Why cockroaches are bad

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Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Are Cockroaches Dangerous? Medically reviewed by Debra Sullivan, Ph. Do they bite? Wipe down kitchen and bathroom counters with a cleaning solution to make those areas less attractive to cockroaches.

Keep floors vacuumed or swept and mopped. Keeping your outdoor areas free of animal feces or discarded trash will also discourage cockroaches from coming close to your home. Cockroaches are scavengers. And as we mentioned above, they will eat anything—from fruits and vegetables to meat and cheese.

All they need is access. An open cereal box or food container is a welcome invitation to have a meal. As they crawl into an open food source, they leave behind their own waste. Anything you eat or consume that has been touched by a cockroach can lead to sickness.

Keep all food sealed tight and put away. Toss out any food that is old or rotting and be sure it goes in your outside trash container or dumpster. Ears and noses are ideal environments for a cockroach—dark, damp, and usually dirty. Once a cockroach gets in your ear canal, it can be difficult to get it out without crushing it or before it lays eggs. Yes, there's no question, these insects are gross. But are they dangerous?

Though cockroaches aren't typically dangerous in the way that, say, a wild animal is dangerous, they are dangerous in other ways:. Food Contamination - Cockroaches are known to crawl around in all sorts of rotten materials, including dead plants, dead animals, fecal matter, hair, and other gross things.

Then they crawl around on the food left out in kitchens. And like this isn't bad enough, they also leave their own feces, urine, and empty egg shells in it. Disease-Causing Bacteria - When crawling around on food in the kitchen, cockroaches will regurgitate their saliva and digestive fluids on it, which deposits germs and bacteria from their gut.

This can cause several diseases in humans such as urinary tract infections, digestive problems, and sepsis. Evidence also suggests that cockroaches spread typhoid, dysentery, and leprosy organisms. Bites - Though cockroach bites are rare, they do occur on occasion when infestations are large and food sources are scarce. Often, that fear forms early, around the age of four or five.

Some do manage to evade that fear, however. Philip Koehler, a veteran entomologist with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, probably spends more time voluntarily with cockroaches than almost anyone else in the world. At his lab at the University of Florida, he keeps around a million of those insects.

His fascination with those creatures does have its limits, however. Outside, a disturbingly realistic 6-foot tall metal cockroach sculpture, lovingly crafted by one of his former students, guards his door. The trust is not broken. A hissing cockroach SPL. Several years ago, a woman in her 50s approached him. Was there anything he could do to help?

He invited her to the lab for an informal session of exposure therapy, starting small by simply talking about roaches, then progressing to photos, pinned roaches and eventually the real deal.

After several visits, her hyperventilating stopped and she was even able to hold a hissing cockroach. He begins by weeding out my issue with roaches. I relay a few of my stories, trying to make him understand, and he listens patiently until I finish. Later, I realise how I should have conveyed the problem. When a roach slinks into my bedroom at night or flies into my face, I am forced to acknowledge that all is not under my control. Just as a leering cat-caller or subway groper might not inflict physical harm on his victims, that undesirable interaction can still inspire intense distress.

Unprovoked danger — whether actual or perceived — can appear without warning. It can slink out of a dark alleyway or from beneath a closet door at any moment.

To their victims, cockroaches commit a personal violation. In the words of George A. Romero, they creep up on you. Roaches are cute, I told myself, even lovable. But when a living roach would appear in the school bathroom or gym, these soothing thoughts were revealed for what they really were: lies told to comfort a scared little girl. Over the years, I noticed my phobia intensifying. Viewing this as a weakness, I tried in my own ways to self medicate. But digitised, anthropomorphised roaches on a two-dimensional screen and real-life roaches are not at all the same beast.

But even though I regularly handled those exotic species, I still performed a sort of panicked Riverdance each time one of their urban cousins crossed my path in the infested Crescent City. I find it hard to believe that anything could ever change my feelings and reaction towards roaches. But not everyone agrees with this hopeless prognosis.

Expose someone to the same thing over and over again and it will eventually become boring and commonplace. Untold numbers of phobics go untreated, however, simply because few possess the unique mix of desperation and bravery needed to willingly sign up for the chance to interact with a cockroach.

Some therapists are designing workarounds for skittish patients. A team of researchers at the James I University in Spain thinks that augmented reality could be a solution for treating cockroach phobia. Augmented reality projects computerised images into the real world, allowing a more convincing encounter.

To test the system, the Spanish researchers recruited six participants, all of who suffered from debilitating, clinically verified cockroach phobias. One participant wanted to sell her apartment after spotting a roach, while another refused to visit her grandmother for fear of seeing a cockroach. Before undergoing augmented reality therapy, none of the women would agree to enter a room that contained a live cockroach in a plastic container. When the treatment session concluded, they were able to approach the live cockroach and even stick a finger into its container for a few seconds.

Twelve months after the original treatment, the participants maintained those improvements. Unfortunately, augmented reality is not yet available in a clinical setting. Until further research can be completed and the treatment gains approval for use in therapy, phobics wishing to rid themselves of their fear must go about it in the old fashioned way: through cognitive behaviour therapy paired with exposure therapy.

For those who can garner the courage to try it, their efforts are often rewarded in as few as one to three sessions.