Zapped by Love

Gary W. Short talks about cockroaches and newspaper columnist Jack Anderson in one breath.

That’s an odd combination. But roaches are Short’s business, and Anderson helped to get the word out about him in the nation’s Capitol--which also happens to be a major cockroach high-rise.

When Short’s company, Biological Controls, was only two weeks old, the Palm Desert man chanced upon an Anderson column about how the Capitol was infested with roaches.

Short fired off one of his product brochures, “Control Roaches With the Joy of Sex (Theirs, Not Yours).”

The Washington columnist wrote about Short’s electronic roach-control device, and Short became an instant celebrity.

He made his roach traps--complete with Roach Musk No. 7 and Lover’s Leap glue trays--available at no cost to seven legislators, including California Reps. Al McCandless (R-Palm Desert), Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) and Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento).

The battery-operated device does not use pesticides. It emits an odor--the suggestively named Roach Musk--which mimics the scent of roaches during breeding.

The insects are drawn into the device and zapped by an intermittent electrical current that flips them onto the Lover’s Leap glue tray. They get stuck--and die.

The device was developed in Britain by the University of Southampton, and U.S. patent rights are held by Bi-Pro Industries Inc. of El Segundo.

Biological Controls, of which Short is the major stockholder, distributes the traps, including the $521 commercial model and the $129 residential trap.

The 41-year-old Short says sales of more traps to Congress are wending their way through the labyrinth of approvals necessary for office-equipment purchases. Meanwhile, the traps are selling well, he says.

Richard A. Paoff, building manager for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, says he hasn’t seen a roach since last October, shortly after 18 of the roach traps were installed at the two-story, 44,000-square-foot building.

“The neat thing about them,” he says, “is that if you catch the roaches, you catch generations behind.” Unlike sprays that kill females but not their eggs, the traps eliminate female roaches, eggs and all.

Short says he developed the sexy slogans and names for the product because “roaches are such an unpleasant subject, and there has been so much negative imagery associated with them.

“I wanted to steer away from past methods of pest control marketing--the man dressed in standard fatigues with . . . machine guns filled with poisons to kill roaches. I didn’t want to market the product in the old-fashioned tradition because it is non-toxic and more effective than any other means.”

Adds Short, Roach Musk No. 7 is approved by the FDA.