The Natural Life Of The Roach

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There's a park near where I live that I like to go to That's I've been outside all day And I came home and needed to take a shower. Okay And I was getting out of the shower in this like Cloud of steam, drying off. putting like moisturizer on my face and I went too leave the bathroom Barefoot to go into my bedroom, which is right next door. T Get dressed. Okay And I lifted my foot Take a step into the hallway But right before it touched the floor, I felt these Thready little legs on the bottom of my foot And I looked down and there, on its back was a gigantic Roach. Mm Wait, what? I thought you were gonna say like like a serial killer. You mean like like a roach like a cockroach? An American cockroach. Yeah. And this was like a big one Um, And it was on its back like it was dying Yeah, but with roaches, you just never know. like it could look dead but be just alive enough that it's gonna to flip back over and run at my leg. And with my foot hovering over this bug I'm flooded with revulsion but also Terror Lake This bug has got to go Now. And so I got back in the shower, scrubbed my foot, wrapped myself in a towel, ran to go find my cat putut her next to the roach. T takeake a few steps back And I wait And she's looking at the roach and looking at me And I'm like Do something But She just walks away So then I'm like pull yourself together like Buck up I have to square up against the roach. The dying or dead roach. Right. Okay. So I put on yellow rubber gloves and then I get a wad of paper towels, saturated in water, grab toilet bowl cleaner, you know, like the blue gel. Okay. squirt a bunch of it into the paper towel and from like three feet away tos it so that it lands gel down on top of the roach. and then I take a shoe and holding it like as far away from my body as I can get it I'm just like Like, wow Yeah, Yeah What Yeah what what W Yeah Okay yeah And then I get a trash bag, scoop it up and stick it in there and then tie up super tight. Wow. Then it goes into the trash chute and standing there in rubber gloves next to the trash chute on my birthday I'm just like What is wrong with me Like this is not the first time that this has happened. Every single time I see a roach, I completely unravel. L I just go nuts. And I don't even hate bugs in general. It's just something about this bug I don't know, like I just snap And for some reason, when it happened this time I was like I'm a whole adult person. I'm a science reporter This has to stop.. Okay. so is what is what we're doing here. Like it's like how Alex learned to stop worrying and love the roach U not really. U I'm not really trying to get cozy with roaches I just w to figure out how to get to a place where I'm not terrified of them. And obviously, I know this is something that a lot of people are afraid of. And I wanted to figure out, you know, is there something I can do so that the next time I see one, I don't completely lose my mind So hell I figured I'd go hang out with people who face basically the worst version of this every single day. Okay Which is how I ended up at the after party expose in New York. Probably in the dayigh for the New York City pest expo. we u top notch pest control companies and extermators from all over. There was like a roach ball. Yeah, it's like the social part. It' like there's food, there's drinks, there was a DJ, like there's music And also, oh yeah, I've seen roaches drop off the ceiling A ton of people who have been in straight up nightmare scenarios. I knocked on doors I seen them running up and down the doors. Roaches were in everything from the recet player to the TV, to the bedhead. This place was literally I'm telling Stephen King levels of roaches. And yet No fear. We had to take care of the situation. How many insects do you have at home? Oh, I have about four five thousand bed bugs. Yeah. This is Lu Sorkin, an entomologist and pest control consultant. Oh three cockroach species, millipede, centipede, spiders Whip scorpion And right next to him, he had this huge plastic tub of cockroach. This is a Madagascar hisissing cockroach Oh, yes, Madagascar ones are huge, right? Yeah, like some of the biggest roaches in the world And at one point, Lou just picked one up with his bare hands. They won't bother you. They're just, you know sitting They're tasting, you can see the pelps come from the mouth down and touch my skin I think I might have nb tonight we'll see. And I was like Wh of these people like that? And could I get like that? Well, let's go. It's like a stro So I found some exterminators who agreed to let me follow them around. One named Lishia Fulter. Here we have eleven buildings, or sixteen stories. She works at a public housing complex on the lower East side. B on your house, you have three hundred roaches I'm happy Givee five days. Let's go. And also, a guy named Cedric Simmondons. he has his own company. So right now we're headed to North Bronx to a residential unit that has been having some issues with German roch. And they just started showing me the ropes. Flackight is the most essential piece of the