This always makes me think. Cockroaches don’t bite, are not venomous, basically can’t do us any harm. I’m not afraid of wild dogs, spiders, tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, wolves, hyenas, wild hogs, bears (encountered them all) but I might actually scream if I get surprised by a cockroach.
I think this collective fear of cockroaches that we have cannot be without reason and must have an evolutionary reason.
Cockroaches, blattodea, are hated because they’re resilient and some thrive in residential settings. If they were easy to get rid of, or lived outside (most actually do), they wouldn’t be so vilified.
Another example of insects hated for their resiliency are bed bugs. But those have even more impact on your life if they infest your house. Eusocial animals like termites and ants are more susceptible to pest control so we don’t care as much.
The truth is that many types of arthropods have extreme resiliency, but they don’t like to infest buildings, so we don’t really care.
Source: studied entomology
Sounds like you’ve never had to deal with a roach infestation. The worst I ever encountered, in the basement of a slumlord shed following a big flood, looked like the subway scene from Cloverfield
The fast movement and lack of sight is what’s scary about them, snakes tarantulas will move away from you and do it slowly, cockroach will run in any direction at full speed when startled unless you explicitly startle them with large thud near them, otherwise they might dash full speed towards you
Also social upbringing making them out to be some great threat and fact we’re way more common to see them than the other actually dangerous creatures
Disease. Cockroaches do spread disease.
Studies show that cockroaches are responsible for the spread of 33 types of bacteria, six varieties of parasitic worms, and seven types of pathogens. Cockroaches can spread germs and diseases including:
- Diarrhea
- Cholera
- Typhoid fever
- Leprosy
- Dysentery
- Plague
- Poliomyelitis
- Salmonella
- E. coli
This, and cockroaches are associated with allergies and respiratory issues. I can 100% confirm this because whenever I go in to a restaurant, if I start sneezing, I know they’re there. Then I go looking, and I will find them because I can also smell them. 🤢
Also, I was reading this a few weeks ago: The Cockroach and Allergic Diseases.
Living in Australia, they are unavoidable, so yes, they do come inside the house sometimes. The American and German ones are the ones that reproduce very fast and can take over very quickly.
I came here for this post. I’ve worked a lot with cockroaches as an extension of working with animals to which cockroaches are a great source of nutrition and food… Actually dealing with the cockroaches required facial masks, because you do not want to breathe in the crap that ends up in their enclosure when cleaning. As said in your post, allergies and respiratory issues can happen.
Everything about cockroaches is bad - sheddings, poop, eggs, everything. Same with rodents! When I see rodent droppings in restaurants and storage sheds, and I always warn the staff to wear a mask and gloves, and to give the poop a good spritz of water before doing a bleach sanitise. Aersolised rodent droppings = hantavirus. I think we’ve had enough of that this year in the news already, let’s not add to it.
The American / German ones are the ones that reproduce very fast and can take over very quickly.
Especially the ones with botched, blond hair transplants that keep getting elected by an army of doofuses.
Heeeey, this one you don’t get to blame on us. *empörte Kartoffel-Geräusche*
Haha, true, Drumpf is only a 2nd-gen immigrant… not so German anymore.
Bonus points for learning about “potato noises!”
What do they smell like? I’ve heard about people being able to smell ants. Can you smell them, too?
Good question. I’m not sure about the smell of ants because in public health, we don’t consider them to be a concern because the ones that we find in restaurants and such don’t carry diseases that concern us. (AFAIK, anyway.) They act as indicators that they’ve found unprotected (spilled, spoiled, etc.) food. I haven’t encountered such a huge population of ants that I can smell them, so refer to the other person’s comment.
Cockroach smell: It’s really hard to explain well because it’s so unique. I liken them to the smell of a grease trap (old oil mixed with detergents, spoiled food, sewage-y kind of smell. This does not bother me whatsoever), except with a distinct meaty, animal kind of smell that makes it horrible. It doesn’t smell like spoiled chicken, beef, pork that’s been in the fridge for too long, kind of meat.
