October 22, 2004

Here's the best argument so far for not ever getting your hair done again - cockroaches!

Yes, that's right. Another sighting of a cockroach in downtown Bend has just been reported. The alert reader of course will remember my encounter with said creature about 6 weeks ago in the "Super Burrito" restaurant on Minnesota Ave.

This time however, a roach decided to surface not amongst beans and tortillas, but rather perm solution and hair dryers, or more precisely, at the "Hip Clips Quick Cuts" hair salon.

And I quote: " ...rather, I heard it from the guy that cuts my hair next door to them [Super Burrito]. He said he was doing a ladies color and a big fat one scurried across the counter."

[Thanks to Barney for providing the quote from a source who shall remain nameless at this point.]

I think really this points to a larger problem within the city and its government. After all, I reported the roach at the Super Burrito to John Mason at the County Eco Health Department back on September 13, and he promised to go down there and alert the three restaurants housed in the building on the corner of Wall and Minnesota.

Six weeks later, and there are still roaches crawling around - and they have obviously spread to adjacent businesses now - like the hair salon. Something tells me they won't stop there either.

How hard can it really be to eradicate those critters? According to this FAQ from the U of Mass, a cockroach can live without its head for about a month and they're even possibly resistant to radiation. So, sure, they're pretty damn hardy creatures.

But there are plenty of professional pest control companies out there, and the only reason I see for a roach population to survive in a downtown Bend building would be through the utter cheapness of its tenants, refusing to pay to control the problem. Or of course because the Health Department is too damn lazy to enforce their standards.

So that leaves us Central Oregonians really only with two options: A) continue to file complaints with the Health Department (but oh look what good *that* has done) or B) stop frequenting the businesses located in that building.

Option B sounds more reasonable at this point, but it's just damn bad for business.