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Cockroaches come home

Okay, Matt:

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Everyone has heard those incredible stories where someone's pet cat or dog wanders 3000 miles to find their home again, but I discovered something fascinating right here in Clairemont. Not liking to crush little creatures, I sometimes flush them down the toilet. Once I did this with a cockroach, and even though he was out of sight, he reappeared in the toilet about 15 minutes later. When I completely flushed a bunch of snails from my garden, the next day one of the snails was sliming itself up inside the porcelain. What makes these creatures possess such incredible homing devices and survival skills?

-- Paul Harris, Clairemont

The muffled snickers you hear is the Harrises' amused cockroach population. The species have survived disasters that wiped out dinosaurs. A little thing like plumbing won't stop them. Cockroaches love water. Their shells are very waxy. They can flatten themselves down to a sixteenth of an inch and grip any surface. And they don't have lungs or a breathing system like mammals'. The trap in your toilet or any bumps on the pipes give them a safe spot to wait out the flood. Then they just crawl back up the way they came in. If this is the most fascinating thing going on in Clairemont, well, it might be time to move.

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Okay, Matt:

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Everyone has heard those incredible stories where someone's pet cat or dog wanders 3000 miles to find their home again, but I discovered something fascinating right here in Clairemont. Not liking to crush little creatures, I sometimes flush them down the toilet. Once I did this with a cockroach, and even though he was out of sight, he reappeared in the toilet about 15 minutes later. When I completely flushed a bunch of snails from my garden, the next day one of the snails was sliming itself up inside the porcelain. What makes these creatures possess such incredible homing devices and survival skills?

-- Paul Harris, Clairemont

The muffled snickers you hear is the Harrises' amused cockroach population. The species have survived disasters that wiped out dinosaurs. A little thing like plumbing won't stop them. Cockroaches love water. Their shells are very waxy. They can flatten themselves down to a sixteenth of an inch and grip any surface. And they don't have lungs or a breathing system like mammals'. The trap in your toilet or any bumps on the pipes give them a safe spot to wait out the flood. Then they just crawl back up the way they came in. If this is the most fascinating thing going on in Clairemont, well, it might be time to move.

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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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