toolien. We went into basements and trash rooms Butot an lighton of course the scatter They're going to places like this. They showed me how to find signs that roaches were living there even when they're hiding. They' be looking for marks like this. What look like pen tappings. It'll look like peppa. like stuck peppa on a wall. It's roach droppings And of course How to kill them Cedric takes me inside this house and the first thing he does is take a look around the closet with his flashlight and you can see the roaches perched up on the wall And then he goes to the kitchen sink and he pulls out this jug and it's this chemical, you know it's basically industrial strength raid. Yeah, it is pretty strong. It has a pretty good knockdown too. knockdown meaning how quick it reduces the population. The kind of stuff you need a license to buy, like you can't get this at Home Depot. So what does this actually do to them So it attacks their nervous system and it disrupts it and it makes them basically just incapable and then it succumbs them. Is it painful for them? I don't know. I don't know. At some point, he pointed out a pregnant roach. That one back there has its egg sac about to come out. S one on the w? Yeah in the corner Is that that little like that's called prruding the end? Yeah that's. Oh man. And then he started spraying them And after about ten minutes, they made their last twitches. A guys definitely dead How did you feel about that? Like did you feel bad? U sort of. The soack is coming out. Damn I was like, that sucks. for a second. Yeah. And then it's like I didn't think about it for the rest of the day. Oh well. Honestly, what I really felt were these little glimmers of confidence. Like you weren't afraid. Well, it's not that I wasn't afraid, but it was like my fear had shrunk just enough that I was starting to feel kind of bold like maybe I could kill these things too So here we have Roach activity panelad in activity.. And then also that's the b. ye. Okay, we saw one. I didn't freak out. Like Cetric took me to a Grand Central station. six fifty six trainw. And let's go for it. I was seeing fat roaches and acting like it was no big deal Ooh, big one. Okay. I didn't like it. It's so tall. But it was nothing like before. Y like st on them So I can spray it U I don't know. Stepping seems kind of old school. Maybe we do that?. Wow. That was fun. Yeah Then One night I was just sitting around my apartment. A friend was over, we were watching TV. Okay. And I went to the kitchen for a glass of water And I saw something slightly moved in the sink So I looked inside and they saw Atenna And I was like, nope walked straight out of the kitchen, got my friend, told him he needs to come deal with it, and then I stood behind him and squealed while I watched him kill it. Wait, what happened all your training? I don't know. I just couldn't do it. What? I mean, first of all, Lishia and Cedric nowhere to be found. Right. And second of all, I was seeing this roach in my house, in my sink. where I had just washed blueberries that morning And I think it triggered some kind of survival instinct. and I just don't think any amount of pest control knowledge was going to override that. Yeah. Basically I was just like, okay, well, That didn't work. backack to square one you know, I got to start over And one day I was just googling around and I stumbled across this guy Hey guys, I'm Chef Joseph Hun, Eedible insect ammbassador at Brooklyn Bogs, and we're going show you how to eat all these bugs Yay, I've seen this YouTube video of him doing like different dishes with bugs. Yeah, like gourmet dishes Yeah Bonga pet Beautiful notes of cricket, umami and nuttiness. This is perfect Oh wait, but you're not gonna. Well, I just thought if anyone could help me get over that revulsion I feel towards these bugs. sccorpion literally adds so much Labor. Maybe it's this guy. Like if I could just eat a roach, maybe it wouldn't be nasty anymore It would just be a little snack. Oh ye. All right. And so I sent him an email and I was like, do you ever cook with roaches? And he wrote back to me and was like, absolutely not I'm already having to do a lot of work to convince people that they should eat other bugs. Roaches have such a bad reputation. like roaches don't help my cause, basically. Well that it's a bridge too far for him. So I went back and forth with him being like, you're the only person I can possibly think of who could make me like eating a roach And then finally You bully them into doing it He like I fear I might have. I fear I might have. Sounds good Let's see. Okay, so what happened? Let's do it. What's going on? Right. So me and eight of our colleagues. Okay Joseph had like very, very generously invited us to his home in. We're all gonna try something really kind of unusual and weird. So obviously all of us are really nervous including Joseph, because he's never actually eaten an American cockroach before So we started with his usual dishes, Cickets, ants, mealworms. This is the brood nineteen Cicadas. And it has a cricket temper a batter on it. Okay, so this is just a warm up. Yeah. All right.'s delicious. And the