Money Blue Book

We live in an extremely politically correct country these days, which means anyone who even mentions anything negative about someone different (like negatively pointing out a foreign accent), or criticizes someone for their inability to speak the language properly, he or she is immediately labeled as prejudiced, racist, or somehow inciting hateful views. I’m truly none of those things, but I feel a personal finance blog platform is as good as any to express my own personal views about my own experiences on the matter. While I was born overseas, I came to the U.S. when I was only 2-3 years old, so I’ve pretty much grown up as an American and learned to identify strongly with the crux of American culture and its values. While a key component of American culture is the ability to embrace diversity and appreciate differences between different types of people, both foreign and domestic, there are some circumstances when I greatly prefer the services of a fellow American.

This preferential situation comes up whenever I call a live customer service help line. When I pick up the phone and make that affirmative decision to seek help via a toll free telephone number, my reasonable expectation is that I will reach someone who can communicate with me in an intelligible way, and help me resolve my consumer business problem quickly and efficiently, so that I can go along my merry way. It’s bad enough that I often have to spend 30 minutes or more waiting on hold before I can talk to a live technical support representative, but these days, it seems when I finally reach that live person, he or she turns out to be completely unable to communicate with me using comprehensible and discernible English.

I Can Deal With Difficult To Understand Accents In Real Life (By Using Hand Gestures), But When It Happens Over The Phone, The Conversation Can Get Comically Tedious

I am terrible when it comes to understanding different accents. Even British English accents trip me up on occasion - but at least it is somewhat closer to American English in terms of speech and pronunciation, albeit a bit more deliberately pronounced I suppose. While I can understand the different types of American English accents such as a southern, Boston, and even accents that distinguish different races and ethnic groups prominent in this country, I still have frequent difficulty understanding the cultural nuances and accents that aren’t considered mainstream American English. This difficulty in understanding foreign accents is most pronounced and debilitating when it comes to conversations over the phone with someone from another land, especially when I find my phone call re-routed to some outsourced call center located overseas and wind up with a customer service rep who speaks with a thick accent that I simply cannot understand despite my best efforts.

While in a real life conversation and business work setting, heavy accents aren’t as significant a detriment as there are other methods of communication such as using writing and through natural hand gestures to punctuate one’s point, in the world of customer service telephone calls, this type of linguistic verbal diversity is a significant detriment and handicap. When it comes to customer and technical support help lines, communication and speed are two important elements to a quick and satisfactory resolution of the problem at hand. There are plenty of jobs where having a perfect American English accent is not crucial and one can get away with not having otherwise perfect American English, but a position as a customer service call representative that caters to Americans is not one of them. The job absolutely demands that the agent be able to communicate with the language of the target country. Is that really too much to ask? Oftentimes in such scenarios, time and patience are limited luxuries. In such situations, having a thick accent is a very undesired handicap to have, particularly when the issue needs to get resolved quickly over the phone in a short period of time without the benefit of time to get to know each other. This is the biggest problem many customers such as myself are having with companies that continue to outsource their customer service call center jobs overseas to English speaking, but heavily accented countries like India.

Facing An Indian Customer Service Representative With An Incredibly Thick Accent Is Like Talking To A Brick Wall - Nothing Gets Through, and Time Is Wasted

When American call center customer service jobs are outsourced to other countries, I think it’s reasonable to expect the call agents that will be handling the calls to be trained to speak in proper America English. However that is not always the case. Especially when it comes to Indian call centers, the accent is often an interesting mish mash of British English, local Indian dialect, and butchered American English. What often comes out is an unintelligible murmur, resulting in humorous and frequently embarrassing exchanges between the rep and the customer.

A few years ago, I bought a Linksys wireless Internet router, but had major trouble setting up my wireless connection. I kept losing my wireless internet signal and so I embarked on a customer service phone call quest to solve the problem. I dialed the company’s 1-800 number and was promptly connected to an agent. Little did I know, but my call from Maryland, USA was instantly routed thousands of miles across the planet to a different time zone to a call center in India. Immediately when I heard the agent’s accent, I knew it was going to be a long day. It started as soon as my phone rep introduced herself with a thick Indian accented “Hello”…followed by a …”my name is Mary”, a presumably English name moniker chosen by the Indian customer service rep for the convenience sake of their mostly American clientele instead of compelling them to remember a more difficult Indian name. For the next 60 minutes, I struggled valiantly to understand her words and sentences. I tried to remain polite and understanding, but I kept asking her to please repeat herself, much to my continued embarrassment. Every sentence on her part would be followed by a “What?” on my end, or would be followed by a momentary pause as I scratched my head and tried to figure out what she was trying to tell me.

After a while, I could tell she was getting fed up with having to repeat herself after every instruction, but then what was I supposed to do? I desperately tried to understand, and I really did try - but it was a constant guessing game on my end. I simply could not comprehend the Indian customer service representative’s thick Indian English accent. At the end, I got little accomplished because she and I were simply unable to communicate. I found myself spending more than an hour repeating her own words back in my vain attempt to make some linguistic sense. Eventually I had to give up and seek help from another customer service rep. The next rep’s Indian accent was just as thick and I ultimately had to call back several times before I finally found an agent who’s accent was more bearable. But the experience left me with a very negative view of the company and their irresponsible cost cutting efforts to send customer service jobs overseas when the work could be better handled here.

American Companies Who Cater To American Consumers Should Seriously Re-Consider Their Indian Outsourcing Strategy Or Face Consumer Backlash In The Long Run

This is a serious problem that many major American companies who choose to outsource their call center jobs to low cost foreign countries will ultimately have to face. Customers such as myself may eventually take our customer service frustration out on the company and defect to one of their competitors. Based on some news reports I’ve read, many companies that have attempted to outsource their customer service functions abroad have not realized the cost savings they expected, discovering that there are hidden costs that far outweighed the potential savings in labor expenses. Oftentimes, due to significant customer complaints about difficult to understand customer service representative accents and great differences in culture, companies have had to expend significant amounts of additional money to train the agents on proper American English and terminology. Ultimately some of these outsourcers have brought those type of jobs back in-house and back into the country.

Faced with backlash from customers like myself who have great difficulty understanding heavily accented Indian English, some companies are actually taking the next logical alternative step by shipping the work over to other moderately English speaking countries, like the Philippines. As a former U.S. controlled territory, the Philippines at least offers a more Americanized work force with a better understanding of American culture that can potentially offer employees with lighter accents. There will still be an annoying accent to deal with, but at least the twang, so to speak, will be significantly less painful to understand than that spoken in India.

