Be warned. The following story about exoskeletoned invaders is not for the thin-skinned.

American cockroach: These brown or mahogany roaches are abundant here and are the largest of the common roaches. If they escape squishing, they can live up to two years. (Charlotte Hill Cobb/Tribune)

They're fastidious groomers, but they can carry disease. They don't fight each other, but they'll eat anything - including the hair on your head.

And while they can't live for more than a week without water, there's no evidence that today's drought conditions have depleted the area's cockroach population.

"We're in a drought, but this has been an average year," says Mark Gallegos, the city's cockroach hot line supervisor.

Visit City hot line. It can handle about 400 service requests a month during summer and fall. That compares to about 150 requests in a month during winter.

Hot line staff send city maintenance workers to treat the sewer system near the caller's home.

Brown-banded cockroach: They have wings and like to live in warm, slightly dry places, unlike most of their fellow moisture-loving cousins. They live for just over one year.(Charlotte Hill Cobb/Tribune)

Most calls for help come from the older parts of town.

In fact, the only area of town that might be able to boast being roach-free is the far, far West Side. But that condition ends shortly after a new resident connects to the sewer system.

Here, then, is a primer on the primitive beasts that could be sharing your home:

Can't we get along?

We can't really blame cockroaches for not respecting our boundaries.

They don't have a sense of territory.

They don't fight each other for the prime corner of the sewer or the sweetest dribble of last night's dinner clinging to the sink drain.

The males don't even fight for reproductive privilege with females.

German cockroach: These smallish brown roaches have the worst reputation for invading homes and restaurants. The quickly reproducing bugs live just about one year and don't stray from human settlements, particularly those that are dirty. (Charlotte Hill Cobb/Tribune)

Growing up fast

Baby cockroaches are packed into an egg capsule - imagine a pack of hot-dogs at your grocery store - before birth.

The German cockroach mom carries her capsule, called an ootheca. It looks like a "little, golden-brown purse" and is about -inch long, -inch wide, and about a 10th of an inch thick, says state entomologist Carol Sutherland.

Other cockroach mothers deposit the capsule in a safe place around your house or yard.

Newborn roaches are immediately capable of running at top speed.

Do I look OK?

Cockroaches are "fastidious" about grooming, Sutherland says.

Oriental female: These black roaches tie with the American cockroach as the most abundant in the city. They can live up to two years. A female Oriental cockroach, like the female American, produces about 150 young in her life. (Charlotte Hill Cobb/Tribune)

They rub their little legs together, comb their antennae and brush dust and dirt off their exoskeletons.

"But it doesn't make them hygienic," Sutherland says. "They can still pack around quintillions of microbes, plus they can also carry stuff in the gut."

Cockroaches that live in sewers drip numerous germs along their nightly paths around your house.

They can carry salmonella and other bacteria and germs.

Cockroaches living in rocks and shrubs and baseboards and walls of homes carry fewer germs, but can still contribute to health problems with the amount of skin they shed as they grow.

Do I look fat in this?

Every once in a while, you might find a white cockroach. If you do, you're seeing one in transition.

As cockroaches mature, they discard their skin and grow a new, bigger skin.

Oriental male. (Charlotte Hill Cobb/Tribune)

In the nearly 12 hours it takes to shed and then grow new skin, the roach is white.

A bug's gotta eat

A cockroach can live for about two weeks on one kibble of dry dog food.

Tasty, terrifying treat

Cockroaches don't bite in self-defense, but they'll dine on human hair, fingernails and most anything else.

This was documented in a story from Schenectady, N.Y.

A 64-year-old woman and her 24 dogs and 22 cats were living with more than 1 million German cockroaches, which had taken up residence on almost every inch of wall space inside and outside the home and on the lawn, news reports from 1979 incident say.

The woman, cat and dogs suffered cockroach bites.

Go West, young roach

The sewer system expanding to new West Side housing divisions is the Route 66 for cockroaches.

"The more people move, the more insects move," says exterminator Aaron Jordan. "You just wish they'd pay rent."

The best defense

Cockroaches have little teeth and moving jaws.

They breathe out of holes, called spiracles, on the sides of their bodies.

Some extermination sprays are actually powders that block these holes, suffocating the roach.

There are plenty of ways to yank the welcome mat:

Keep your home clean and block drains with covers or baggies filled with water.

Pour a capful of bleach down drains several times a week, or put out a granulated form of boric acid, commonly called Niban bait.

You can play on cockroaches' love of beer - that's right, beer. Entice them into a deep bowl of brew, where they will drown. Or lure them to a beer-soaked rag left out at night. In the morning, says cockroach expert Richard Fagerlund, the drunken roaches won't be as quick on the feet as yours.

Sources: Richard "the Bugman" Fagerlund, University of New Mexico pest management specialist; Carol Sutherland, state entomologist and New Mexico State University extension entomologist; and Aaron Jordan, 13-year veteran of the Albuquerque extermination business and owner of Eagle Eye Extermination