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I have a can of bug spray. The label is in another language which I can not even type in order to do an online translation, but the ingredients are in romanized writing:

Metofluthrin  0.012% w/w
Phenothrin    0.100%
Cyphenothrin  0.100%

Wikipedia: Metofluthrin, Phenothrin, Cyphenothrin

I've been seeing small (3~4mm) dark flying bugs that seem to be able to take a direct hit. They may be grounded, but after a minute or two walking around and cleaning their wings, they fly away.

The spray worked very effectively on the cockroach I bought it for; this kind of thing happened about 90 seconds after a direct hit. Here they don't really infest as much as just wander in off the street and can't find their way out again.

I assume if I get rid of any residual sources of food or water the little flying things should die off. But I was really shocked to see them fly away undaunted after some serious aerosol action.

Here are some snapshots I took of the small bug trying to eat my spicy noodles. It's actually not so dark. Please please tell me it's not a tiny baby cockroach!

enter image description here

enter image description here

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It's a tiny baby cockroach. Sorry. enter image description here

http://animalia-life.club/other/german-cockroach-nymph.html

I looked up your chemicals; the first (metofluthrin) is mosquito repellant and the others are for fleas and mosquitoes. The combo makes me think that this is something intended for spraying on the body or on animals. It is not strong enough.

You need to get a bigger boat. Get a spray made for roaches.

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  • $\begingroup$ aaaaahhhhhhh!!! OK thank you for the ID. It looks like I'll have a busy day today, starting with some shopping. I added a snapshot of the can. While the Wikipedia article for the last ingredient Cyphenothrin says it's supposed to be for cockroaches, and the middle one "Phenothrin is the active agent in the branded product Raid Fly & Wasp Killer", this seems like a non-optimal mix now that I know the pest I'm after, and the repellant doesn't make sense to me. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jul 31, 2017 at 2:03
  • $\begingroup$ I've got them again, and these guys really spend a lot of time flying around like fruit flies do. They never get very big, and I think baby cockroaches don't spend their time flying around like this. So I've just asked Is this likely to be a type of fruit fly? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Feb 20, 2019 at 4:03

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