There are currently also signs that the trend toward outsourcing call center jobs to low-wage countries like India or even the Philippines may be slowing down. Research shows that some call centers are most effective when staffed by Americans and there is at least some growing attempt to keep jobs here. I’ve noticed that many companies are now trying to keep the bulk of their daytime customer service call center jobs in the United States where the calls can be handled by American English speaking agents. For customer service lines that provide 24 hour coverage and take on evening calls however, some still get routed overseas to places like India, but many daytime calls are now being mercifully handled by call centers in the U.S. At least that’s what I noticed recently when I called my cable internet provider’s help line several times recently. When I called during normal daytime office hours, I got a service rep that spoke perfect English, but at night, I basically played the ole accent guessing game, doubling and even tripling the length of time spent trying to resolve my problem.

For those of you out there who are embarrassed to admit but also have difficulty understanding accents, I recommend making your 1-800 customer service and technical support phone calls during the day. Sure that means using up your precious anytime wireless phone minutes, but you stand a much better chance of reaching someone in this country than if you called after hours.

This weekend a good buddy of mine and I decided to meet up and go for a round trip cross country bike ride from suburban Maryland, through the tree lined bike trails of Washington D.C., and into the outskirts of Northern Virginia. Neither of us owned decent bikes (none with suitable seats that wouldn’t give us wedgies anyway), so we decided to rent a pair from a local bike rental shop near my old university stomping grounds. Since I hadn’t been back to visit my old college in some time, we decided that after bike riding we would spend some time looking around and grabbing a bite to eat somewhere in the college town neighborhood.

The bike ride through the shaded forest trails and paved roads was fun and the subsequent pit stop at the National Zoo in D.C. was very relaxing (although, where were all the animals we wondered?), but the biking experience left me utterly exhausted, with aching legs, and a pair of sore butt cheeks. I completely underestimated the painful long distance hill climbs and the sheer distance that we needed to travel. Despite my cross country running background, I’ve been slacking off in the exercise department of late and wasn’t in the best of shape to embark on a long bike ride.

Next time, I would definitely do a better job planning the route. For one thing, I would arrange it so that we faced the long uphill climbs in the beginning first half of our bike ride during early afternoon than during the subsequent half late in the afternoon when our muscles and energy levels were already worn out. It was sort of embarrassing, but my friend and I ended up pushing our bikes uphill near the end because our legs were too drained. Yes, not the most impressive demonstrations of manliness (considering there were little kids biking uphill in their tri-cycles of all things), however, the day was a very enjoyable calorie burning day and we had appetites to match.

Visiting a Local College Town Bar and Grill Restaurant For Dinner, and Gushing Over the Cost Savings

After dropping off our rental bikes at the college town bike store, we looked around the neighboring university town to decide where to eat dinner. I suggested either one of the popular bars or local college town hangouts next to our bike rental place, or perhaps one of the casual dining cafes or restaurants popular among the college students. After reminiscing a little bit about the fond memories I had about sporting event inspired student riots that erupted in the past from these very same local hangouts, we settled on this one sports bar type place. The restaurant was a bar and grill eatery, and was a popular college student hangout when I was a student a few years ago and apparently still was. The interior walls were lined with numerous flat screen TV’s showing various sporting events, and the place proudly displayed its local college team ties with mascot logos and signed football jerseys. Even the menus featured dishes named after the local university football and basketball coaches’ names with ingredients that supposedly reflected their personalities. The place looked like a three way cross between an Applebee’s, an ESPN zone, and a Hooter’s restaurant (the waitresses at least).

After given the dinner menus by the perky waitress, my friend and I looked through the menu and picked out four dinner items - two entrees and two appetizers. I don’t remember the exact name but I ordered some type of special pesto pasta dish and a side order of sweet potato fries, and my friend ordered some type of grilled chicken sandwich with an extra side of onion rings. I remember glancing at the prices briefly, but usually I don’t usually pay much attention to individual prices until I get the bill. After we got our food, finished it, and asked for the bill - I was completely blown away by the final amount. Including sales tax, the bill came out to only $14.23! At first I thought there must have been some mistake - surely the waitress must have only calculated one of our orders and forgotten to include the other person’s dinner entree and appetizer. But after punching some numbers on my cell phone calculator, I realized the final tab was computed correctly - it really was that cheap.

While some of you out there who live in rural or lower cost suburban areas may not think this is all that low for the cost of a dinner for two, in my neck of the woods of Washington D.C. and Maryland, this is exceedingly cheap. I was mentally expecting a total bill to come out at around $35.00-40.00 or more, especially since we also ordered appetizer sides and the fact it was dinner pricing, which is usually substantially higher than discounted prices during lunch time. So when I saw the low cost, I was ecstatic and elated at the tremendous cost savings.

Local Non-Chain Restaurants That Appeal To Cash Strapped Students Feature Much Lower Menu Prices

After pondering about it for a bit, I realized why prices were so comparatively low at this particular restaurant. In fact, it wasn’t just that particular restaurant that offered much lower prices. Most of the other local neighborhood college town area restaurants, bars, and dining cafes offered similar competitive pricing as well. The reason for the cheaper pricing was because these restaurants catered heavily to the local state university campus a few blocks away, and as is understood, college students generally have a very limited financial budget to work with. While working adults and graduates presumably have full time jobs and income, college students tend to be more cash strapped and limited as to how much they can afford to spend. To cater to this category of lower income clientele and offer competitive food pricing, these college town restaurants must offer heavily discounted prices. While to the students, the prices were set just right and accurately priced to fit their market, to working adults like my friend and I, the dining prices were remarkably low. The different perspectives in pricing would be like some city slicker businessman from New York City, accustomed to paying $12-$15 for a single lunch deli sandwich everyday, being instantly transported to the boonies of Nebraska and finding sandwiches prices as low as $3 each. It’s a frugal person’s heaven and jackpot to be able to find such a hidden treasure trove of underpriced goods.

However, based on my view, the tremendous price savings are only available and offered at locally run off-campus hangouts. Brand name chain restaurants like Applebee’s, TGI Fridays, or even coffee shops like Starbucks continue to offer the same high rip off prices they offer elsewhere. If you are looking for college town dining savings, you won’t find them at chain restaurants or national retail shops. You’ll have to go to some popular local bar or grill restaurant to get the great student level pricing.

