CNN Interactive May 5, 1998
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) -- The bounty in this
Wild West city is $50,000. Dead or alive. But
not too squished.
Those are the rules drawn up by a Tucson pest-control
company that is offering a $50,000 reward for
the person who catches one of 100 specially marked
cockroaches it will spread around town Wednesday
in an advertising stunt.
"There's already been a citywide panic and
we haven't even started yet. People are going
nuts," said Bruce Tennenbaum, owner of Arizona
Pest Control.
Take local government officials. They've warned
people not to even try searching in the sewers
after receiving a flood of telephone calls seeking
permission.
"Don't mess with our manholes," officials
said in a news release. "The marked roaches
won't be there and neither should you."
The promotion will get under way with a University
of Arizona professor releasing 100 American roaches
with bar-coded bellies in 100 different spots
around town. The roaches must be captured and
returned to Tennenbaum's shop, where they will
be put on ice until June 26. Why freeze them?
"They smell after a while," he said.
The winning $50,000 number will be revealed at
a minor league baseball game. Everyone who finds
one of the bar-coded roaches gets at least $100.
Tennenbaum, whose previous contests called for
people to collect the fastest and the largest
roaches, admits the chances of winning are not
great. After all, he estimates that there probably
are more than 1 million roaches alone in Tucson.
But he is not taking any chances and has bought
an insurance policy from a Georgia company.
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