whole time I'm looking over at the bowl of cockroaches on the counter out of the side of my eye. And by the way, they weren't like random roaches. These were food safe from a lab. Okay, goodood to know. And honestly, lets if, I was kind of in denial that any of this was about to happen. They they're fight right you. Maybe I' pull the legs off of them. Please, F first up, do beer roaches. There might be inards that squirt in your mouth. Fried. I can't really taste anything which is ideal. somethingomet It's mental. Is something poked the inside of my mouth. It's a leg. You think it's a leg? I L if, I don't know what it was, but I hated it. Inside b Next, Madagascar hissing cockroaches.. And he had blanched these and done nothing else. I dress a cockroach but still a cockroach. He put them on a cutting board and sliced them so we could slurp the insides out like an oyster. It looks like cottage cheese, but this one was not that bad. It has like a really umami smell It looks better. It was like eggs. Huh And then finally My arch neemesis the American cockroach Oh So he grabs some kind of cooking oil, throws it in a pan, and adds all these aromatics like garlic, red pepper, and then he throws in the roaches. You know what, it has kind of a chy smell to it that the other two didn't have. It's kind of weird. But as he started to cook Everyone's faces, including Josephs, just started to fall because no matter how long he was like sauteing these freaking' roaches with all these aromatics, it just smelled aw Let's the chocolatees. But Joseph still grabbed a spoon. I think someone hasse to do it. Took a bite. What does it taste like U And the look on his face made me feel really guilty. I mean, I almost spit out what I ate Treustris producer, Alan Gfinsky also tried it. nervous I mean, it doesn't, um Oh yeah, there it is. Well, initially it just kind of I just was tasting sort of the garlic, like an onion, but That smell that you guys have been smelling is It's also a taste. It tastes like something that you shouldn't eat. Yeah. Yeah. What does the rochi smell smell like kind of like Dinal, but in like a foul sour kind of way So you did not eat it? No, like, according to a bugs ass food expert, The American cockroach is literally inedible It's a warning sign to me. It's like kind of like Don't eat me. I dare to eat me, I'll kill you Man, this is really not going well. Yeah, no the whole thing completely backfired. Yeah So we're gonna take a quick break. Yeah, Cleanse our palate. Yeah. but after the break, things are gonna get even messier We'll be right back WNYC Studios is supported by the New York Community Trust, providing a powerful way to ensure the causes you care about are supported for decades to come Stay tuned for an audio portrait of Judge Stephen Robinson, who through his fund at the New York Community Trust, has found meaningful ways to give back and honor his loved one My wife, Kathleen died at forty eight after bounce with breast cancer and leukemia O a daughter was eleven For weeks after my wife's death, our life, our grief wasn't the same Night fell Bedtime arrived with victorious tears soon to follow Night after night, she cried herself to sleep. 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More at Viking dot com I'm Lativ Naser, this is radio Lab back with repeporter Alex Neson, who has just faced her deep seated fear of the roach in a number of unspeakable ways. Yes. But it backfired and she only managed to surface her maybe even more deep seated disgust for them. Yeah, I didn't want them in my life in my city. in my state. anyywhere. Sure. onn planet Earth. Yeah. I just hate them. This position is And this boom likes to slide. sort of amidst all of this came across this book called Pests, How Humans Create Animal Villains by science writer. Can I cs on this program? Yes, Stethanie Brookshire. So this squirrel is known as Fucking Kevin. And this book it was just on the front table at my neighborhood bookstore But it turned out to be exactly what I needed, because while the animal Bethany hates is a squirrel, he lives in the maple tree in front of my house, particularly the ones that she named Kevin, fucking Ke, who were eating all of her tomatoes.esn't even eat it, just one bite and then leaves this. So this is like personal. Yes. I really did contemplate a beeB gun. Wow. But Kevin is one of the creatures that led me to this deep question The question the book was asking is it that makes us hate animals? Yeah. I could sort of feel it elevating me out of my murder, murder, murder, kill, kill kill, lizard brain to this idea that I could really get behind. Every time an animal has succeeded really well at living near us We hate them. If we can't take it in, tame it, and put it in a little little doggy sweater, we do not want it. That word pest takes an animal that is like a living, breathing creature that lives here on this planet with us and turns it into an object. We're saying that that animal has no value We are saying that anything we need to do to get rid of that animal is worthwhile. whichich is exactly how I feel about roaches. And she sort of proposes that we should do