Also, it seems the arbitrage price savings can usually only be found at community or local state universities and colleges. If you visit a private university or one that imposes notoriously high tuition rates, you are unlikely to find too many deals when it comes to dining or eating out. This is probably due to the richer and wealthier student patrons that enroll in those types of schools. As a result of the deeper pockets that these students come to school with thanks to their wealthier parents, they have a lot more disposable spending money to blow on entertainment and food. As such, even the local mom and pop restaurants located near private college and university campuses can afford to offer expensive items on the menu and still adequately compete for customers. Public state school students tend to be more frugal and more cognizant about prices. I would know - I graduated from a public state university. My friends who attended neighboring private colleges and universities tended to be more wasteful and lavish in their spending - and as a correlation, restaurants and cafes located their private school campuses tended to price themselves high to capture this higher income demographic. Finding exceptional dining deals around their schools was usually quite a challenge if not impossible.

Of course, the one greatest downside (or upside depending on what you’re looking for) is the sheer number of rowdy students that are bound to flood these local college town restaurants when school season starts. We ate there during the summer and despite the presence of a few summer students and local residents, most of the locally owned restaurants and cafes were rather empty and vacant. I’m sure when September rolls around and school starts, the place will be filled with hordes of drunken college students and fraternity pledges from the neighboring fraternity row just a block away from the area restaurants - all looking to party it up.

As the American and world economies endure a period of economic recession, the once stable and thriving marketplace can seem like a distant memory. Not only does it seem like unemployment warning flags and disappointing corporate earning reports lurk around every corner, it’s all too easy to succumb to the financial despair. When you combine the mortgage market meltdown with increasing housing foreclosures, and you mix that with high gas prices, fears of another major Islamic terrorist attack, and snowballed consumer pessimism, you have a spicy cocktail for widespread financial depression. While I’m not a financial fortune teller, nor am I a guru who can predict when the recession or lingering credit crisis will pass, all I can do is reassure you of areas in your life where you ought not to be overly distraught or paranoid about.

One segment in the economy that has spawned a huge surge of concern and irrational panic is the area of bank failures and bank bankruptcies. Because of the excessive subprime lending to consumers totally unqualified to receive home mortgages made by irresponsible mortgage lenders in the past few years, the economy is now reaping the terrible financial whirlwind result of defaulting loans and home foreclosures. This calamity is currently happening on a massive scale as huge banking giants like Citibank and Bank of America, as well as major thrift saving institutions like Washington Mutual are getting pummeled for their ties to bad mortgage loans. Unable to recoup their housing mortgage investments, many of these financial service providers are having to write off billions of dollars of unrecoverable bad loans, triggering serious questions by creditors, deposit account holders, and shareholders of their ability to continue as viable going concerns.

Bank Failures Have A Way Of Sparking Emotional Panic, Regardless Of The Government Effort’s To Alleviate Fears

While most major banks have healthier segments of their financial businesses to siphon assets and capital from, thereby allowing them to stay afloat, a few have not been so lucky. Netbank, an online banking institution that was one of the first early adopters during the initial Internet banking craze, ultimately keeled over due to the disintegration of its mortgage business segment. When its asset position could no longer meet depositor demand, federal regulators swooped in to shut it down, forcing Netbank to ultimately file for bankruptcy.

Banking and mortgage services giant Countrywide Financial recently faltered under the crushing weight of bad mortgages as well, and was ultimately acquired by Bank of America at an extremely huge discount, saving it from near collapse.

Most recently, IndyMac Bank fell flat on its face, triggering shock waves that signified the United States’ second largest banking collapse in history. Due to the sheer financial size of IndyMac bank, and the large scale and huge number of account customers the banking collapse affected, the news triggered panic attacks and resulted in reports of huge lines of desperate customers clamoring to get their deposit money out of the bank out of fear of the unknown. Despite the federal government’s announcement that the vast majority of deposit holders would not lose a single cent of their money, news of catastrophic bank failures have a way of making consumers go crazy and act in irrationally frenzied ways. As someone who considers himself relatively educated about the subject of finance, even I have to admit I was disturbed by the sheer magnitude of the Indy Mac bank collapse. After all, if IndyMac could fall, who else could potentially be next? I felt a slight tinge of emotional panic despite my otherwise logical and rational mental faculties - and I wasn’t even an IndyMac banking or home mortgage customer. But yet, I still felt the reactive emotional ripples that made me question my faith and trust in my bank and the economy at large. While bank failures are incredibly rare, they do happen - especially when there is a significant and pervasive trigger (the subprime mortgage meltdown) that is causing the financially destructive domino effect.

Thus, that is why it is extremely important for us, as cool headed consumers, to greatly educate ourselves on the types of financial and banking protections the system has in place to shield the money we save up in banks, savings and loans, and credit unions from loss. By learning more about how the federal government, the FDIC, and private bank risk sharing agreements protect our deposits, the more our fears will diminish, thus helping to solidify our faith in our banking institutions. We live in an efficient market where there are powerful protective systems in place, and proper financial education will help to reinforce that confidence. Thus sometimes, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - a nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” (a powerful quote made by former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression).

How Does FDIC Insurance Keep Our Bank Accounts and Deposit Money Safe?

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a federal government run entity that provides deposit insurance protection for participating member banks - guaranteeing their deposit accounts from loss. The FDIC system was set up to instill consumer confidence in our nation’s banking system during a time of severe economic recession and financial turmoil. To prevent massive runs on banks triggered by irrational consumer panic to withdraw money during times of crisis, the United States government set up the FDIC to guarantee depositors at insured banks that their money would always be safe, even during the worst of times.

As a general rule of thumb, the current FDIC insured amount per depositor at each bank is $100,000 (with extra exceptions for different ownership categories). This blanket protection insures member bank accounts from bank failure loss, up to the maximum insured amount of $100,000. The FDIC protection covers a variety of bank deposits, including - checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, certificate of deposits (CD’s), and even bank money orders and cashier’s checks. However, the FDIC protection does not cover non bank deposit type accounts and assets like - stocks, bonds, mutual fund investments, variable or fixed annuities, U.S. Treasury securities, or contents stored in safe deposit boxes. As FDIC insurance only covers bank failure loss, it also does not provide protection against bank fire, fraud, or theft, although in the overwhelming majority of cases, individual banks usually have their own private hazard and casualty insurance coverage against these other types of loss.

The FDIC also provides loss protection for retirement accounts held in member banks in the form of deposits. The FDIC limit for retirement accounts, which includes self directed plans like Roth IRA’s, Traditional IRA’s, SEP’s, and Keogh’s, currently stands at - $250,000. The higher FDIC limit for retirement accounts is a clear recognition by the FDIC of the importance of ensuring that consumers always have their retirement nest eggs to fall back on.

