Below is the mail I shot off to the customer care id of Reckitt Benckiser India, the company behind brands such as Dettol, Mortein and Vanish, about a terrible experience I had with one of their products.  Read on!

Dear Customer Support Team at Reckittbenckiser,

I bought a 225 ml cannister of ‘Mortein Gold All Insect Killer’ with batch number AIK0047 and date of manufacture 04/2010 yesterday, i.e 24th October 2010.  It was in sealed and untampered condition when I bought it. This product mentions clearly, on the front side, that it ‘Kills mosquitoes AND cockroaches’. 
You see, I bought this product because my 450 sqft flat has a cockroach problem.  The accommodation in question is not only small, but is also very sparsely furnished AND is a new construction i.e it does not have cracks and crevices.  Keeping this in mind,  I thought that a 225 ml cannister would be more than sufficient to rid my flat of the cockroach problem.

Since I don’t like inhaling insecticide fumes, I sprayed ‘Mortein Gold’ liberally, in all the cockroach-ridden areas i.e kitchen shelves, underneath the sink, cabinets,  etc, before leaving for work.  I immediately saw the pests (cockroaches) emerging from their hiding places.  I assumed that the insecticide was working, and that I would come back, at the end of the day, to a cockroach-free home.  Apparently I was mistaken.  Very seriously mistaken.

When I came back, I could not find any dead cockroaches.  Oh, they’d not vaporised.  I was optimistic about that possibility, but I just had to look under the kitchen shelves to be convinced that they had not vaporised.  They were alive and well.  There was the odd cockroach moving around sluggishly, but most of them very looking quite normal, and unaffected.
You see, dear customer support team,  when I bought a cannister of ‘Insect Killer’,  I think my intentions were clear: I wanted to kill the insects.  I did not want to treat the insects to an enjoyable (or otherwise) stupor, at my expense.  To put it quite plainly,  I was not trying to host a party for them, to get them drunk.  Nor was I trying to annoy them mildly.  I was trying to kill them, and your much advertised product DID NOT do it's its job.

You see,  when I wanted to buy an insecticide,  I did not want to buy just any product: I wanted to buy one which was a trusted brand,  one which would do it's its job effectively and still be safe for me.
For the record, when I came back home and saw those healthy cockroaches, I blasted them with some more of your ‘Mortein Gold all Insect Killer’ and the cockroaches did die: when I used three to four blasts of the insecticide, spraying it directly onto the cockroaches.  I have gone through the accompanying booklet but I don’t see it mentioned anywhere that I have to spray the insecticide directly on top of the cockroach, for it to be effective.  Now, just for one minute think about the absurdity of it all: If I am to find and then neutralize each cockroach in my flat, using your ‘Mortein Gold All Insect Killer’, could I not just use a broomstick instead and be assured of results, and save on the money and the anguish over the product not working?

You might find this letter of complaint quite amusing, funny even,  but let me assure you that I don’t think it is funny at all.  I have spent good money buying your product, and it DOES NOT work.  And I want an explanation.

Your extremely aggrieved and irritated customer,
Prashanth Chengi.