The words that come to mind are: Heaving, warmth, animal and spoiled… I can usually sense them when I walk in, but when I can smell them, the place is infested = massive heebie jeebies.
I can definitely smell ants if there’s enough of them. Sugar ants are common in my area and it’s a kind of earthy, sickly-sweet scent.
I lived in an apartment building with a big pipe leading to the septic tank. Cockroaches were always visible crawling in and out of the gaps between the concrete and pipe, living in the literal shithole. They carry so many germs!!!
At night,
that’sthey’d scale the building and come visit us. I woke up one night to my cat staring slightly above my head. I moved a tiny bit, and a bigmindmomma cockroach jumped off my headboard onto my face, then onto the blankets, where my cat swiftly executed it (with no small level of skill and reflexes). That night left an impression on me.I hope this explains both fear and being spooked by them.
Edit; some fun typos
Oh, that’s so gross. The building manager should get that looked at because that’s a public health concern to have sewage exposed like that. When it rains, the water will take up the space in the tank, and when there’s no space for the sewage to go, it’ll spill out in to the open and go everywhere.
As for the cockroach on your face, I personally would just leave and never come back (from a professional view, put down all the baits and get pest control if it’s too far gone). Cockroaches do bite, so be careful. If you could tell it was a mother cockroach (do you mean it was big, or it had an egg sac attached to it?), then there’s a bigger problem than just one egg sac. You’re either already or about to be a co-parent to millions of babies.
Just an FYI for anyone else who is currently living in a situation similar. 🪳 ☠️
Good kitty
a big mind cockroach
ಠ_ಠ
I thought I read it before posting. Sigh… I’m such a bot
I think there’s a misunderstanding here. I’m roachphobic - this doesn’t mean I’m afraid of roaches, it means I hate them and want to murder them all.
I don’t want advanced ubiquitous robotics to put people out of work and to enrich the wealthy. I want advanced ubiquitous robotics so it becomes practical to fill my home with a small army of tiny robots that can crawl through the walls and kill any roach, bedbug, or termite they see.
I’m in this camp but I’m vegan so, yeah.
Some excellent answers here.
I would add that it’s not always fear necessarily but also disgust. Cockroaches are associated with filth, so the presence of a cockroach makes people feel disgusted and uncomfortable. For me, if I see a cockroach it means the place I am in is dirty and unhygienic, and that is enough to cause revulsion.
A lot of the examples you give bar spiders are not things you’d find in your own home. Cockroaches are usually something you’d find in a dwelling where you’d naturally feel safe and separated from nature. Seeing a cockroach in your home or a place you’re staying / eating is different because it’s an invasion of your space, and by a creature we associate with filth.
The only thing worse than a roach is bedbugs. Fuck those things for existing.
As others have said: they’re nasty. There are a myriad of health risks associated with roaches in your home. They definitely do us harm, albeit not as directly or obviously as, say, ticks or mosquitoes.
I consider my fear of roaches to be entirely rational. They directly carry diseases, and they produce allergens. They exacerbate or even cause Asthma. Also, it’s never good to have decaying corpses of any type inside your walls, which is where they will end up if you have an infestation.
They will eat anything. They will go anywhere. They will thrive anywhere. I’ve seen wallpaper come right off the wall because roaches ate all the goddamn glue. You cannot get rid of them without a whole lot of poison (if even), which is itself a health risk. If I see a roach, I go to DEFCON 2. (DEFCON 1 is reserved for bedbugs.)
Because they’re basically land shrimp that can survive nuclear fallout.
You should be afraid.
Having said all this, I should also say although I really hate them, I kinda respect them for how badass they are. Truly one of the most badass fuckers on the planet.
I grew up in poverty. When I was about nine years old a cockroach crawled in to my ear as I slept on the couch. The sound of that thing stuck in my ear still haunts me. Cockroaches need to die.
