I had to do a lot of convincing of my wife on the roaches as well. Poor little suckers have such a bad rep. But since i have been culturing fruit flies for a while and she hasn't seen any, she gave me the thumbs up. Yay! I ordered from lllreptile. They put a heat pack in with them. They are in san diego, i believe, so you should be able to get them alive without much problem.