Apartment Infestation: Cockroaches – How do you deal?

Today is the day my roommate comes back from a two week vacation in PANAMA!

In preparation, last night I was doing laundry, cleaning up the place, and finally finding a home for all of my goodies I've accrued from the holidays.

While I was putting clothes away, I looked down and screamed. A COCKROACH!

Which is just about the worse thing to find in your apartment, let alone when you're ALONE!

Thankfully, the little guy was dead and was limply gangster leaning up against the corner of my closet. But seriously, a cockroach?! This isn't the first sighting either. We had one in our apartment in late August and have seen about five dead ones lying in the hallways.

I don't live in the slums either. This is a nice apartment building that definitely takes a chunk out of my paycheck. I submitted a maintenance request last night for an exterminator ASAP (like we did before), but if this keeps happening, I feel like we should be compensated in some way. Right?

What would you do? How would you handle finding a cockroach in your bedroom and/or hallway?