How Does The Federal Government and The FDIC Monitor The Banking Industry?

While by no means a perfect system, the banking industry is highly regulated by the federal government and watched by multiple federal agencies - including the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of Currency, the FDIC, and the Office of Thrift Supervision. Along with state banking regulators, there are multiple sets of eyes at all time on the state of the banking market. While bank failures are incredibly rare, they do happen on occasion unfortunately.

In such an occurrence, as soon as the federal and state regulators determine that a bank no longer has the capacity to meet depositor demands and sustain sufficient capital due to insolvency problems, the FDIC barges in to take command. Once it takes control, the execution is usually fairly rapid as the FDIC is highly motivated to ensure a seamless transition. Until the FDIC can find a suitable buyer of the failing bank’s assets, the bank generally continues to run as usual without significant interruption. In the rare event the FDIC cannot find a suitable buyer, it closes down the ailing bank and sends out checks to all account holders within the FDIC insurance limits along with interest. Usually the FDIC payments are sent out in a matter of days.

For Those Banking Customers With $100,000 Or Less In Total Bank Deposits, Your Money Is Fully Covered By The FDIC

If you are a young student or a person with relatively low income with little in the way of financial or banking assets, you probably won’t have to worry too much about losing your money in the event of a bank failure. If your total bank deposits are less than $100,000, you can rest assured that the full faith and credit of the United States government has your back. The ones that have to be more vigilant in how they structure their checking and savings account deposits are those with more than $100,000 in total deposits. Those with more than $100,000 in deposits will need to pay greater attention to how they break up and consolidate their money among FDIC insured banks to ensure maximum FDIC protection against loss.

For Those With More Than $100,000, You’ll Need To Pay Attention To How The FDIC Provides Separate Coverage For Different Ownership Categories At Any One Bank

While I personally don’t have more than $100,000 in total bank deposits that require me to even worry about this problem (yet!), it’s something I want to know more about because I know one day I will reach that goal (why dream if you can’t dream big). It’s better to know how to structure your bank deposit portfolio now and plan for that occasion, than not know what to do when you reach that point someday in the not too distant future.

While the FDIC insurance program protects individual bank depositors up to a maximum of $100,000 per bank, there are clever ways and not-so-secret methods to get you around this protection limit. The primary way to accomplish this is through deposit account diversification. By splitting your total deposits into multiple ownership category accounts or splitting your assets among different FDIC insured banks, you can ensure full protection of your money. Remember, bank deposit accounts at different banks are insured separately (although all bank branches are considered part of the same bank). Thus, each bank has its own complete set of FDIC coverage limits.

At any one bank, the FDIC offers each category of ownership account its own individual coverage cap. There are different types of ownership categories, each with its own $100,000 FDIC insurance limit. You can go straight to the official source if you want to know more about the FDIC’s policy on ownership categories, but the more common ownership categories are listed here. Remember, each ownership category (single account, joint accounts, etc) gets its own $100,000 FDIC coverage limit:

• Single Accounts - Most consumer bank accounts fall into this category, which covers checking, savings, and CD’s. Basically, if your bank account is in your name only, its ownership category is probably that of a single account. Single accounts also include sole proprietorship business accounts you may own at the same bank (DBA, “Doing Business As” type businesses). All personal and sole proprietorship business deposit accounts at the same bank are added together as single accounts and insured up to the combined maximum FDIC limit of $100,000.
• Joint Accounts - Joint accounts are simply bank deposit accounts that are owned by two people or more at the same bank. While most joint accounts are held by married couples, joint account owners don’t necessarily need to be married. For example, while I have my own individual bank account at a local Chevy Chase Bank, my mom and I also jointly hold a separate shared deposit account at the same bank. Individuals can have multiple joint accounts at the same bank, each with joint ownership involving different people, but when it comes to calculating the total FDIC limit for the joint account category, all proportional shares that each individual owner owns in all joint bank accounts at any one bank are added together and insured up to $100,000 for each individual. Thus, while a joint deposit account for a married couple may appear to enjoy a higher $200,000 FDIC limit, it’s actually made up of two separately capped $100,000 limits - one for the wife, and one for the husband.
• Trust Accounts - Both revocable and irrevocable trusts get their own FDIC insurance limits of $100,000. By listing others as beneficiaries, one can strategically use trust deposit accounts to get around the usual FDIC individual caps. For example, both a husband and wife can set up 2 separate revocable trusts in each other’s names to get an extra total $200,000 FDIC limit on top of their other single and joint account limits.
• Business Accounts - I’m sure business owners feel the FDIC insurance deposit limit for business accounts are currently much too low, but as it currently stands, bank deposit account funds held by corporations, limited liability companies (LLC’s), and partnerships at any one bank are combined and insured up to a maximum FDIC limit of only $100,000 (much too low in my opinion). Keep in mind, sole proprietorship business accounts are lumped in with single accounts.
• Retirement Accounts - Self directed retirement accounts where the account holder gets to decide what to do with his or her money, are offered much higher insurance limits under the FDIC - at $250,000. This particular ownership category includes the following retirement plans - individual retirement accounts (IRA’s), Roth IRA’s, Simplified Employee Pension Accounts, and Keogh Plan accounts. All retirement account deposits held by an individual at a single bank are added together and insured up to a maximum FDIC limit of $250,000. However, keep in mind, retirement account assets invested in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are not FDIC insured as you’re actually investing through a broker with a working relationship with your bank. The FDIC coverage only protects retirement bank deposits, not investments.

Those With More Than $100,000 In Bank Assets Should Shift Bank Deposit Money Into Joint Accounts To Maximize FDIC Coverage

Because the FDIC provides $100,000 total protection limits for each ownership category, including $250,000 for self directed retirement accounts at the same bank, consumers may be able to greatly increase their total overall financial protection by splitting their money among different types of ownership accounts at the same bank. For example, if you have an individual savings account with total deposits valued at $275,000, you need to be extra careful about bank failure. In the event your bank fails or is suddenly unable to meet depositor demands, you stand to potentially lose $175,000 because only $100,000 worth of assets in the single account category are covered. The solution is not to open up multiple bank accounts like checking accounts or CD’s as they are all of the same ownership category and doing so won’t increase your overall FDIC limit. The best way to diversity and boost your FDIC limit is to spread your deposit among different ownership categories or among different banks. In the case of the hypothetical individual $275,000 savings account, it would be advisable to take at least $175,000 from that savings account and shift it into a joint account with your spouse, thereby sheltering the $175,000 under the $200,000 total joint account FDIC limit. You might even want to make sure you give each deposit account extra room under the FDIC cap to allow interest to accrue, but still remain fully protected.

