- Somewhere I remember a story described in a consumer behavior textbook (anyone remember it?). The story talked about a new cockroach trap launched in South America. It was efficient and convenient. The roaches die inside the trap and removal was easy. However sales was not moving, so they brought in some "Depth Psychologists". Their report suggested that the problem lay in the Unconscious Mind. They said that many women had deep-seated anger towards their husbands who left them and moved on to find work, leaving them to fend for themselves. The women identified them with the cockroaches and they felt powerful and a sense of satisfaction in watching the cockroaches struggle and die slowly.
- During the course of some research we did for Neem based pesticides, I learnt that the active ingredient, Azadirachtin works (partly) by lowering fertility rates of pests. The problem is that once the compound is applied the benefits are seen later.. in terms of a lower pest population. However what it did not have was dead cockroaches. If you sprayed it on a cockroach, it will merely walk away...only to die later.
- However if you spray HIT, you can see cockroaches gasping at their last bit of air! WOW ...until I did a bit of googling on its active ingredient. This is what found, a brochure from Sumitomo Company that makes the compound,
A common complaint among consumers is the dissatisfaction with the lack of immediate knockdown from conventional aerosols used against cockroaches. Because of this, consumers feel that cockroaches need repeated and excessive doses of the insecticide. They perceive these products as being less effective than is actually the case, and therefore seek alternative methods for controlling cockroaches. In response to this complaint, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. of Japan has developed a new compound which provides extremely rapid knockdown activity against cockroaches. This compound is known generically as imiprothrin, coded experimentally as S-41311....
It further suggests.
The knockdown efficacy of imiprothrin far exceeds that of other compounds due to its extremely rapid action. German cockroaches (Blattella germanica) sprayed with imiprothrin formulations are knocked down within seconds. Laboratory tests have shown knockdown values of less than 42 seconds when imiprothrin is applied in amounts as low as 0.3 mg/insect. We recommend that an effective killing agent be added to imiprothrin products so as to give a combination of extremely rapid knockdown and kill.
