I am buying 50 video arcade games that are in an abandoned building that these machines have been in for about 4 years and is very dirty and wet, also known fact that roaches are there. Want to bring them to my single family home for the kids but want to make sure roaches do not accompany machines inside house. What is the best way to be sure roaches will not be brought in with the machines?  Also rats are in the building as well. There are also many boxes that contain spare parts, what should be done with these to insure that roaches will not be brought to our house?

Dear Sir: Transport the equipment to your place in boxes that you know have no roaches (buy them new) and do not bring any packing materials they presently have.  When unpacking, inspect equipment and boxes carefully.  Trash the boxes anyway, even if you find nothing.  If you have (or can rent or borrow) a DEtached, unheated garage, put the machines in there.  Obtain from the hardware store or a Home Depot, a cheap, plastic (less than 1 mil is ok) tarp that's big enough to enclose all of the machines tightly.   Make it tent or tepee-shaped with a ladder or something, put an insect bomb inside, (up high) with plenty of space for the insecticide to expand, getting to all parts of the equipment.  If the machines are big, just do a couple at a time.  Don't use too much insecticide, everything will get all greasy.  One bomb (small) should be enough no matter how big your tent is.  Get the cheapest, smallest bombs you can, with the largest percentage of active ingredient (doesn't matter what kind).  You won't necessarily kill all of the roaches, but after 4 hours, open up the tent and inspect CLOSELY for any roaches you might have flushed from their hiding places.  If you do this and get ZERO roaches, you can be reasonably safe in assuming that there are no roaches in the equipment.  (understand, of course, NOTHING IS FOR SURE! - even if you did it twice) However, if you DO get roaches inside the house, (now, or any other time) it is not difficult, nor expensive, to get rid of roaches in a single-family home, for you OR for an exterminator.  Do remember, that the procedure would be different if you had roaches inside your house.  I did explain that on our web page, in case you didn't see or read all of it.  There you will find even more advice on how not to bring home roaches.  The address is:                    http://UnExCo.com/roach1.html And if there is anything I haven't explained well enough, please get back to me.   --------John

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