To reiterate the point about ownership categories, let’s say you went to Washington Mutual and opened up a brick and mortar checking account, an online high interest savings account, and set up a few CD’s - your total coverage limit will still only be $100,000. However, if you opened a joint account with you and your wife or husband, while opening up your own individual checking account at the same time, you will be able to receive $100,000 coverage limit for the checking account, and another separate $200,000 total marital pool coverage limit for the joint account.

Business Accounts Are Covered By FDIC Insurance, But Depending On Type Of Business Entity, They May Or May Not Boost Your Overall Coverage

Depending on business type, a business bank deposit account may or may not enjoy its own separate $100,000 FDIC limit apart from the individual’s cap for single accounts. Because a sole proprietorship and the individual running it are regarded as one and the same for taxation and legal purposes, the FDIC treats sole proprietorships as single accounts for assessing the extent of FDIC coverage. Thus, opening a sole proprietorship business at the same bank as your consumer checking or savings account will not allow you to gain extra coverage.

Only partnerships, limited liability companies (LLC’s), and corporations are able to qualify as separate ownership categories for additional FDIC insurance coverage. Because the FDIC regards certain business entities as separate ownership categories for FDIC insurance purposes, it is not uncommon for clever but sneaky business types to express interest at creating phantom, dummy businesses for the sole purpose of inflating FDIC limits. However, FDIC regulations expressly forbid this practice and stipulate that business accounts for partnerships, corporations, and other unincorporated associations need to be engaged in an “independent activity” such that the business is not engaged primarily in boosting FDIC insurance coverage.

Further Bank Account Diversification Strategies Using Multiple Banks To Increase FDIC Coverage

Because FDIC insurance coverage is offered for not only different account ownership categories, but also for different banking institutions, the recommendation by some pundits for high networth individuals is to spread one’s assets among a multitude of banks. Because each bank offers its own set of bank failure protection limits by the FDIC, savvy account holders are often advised to sacrifice some of their deposits made at just a handful of high yielding banks for greater diversity by spreading it among a greater number of deposit institutions. Let’s say you have $300,000 in a high yield savings account at HSBC Direct that you want to fully protect under the FDIC. If setting up joint accounts to boost FDIC coverage is not available to you as a viable option, you could instead open up accounts at say, Bank of America and Wachovia, shifting $100,000 into each of those two new savings accounts. Thus, your total $300,000 portfolio would now enjoy separate $100,000 FDIC coverages at three different banks. As I mentioned above, in such an event, you may actually want to consider breaking up the $300,000 into four total banks instead of just three to give yourself room to grow in interest and stay fully protected.

One alternative way to shift your banking assets among different banks without actually having to run around the neighborhood or Internet looking for new banks is to participate in a Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service (CDARS). Banks that are members of the CDARS network do the leg work for you by breaking up CD deposits into smaller size chunks that are separately held at different participating network banks. However, your funds continue to enjoy a single point of access at your primary bank with one statement and one interest rate. The practice is rapidly growing in popularity and I highly recommend it as a wonderful and hassle free way to diversify your banking holdings for maximum FDIC protection. Here’s a list of banks that participate in the CDARS network. One downside of using a CDARS bank is that they tend to be smaller, regional size community banks. Some people like smaller community banks, the type of place where everybody knows your name. However, I highly prefer mega-corporate size banks as they tend to resonate more stability and are better capitalized in my opinion. There are only a tiny handful of large institutional banks participating in the CDARS network at this time. Furthermore, because of the CDARS network fees that banks pay for each CDARS transaction (there is no fee to the customer), CDARS deposit account interest rates tend to be lower than that offered by more competitive non-CDARS banks.

However, if I had financial assets in the neighborhood of millions of dollars and account diversification was on my mind, it is unlikely I would be spending my time worrying about FDIC insurance limits. I would probably have the bulk of my money either invested in mutual funds, index funds, money market funds, or other broadly diversified investments that have never been known to actually fail. Frankly, I don’t even think broadly diversified investment assets could ever technically fail - in the worst case scenario, they would simply gradually lose their stock value over time. Buying super secure assets like U.S. Treasury Bills and Treasury Bonds would be viable alternatives for high net worth individuals as well. While U.S. Treasury products are not FDIC insured, they are fully backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. The federal government could simply print more money if financial Armageddon necessitated that course of action.

I have a little secret to share. Well it’s not really a secret so much as it’s a phobia that I’ve held since I was a little kid. Here’s the  secret - I am deathly afraid of household insects, but in particular - cockroaches. There, I’ve said it - the cat’s out of the bag - go ahead and laugh, but it’s not funny (maybe just a little bit). Funny or not, it’s something that makes my heart beat fast, makes my pupils dilate like saucers, and summons forth caveman like instincts to grab the nearest bunny slipper or rolled up U.S. News and World Report magazine for some self-preservation-inspired bug pounding.

The mere sight of the creepy crawly legs and wiggling antennas of the common household cockroach jetting out from dark corners and scampering across bathroom counters and kitchen floors utterly freaks me out. While I don’t instantly jump onto chairs, call my mommy, or scream at the top of my lungs like a little girl, I do become visibly startled and immediately shift into fight mode whenever I encounter a lost spider or resident evil roach in my apartment. I’m sure you PETA fanatics out there may be turned off by my disdain and opposition to the plight of roaches and other household vermin, but I don’t care. Roaches and insects have no place in my home and I’ll do whatever it takes to eradicate the pests. I’ve had too many unfortunate experiences and bad memories of living with roaches during my student years.

Fortunately, I’m currently at a place and time in my life where my financial means now permit me to live in a nicer home far away from roach, rat, and vermin infestation that used to plague the ghetto row houses and low cost apartment rentals where I used to live as a college and graduate student. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with the nuisance of roaches or had to arm myself with high caliber anti-roach weaponry to fight off the onslaught of the mighty cockroach horde. But sometimes, scenes on TV and real life will remind me of how things used to be. Right now there’s a really fascinating but disgusting show on the Discovery Channel called the Verminators that I absolutely love to watch. The reality TV show follows a crack team of household pest exterminators as they go from problem home to another, wiping out severe rat, roach, ant, maggot, spider, and even pigeon infestations. The reason I love the show is the gleeful delight and absolute warlike approach the personalities on the show exhibit towards their determination to kill off all resident bugs that infest the homes of their desperate clients. The exterminator pros show no mercy and go full out with their armament of sprays, powders, and oxygen masks to combat the invaders. One time they even brought out an actual gun to take out a mega-rat that was hiding in someone’s attic. The show, while visually horrendous, brings me back to my graduate school days when I faced a massive roach infestation of my own.