Oh fuck now I have a new fear I didn’t know they could do this WHAT THE FUCK
My dad has poor hearing on his left ear because s roach got in there and ate part of his inner ear while he slept.
a cockroach crawled in to my ear as I slept on the couch
Thanks for the nightmare. Also, hope things are better now.
That is truly horrifying. I’ve had a yellowjackett wasp crawl in my ear and sting me repeatedly. I’d prefer the yellowjackett.
That’s bad enough, but it can get so much worse. That can lead to an emergency room visit and permanent ear damage. It’s so fucking nasty that I won’t go into details, but a quick web search will tell you more if you have a strong stomach.
Cause that’s how we got taught, there’s a video where they put a snake in a baby playground and they barely reacted, some even touched it. That to say that some fears are taught.
im afraid of a whole bunch of the things on your list when they are actually in my vicinity.
Well yes, If I see a tarantula in my bedroom I’ll FREAK OUT but I remember once I was sitting somewhere in the south islands of my country (Iran) and I saw this HUGE yellow,furry spider, about the size of my hand on the wall next to me. It had very long legs. It wasn’t a tarantula but the hotel guy said It’s venomous and killed it with a flip flop (which made me sad for the spidey) but I was relatively calm throughout. I would be more afraid if it was a flying cockroach.
But I think I know why. Spiders are never hostile and jittery/unpredictable. They’re calm and shy. But these fuckers will just fly AT you and attack you and are just so unpredictable. I hate them so much.
I mean spiders are generally my favorite of the creepy crawlies because they eat the others and as you said they are much more likely to stay out of the way in a remote corner or such.
Where I live, we have a problem with American cockroaches. American cockroaches are a good news/ bad news kinda deal. The good news is that they nest out of doors so they don’t live in your house, and their presence is not necessarily a commentary on your housekeeping.
The bad news is that they will get into your house and they’re about 4 times bigger than the German cockroaches that everyone is familiar with. You can hear them crawling, and they can fly.
I asked the exterminator how to get rid of them for good, and his advice was to move.
Ah yes, where I live we also exclusively have american cockroaches and those flying fuckers T-T truly terrifying. One time one of them was scraping on the wooden door for some reason, maybe was trying to get out. Tge scraping sound was so vivid and one of the most revolting things I’ve heard.
The worst thing about them is that they’re so big that you really need a strong gut for smashing them. They just gave so much content inside T-T
You seem to be mixing the concept of being startled and being afraid. Most people can be startled if something moves unexpected across the floor but that is not fear.
Would you refuse to go in the kitchen if a cockroach has been spotted in there? That is fear.
I would not go (or would definitely hesitate to go) into a room where any of wild dogs, snakes, wolves, hyenas, wild hogs, or bears were loose but a few cockroaches wouldn’t stop me.
Nah I definitely have problems going into a room that has cockroaches in it. Also all other things. I won’t lose my shit if I encounter them outdoors tho. Neither a cockroach. Seeing a cockroach outdoors is pretty meh, you just get a feeling in your gut and goosebumps.
I think you’re assuming that everyone has the same reactions as you do, but that’s not true at all. I’ve never lived in a place with a heavy cockroach infestation but I’ve seen a few and they don’t have that effect on me at all. I logically know they’re a pest and gross, but I don’t have any physical or emotional reaction to them at all. I feel like your fear is a learned response.
If I was at a friend’s place and a dozen wild hogs scurried away when I turned on the bathroom light, I would be startled.
And confused, I fear.
Apparently the feeling is mutual. Studies have shown that if you touch a roach, it will find a safe place and then clean itself.
Why do they attack you then. One of the only few creatures that I’ve seen that will straight up run/fly at you.
They come up a sewer pipe and then walk around looking for food in the kitchen. Bad combo.EDIT: I got caught up responding to what I considered misinformation while not addressing the question that was asked.
