies, its poisoned corpse is eaten by other cockroaches, who then die themselves.

I patted myself on the back the glue traps were gathering lint, but nothing else. We've seen a few roaches, all in the middle of the night, but I quickly hunt them down and whack them with a rolled up newspaper.

However, since the middle of the 20th century it has been known that the primitive cockroach insects found fossilized in Palaeozoic strata are the forerunners not only of modern cockroaches but also of mantises and termites.

Some people in the Iranian blogosphere have felt insulted after The Columbus Dispatch published a cartoon resembling Iran to a sewer with cockroaches coming out of it . The issue has also attracted NIAC s attention, By publishing this racist cartoon, the editors of the Dispatch have insulted and propagated hate against the Iranian American community .

I eventually got married and moved in for a time with my wife's parents. My father in law schooled me on some of the basics of roach proofing, notably Wash your dishes at night Clear away all clutter, such as piles of clothes, or scrap paper

I've learned that cockroaches are nocturnal and live together in nests called harborages (if you see a cockroach in daylight it means the harborage is full). They need shelter, food, and water to survive.

I'm proud of my ability to eliminate cockroaches. It's one of the most valuable skills I've learned since coming to Japan more than two decades ago, and I'm passing on the knowledge to my sons as part of a family legacy.

And there were crickets and birds and frogs making noise, and as we sat there, over the mountains coming in from the north were these Steven Spielbergian clouds rolling toward us, and as the clouds got about halfway over the valley, so help me God, every single animal in that place stopped making noise at the same time.

On a trip back home to Canada during a Japanese summer, I was luxuriating in the cool, crisp air when I was struck with a panic attack did I unwittingly bring back cockroaches to Canada in my suitcase? Could there, at this very moment, be a cockroach creeping around, ready to set up shop in my hometown?