My Failed Battle Against The Impressive Roach Army That Resulted In Eventual Retreat and Surrender

Until recently, I’ve always had a roach problem wherever I lived. Even though I consider myself relatively clean when it comes keeping my home tidy, roaches always seemed to invade my home. Probably the biggest reason for that was the fact that much of my early life was spent as a financially frugal student. As I was primarily supported by my overseas-living parents during my early years, I made a conscientious decision to live in apartments and neighborhoods that were affordable, to help lessen the financial burden on my parents who had several tuitions and living expenses to pay for. But as a result of my cost saving measures, every place I’ve lived at was infested with vermin of all types - from rats to roaches. As indicated above, it wasn’t until my recent later years in my late 20’s that I’ve been able to move on up the financial ladder to higher class, vermin-free housing.

Probably the absolute worst out-of-control infestation experience occurred during my post law school years when I was still struggling to settle down with my fledgling law career and build a sustainable living. To keep expenses low and save money, I decided to move into a quiet garden apartment community in a suburb of Maryland. The commute was great, proximity to grocery stores was excellent, and the price seemed too good to be true - it was. Months into my lease, the nightmare began. While I maintained a clean apartment, washing my dishes after every meal and storing away all food products into air tight containers, I kept noticing the appearance of roaches. At first it was just one or two encounters a week. I squished the roaches with my shoe and flushed them down the toilet each time and hoped they would go away, but they never did. They simply started appearing in greater and greater numbers. It got to the point where everytime I turned on my bathroom light, I would see two or three small roaches hanging around the ceiling area or visibly trying to scurry into a wall corner. Each time I got chills and sweated profusely at the sight of the nightmarish invaders. Eventually, their presence spread from the bathroom and into the kitchen, and eventually into the living room. In time I started seeing them during the day as well, a warning sign that I had a serious problem. Roaches are biologically night animals. If you see one during the day, it likely indicates that you have a serious infestation as overcrowding under cabinets and refrigerators probably has forced them out into the open. For each single roach you see in the open, it probably represents hundreds more hiding behind your drywall or between your floorboards.

At the time I was busy with work so I had little time to deal with my apartment management and forcefully compel them to eliminate the pests. But in response to a few calls and complaints, my apartment complex hired an exterminator, but the roach baits they set forth were ineffective. Eventually I simply went full out and took matters into my own hands. I headed to Home Depot to arm myself with all that consumer bug fighting technology had to offer. I purchased every single roach bait, egg stopper, roach gels, boric acid powder, and roach spray brand I could find - everything from MaxForce to Raid. I probably purchased more roach motel traps and roach gel bait devices than I needed, but I was determined to eliminate their presence from my home forever. All in all, I probably had more than 60 individual roach bait traps for a small apartment that was only about 700 square feet in all. I lined all corners and walls with multiple roach baits, and inserted gel bait poisons into all cabinet cracks and wall corners. I also dusted hard to reach areas with a layer of boric acid, a white powder that is not grossly toxic to humans or most pets like cats, dogs, and birds, but is supposedly deadly towards insects as it eats away their hard shell skin thereby dehydrating them to death. However, while I started seeing piles of upside down roaches everywhere, indications that my baits were working, the onslaught kept coming. Everyday I would see dead roaches everywhere, but new live ones seemed to keep taking their places, gnawing on the dead roach carcasses for nourishment.

Even my poor pet parrot was not immune to the onslaught. Even though he was never physically harmed, his cage was also slowly invaded by the swarming roaches. To protect my pet parrot to the best of my ability, I made sure to keep his cage clean at all times and placed his cage on a plastic lawn furniture table in my living room. I lined the bottom of the plastic table with a thick coat of boric acid powder to ensure that the only way that roaches could invade the cage was by walking through the white powder of insect death. However, day in and day out, I would look at my parrot’s bedding liner to find that the roaches had determinedly strolled through the boric acid powder and made their way into the bottom liner of his cage to seek out food products. When I pulled out the cage’s poop tray to clean it one time, I freaked out when more than 15 roaches scurried out from the plate and began crawling the walls, heading to the ceiling to escape like some horror movie. The nightmarish sight sent deathly chills down my back, made me sweat in horror, and even caused me to bleat out a few uncontrollable expletives. Although upon inspection, the bird cage invading roaches were covered with boric acid powder from head to toe, the resilient suckers simply refused to die. While most online commentators generally cheer the beneficial roach killing abilities of boric acid powder, I must point out that the effects are often slow and unpredictable.

Although I was incredibly busy with my job at the time, I eventually found time to storm into my apartment complex manager’s office to demand that they hire a competent exterminator to fix this emergency situation. Eventually the management relented and hired a more expensive crew to come in and flush the roaches out. The professionals came in with their roach pesticide sprays and laid down lines of defensive deadly roach pesticide trails designed to kill roaches on contact that trample onto them. Then they used a special roach flushing agent to spray into floorboard cracks and underneath appliances to flush out the roach colonies into the open so that they would walk onto the pesticide laden floors. It worked for a while - as there was a huge spike in dead roach bodies as the flushed out roach families were annihilated. But even with professional baits laid out to control the outbreak, the efforts were ultimately futile. The roaches continued to crawl around my dishes, hide in my television set, relax in my stove, and even find their way into my fridge of all places. The final straw was when friends came over to visit me and one of them sat down on my sofa only to stand up moments later with a squished roach on her butt.

Eventually, I shifted into lawyer mode and sent a very threatening legal letter to my landlord demanding that I be fully released from my apartment lease obligations, citing the management’s violation and breach of our contract to keep the premises a safe and reasonably livable place. There was simply nothing else I could do. After talking with the exterminator, I learned that I was fighting a losing cause. Because my discount apartment complex was so old and populated by lower income families that had a habit of illegally stuffing multiple families into one apartment meant for only one, sanitation and cleanliness were major problems. Even though I kept my own apartment clean, massive roach infestations in the adjacent apartments were causing them to spill over into my unit. At the end, I was released from my lease and left my ghetto apartment in a hurry. Ultimately, I had to pay substantially more in monthly rent to live at a new, clean, and higher class apartment complex free of roaches and vermin. My rent soared from $800 a month at my old place to more than $1475 for the new place. While it’s a lot more money, I don’t regret a single thing about my decision to pay more in rent. Freedom from roach infestations is definitely worth the heavier financial price. Saving money is great, but having that extra few hundred in my account isn’t worth the sheer torment of living with roaches invading your life completely and taking over your sanity.

Roach Infestations Are Bad For Your Health and Must Be Eliminated Quickly (Easier Said Than Done)

So other than the scare factor, why are cockroaches and the infestation that they bring to our homes so bad for you and I? First of all, it should be noted that not all insects are inherently bad. Some bugs like spiders and millipedes actually serve useful ecological purposes. Without their presence, our human existence would be inundated with out of control growth populations of pesky critters of all sorts. Most of these utilitarian insects help to control general insect population by building webs to trap, eat, and kill off other insects, helping to keep a lid on spiraling population growth. While I’m generally afraid of insects and roaches in particular, there are bugs that I have friendly, harmonious relationships with. When I see insects like lady bugs or even cicadas, I don’t mind picking them up with my bare fingers to inspect them. I see them as friendly insects that help the environment, so I’m not automatically afraid of them. Roaches of all breeds on the other hand are a different story - they are simply vile. While cockroaches live all around the world and come in all shapes and sizes, the breeds I’m most adverse to are the classic American and German cockroach. These two breeds are the most common roach pests found in American homes.

Roaches are the ultimate scavengers and harbingers of disease, germs, and insect fecal wastes. They have no qualms about walking through through poo or other disgusting solids and liquids. Their bodies frequently carry around all sorts of germs and potential infection spreading agents. One huge problem that they cause for inhabitants of homes that they infect is the creation of roach dust that they build up and leave behind. Roach dust is made up of decayed roach body parts and droppings that become airborne, infecting our breathing and embedding itself onto our hairs, clothes, and furniture. Roach dust is a powerful asthmatic agent that has the potential to trigger significant asthma attacks in sensitive people.

Cockroaches will consume almost anything organic and even somethings otherwise inorganic. They’ll chew threw paper, cloth, oils, bodily wastes, and any type of food or liquid product you leave behind. These little evil cannibals will even snack on the dead bodies of their fellow roach comrades they come across. Nothing is off limits when it comes to their diets. In their never ending pursuit for food, roaches often follow the footsteps of humans into homes and stay close to sources of water and food - which is why they are often found in bathrooms, kitchens, and places where food is plentiful (like near your dog or cat’s food bowl).

The one singular thing that makes them so terrible and deserving of a spot in the Bible as an Old Testament plague is the fact they breed insanely fast and are nearly impossible to get rid of. Female roaches can lay up to 40 eggs at a time, laying up to a 400 evil babies in a lifetime. Their lifespan is a year long and adult roaches can go for a month without food, and even up to an hour without oxygen. They can live off of virtually anything. Even the organic glue compound found on the back of stamps or the nourishment of your dead skin flakes can sustain them for weeks.

Cockroaches are also very difficult to kill. Not only do they run like Olympic track stars, their bodies are extremely well adapted to fend off damage. Because their breathing system is made up of tubes on their bodies called trachea, they can continue to live even after their heads or limbs are chopped off - talk about walking zombies. Also, have you tried to chase down a roach with your shoe before? It’s nearly impossible. It’s like playing whack a mole on steroids as they dart around so fast, it’s scary. They are able to quickly scurry into wall corners and flatten their bodies to avoid your newspaper punishment. They are also primarily nocturnal, preferring to come out at night. When they do, they are very stealthy and experts at staying hidden, invading your cabinets, sinks, toothbrushes, and your food stocks right under your nose. At the mere presence of light, they often smartly run for cover, unlike their more stupid cousin bugs that often sit there, succumbing to flattening attacks by humans.

How Do I Get Rid Of A Mild Cockroach Infestation, and Kill Roaches Using Roach Bait and Roach Traps?

The following words of advice are only suitable for those of you who have mild roach outbreaks in your home. If you only see a lone roach wandering around your home once every year, you probably don’t have an infestation as it probably piggybacked into your home via a plastic grocery bag or something like that. However, if you are seeing them every few days, particular during the daytime when they are supposed to be in hiding, you may have a serious problem. If professional treatment and baiting are powerless, your only recourse may be to move out of your home completely like I did and not look back (if that option is available to you). Some things in life are lost causes. In serious infestations, the roaches probably have spread throughout all apartment buildings or all parts of your house. They’ve probably inhabited your base walls and have set up massive colonies of roach eggs and roach nurseries that are nearly impossible to eliminate completely. Remember, a single female roach once impregnated can continue to lay eggs throughout her entire life, spawning hundreds of hatchlings from just a single individual.

If the roach outbreak is not so dire where moving out is demanded, hiring a professional exterminator might due the trick. Professional exterminators have legal access to much more powerful roach flushing agents and pesticides to kill those little critters. For those who have children and pets in the home and are leery about using toxic pesticides, professional exterminators also have access to potent roach baits and gels that are less toxic for humans and pets. They work by slowly poisoning roaches. Laced with attractive smells to entice a roach, the victim eats the bait and ingests the delayed action poison that will ultimately kill it. When it travels back into the wall boards, it brings some of the poisoned food with it to share with others. In time, roach baits can kill off entire roach populations if the problem has not completely spiraled out of control.

In my opinion, cockroach bombs and roach foggers should be avoided. Not only are they extremely toxic to humans and pets, but their limitations are very well documented and observed. The irritants do drive away roaches temporarily, but they are not effective in killing the populations completely. The roaches will simply run for cover and hide until the toxic plumes have faded. As soon as you move back into your home after the roach bomb has done its work, they will come back out to play. Also, don’t waste your money on those pointless electronic pest control repellent scams that you see on TV all the time. Supposedly, simply by plugging the electronic pest control repellent device into your electrical outlet and activating it, the system emits an ultra high frequency wave that irritates and drives away pests like roaches and rodents. These devices are supposed to be safe for both humans and pets. However, they’re pure junk and scams in my opinion. Both rats and roaches are extremely durable and hardy animals, conditioned to survive even nuclear devastations if it ever came down to it, so neither of them is likely going to be stopped by some pointless frequency wave. To get rid of them, you’re going to have to resort to good old fashioned roach food deprivation and chemical warfare. Ditch the expensive electronic pest control repellent devices and don’t waste your money.

For those of you with mild roach infestations, here are some home remedies and homemade solutions to help you kill them, exterminate their colonies, and keep your home free of pesky cockroaches. Much of your efforts will be spent targeting notorious problem areas like the kitchen and bathroom.

Household Solutions To Get Rid Of A Mild To Manageable Roach Problem:

1) Eliminate the Roaches’ Source Of Food, Water, Shelter, and Entry - Unless you live in a shared apartment complex that allows roaches to travel freely from one unit until into another, keeping your home clean is the most effective way to get rid of roaches. Cockroaches invade our homes usually to seek out food and water. Wash your dishes immediately after every meal and wipe down kitchen counters frequently, as roaches like to snack on greases and food oils. Vacuum your carpet and wipe down your hardwood floors and tiles as often as you can to ensure no food or liquid particles remain to feed the roaches. Fix leaky faucets as well as they offer roaches a free tasty source of water to drink from. If you have pets like cats, dogs, or even birds, clean the pet living areas frequently and make sure their food bowls are washed and cleaned after use. Dog food sacks are frequently targets of roaches - always seal them in special airtight containers. Also, make sure there are no open canisters of food or liquids anywhere in your home. Roaches can sniff them out and they will find them. Practice throwing out your trash bags on a daily basis. Trash cans contain all sorts of attractive aromas for roaches. Eliminate this prevalent food source if you can.

Finding out how they are getting into your home is easier said than done. Oftentimes roaches found their way into your home via air vents, front doors, or even cracks outside of your home. Oftentimes, telltale signs like roach droppings - tiny brown pellets of slime, indicate the presence of roaches. Frequently, professional help is needed to help you pinpoint the entry way. Finding out where they are living in your home exactly is also difficult without expert help. But once you locate how they enter your home and where they congregate, a liberal application of roach pesticide spray along the access points will provide long lasting walkways of doom for these roaches.

2) Use Non Toxic Boric Acid Or Diatomaceous Earth - While I’ve personally had limited success with using boric acid or even diatomaceous earth powder to control roach populations, perhaps you’ll have more success than I. Borate powders are generally non toxic to humans, pets, and children although you obviously shouldn’t intentionally ingest them. Despite prolonged exposure, my parrot, my friend’s cat, and myself managed to remain perfectly healthy in the presence of boric dusted rooms. However, these powders are supposedly toxic and deadly against insects. As insects like roaches come into contact with the powder, the powder sticks onto their outer shell, causing gradual roach death. The downside is that boric acid powder kills very slowly and sometimes it may take days before the acid takes effect. But the plus side is that the compound can remain effective for years if the powder remains dry. Boric acid powders also allow you to dust in areas where the roaches are likely to hide and where humans and pets are less likely to come in contact with - such as in the crevices behind your kitchen appliances and spaces underneath your refrigerator.

Boric acid can be purchased at local retail hardware stores and most drug stores. They usually come in a squeeze bottle with a narrow spout that allows easy dusting once cut. Retail boric acid powder is usually white although some brands color the product light blue so you can see the product better. The key is to dust in areas where roaches are likely to walk through. Roach behavior usually dictates that they prefer to walk along edges where their bodies are in constant contact with some type of wall. Thus, remember to dust the boric acid under your stove and refrigerator, along wall edges, around door frames and open spaces inside of cabinets, sinks, and shelves.

Another product that is used by some is a form of illegal insecticide commonly called “Chinese Chalk”, because of their sale in many Chinatown locations. However the sale and purchase of Chinese Chalk is illegal due to the many child related poisonings attributed to the product’s resemblance to common classroom chalk. Supposedly, one can use the chalk to draw lines of kill zones on the ground to poison any roach or ant that walks across it. It probably works the same way as boric acid, but with substantially greater toxicity and health danger to humans. I don’t recommend using it - it’s illegal anyway.

3) Use Roach Traps, Roach Bait, and Roach Gels - Roach baits in all forms contain a combination of poison chemical and attractive food lures to entice roaches to eat them. They are actually quite effective if used in large quantities in strategic indoor locations where it’s dark and moist. Like boric acid powder, they both kill slowly. However, this slow killing power is actually the most effective form of mild roach infestation control because it allows the poison to be ingested and taken by the roach into the roach lair to kill the population at its source.

The baits can come in the form of a little plastic roach bait station (roach motel) or they can come in gel syringe form. The plastic roach baits are easier to set and tend to last longer in duration, but I think they are slightly less effective than roach gel baits. Gel baits are very effective but they tend to dry out quicker, not to mention the gels are messier and harder to clean up. The gels also need to be re-applied every few weeks for maximum effect. Roach gels should be lightly applied in corners, on plumping fixtures, on interior cabinet edge corners, and under appliances where it’s usually dark. Remember not to combine roach bait and roach gels with instant killing pesticide sprays. The objective with baits is not to kill them instantly, but to allow one infected roach to spread the poison love to others. Popular retail roach bait brands include MaxForce, Combat, and Raid. I don’t have any preferences or recommendations because they’re all about the same in terms of effectiveness. Try buying all three and using them all simultaneously if you have the money to do so - their poison chemical compositions differ somewhat.

4) Use Roach Insecticide Sprays - These aerosol powered spray cans contain a lethal dose of bug killing liquids. By spraying the roach insecticide chemicals along hidden baseboard floors and on dark and hidden areas underneath and inside cabinets where roaches frequent, you provide tremendous roach killing power on contact. The insecticide sprays contain a chemical that instantly starts to kill the roaches on contact should one wander across a sprayed area. While it’s great to know that it’s lights out for any roach that crosses its path, the sprays do not provide much residual or long lasting roach control. Only roach baits can target the roach nests and hit the source of the spawning problem. However, back when I had a heavy roach problem, I always kept a few bottles around at the ready. Chasing a fast running roach is much easier with a roach spray. It beats having to swing wildly like a drunkard with a shoe or newspaper.

5) Use Water Jars (Vegas Roach Jars) - Another common household remedy to combat mild roach problems is the use of a so-called Las Vegas roach trap jar. It’s called that because the practice was recently popularized by a Las Vegas news report of its effectiveness in catching roaches. While I’ve never tried it out, the concept sounds rather interesting.  The Vegas  cockroach trap consists of a glass jar filled with coffee grounds (as bait), and a little bit of water that is placed against a wall. It is important that the roach jar trap is placed against a wall because roaches prefer to travel along edges where their bodies can maintain constant contact with a wall. Some people like to place Scotch masking tape on the outside of the jar to give the roach more traction. However, once they fall into the jar, the slippery glass surface prevents them from being able to climb out. Supposedly, cockroaches are attracted to these water jars. This type of homemade anti-roach remedy if effective, is a wonderful alternative to using toxic insecticides and baits. But frankly, I’m not fully convinced the technique actually works.

I’m sure everyone has their own secrets and methods to killing roaches. Feel free to share your ideas.