away with the category of pest altogether. Wait, that's fascinating. And you know, the wheels in my head just like start spinning. and I just kept thinking like, huh, this is how I want to be in the world, what I want my politics to be. Like I'm gonna to make a t shirt says abolish pest and let people ask me about it. Like I'm down And I really want to not hate the roach. Yes, but Well, so A lot of the way we respond to animals and the anger we feel and the frustration arises out of our own ignorance Sounds like you need to. you know, walk a mile in there little disgusting feet. I know. I think it's time to learn about these revolting repulsive Nauseating, offensive, terrible animals G So let's chat a little bit about the disgusted response. So I called up entomologist, Sammy Ramsey, professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Okay, I needed you to see what is happening on this tree. Look at this. Be this guy someomebody look at this. Really? How cute is this bug loves bugs. This bug, how cute is This bug. He even has a YouTube channel where he's sometimes ings to bugs. Okay, he likes bugs. I love it. And so I thought, if anyone could help me abolish the pest in my heart, it would be Sammy. All right, Alex, listeners. Y'all ready for doctor Sammy Story Time? Yes. It's doctor Sammy Story timee. All right, y'all We got get some theme music for that at some point, but anyway. And maybe it's just because Sammy is really charming, but talking to him, I couldn't help but feel my hatred of the roach. They are the coolest begin to soften. Cockroaches are survivors I learned that they're at least as old as the dinosaurs as a species. They can go for ridiculous amounts of time without food. You can cut off a cockroach's head and they can survive for more than a week. They can run like three miles an hour. They're basically the cheetah of the insect world. Cool. They are very resistant to nuclear radiation. They can eat paper, just paper. It's someome of these survival techniques, like their tendency to run away from light and their ability to flatten their bodies and squeeze into even the tiniest crack or crevice that make people drust them. Like we step on a cockroach And then We so slowly Lift our foot And it runs away. And we're just like, how what sort of sorcery did you just do So I was listening to all this stuff, Sammy was telling me. Do they have nine lives? It was almost like I could feel the roach begin to transform into something more than just a pest So they've sort of evolved to protect themselves in this way from us, the predator and like other predators, I guess. Like these organisms are absolutely incredible and had they not But then he told me that as much as I didn't want cockroaches around cockroaches, they don't want to be here. They didn't want to be around either Huh, what does that mean? Well, apparently the name, Paraplanida Americana, the American cockroach, is a misnomer. They used to live their best lives just running around on a totally different continent. But in order to really tell its story, I need to take you back hundreds of years when colonists showed up on the west coast of Africa They corralled a bunch of human beings onto these ships. They stacked them like furniture and gave them no opportunities to behave like humans, to go to the restroom. The cleanliness standards on those ships were pretty low And there were also some hitchhikers on those ships. See, the American cockroach is actually from Africa They climbed aboard those ships that had a bunch of unprotected food in various places, and they found the slats of wood between the ships to be great spaces for them to wedge their bodies. and when they got to the US, they set up a whole new population. They got here on slave ships. They didn't really have too much of a choice in the matter. He tells me this in this conversation and it just like it felt like Damn Okay. U Wh like why would you let's start this whole conversation over and just like can we just not? It was just sort of like like I can't even just hate a bug without the shadow of slavery. Like, I just wanted to hate this bug and see if I can not hate it. and then it's like now this I mean, Can you What was inside of that moment for you? Well, I talk to a bunch of people about this. Are you asking me if I feel can chhip to these roast? Nope, absolutely not. And one of them was author and my friend, Angela Floreno. Obviously the The metaphor is aboutound because there's like the thing that I think everyone's going do, which is be like, o, great, shared history. Do you guys survive something together? And so, you know, you should feel some special connection to this insect. Right. That just sort of walks itself into the room. It does. And I'm like, absolutely not. That story just plays straight like directly into Like all the old just the oldest and most boring racist story that's been told about black people in this country. I mean, rooach is an old anti bllack slur and because of racism, bllack people were forced into poor housing conditions and so sometimes had to live in closer proximity to the rooach. And of course, I knew all that, but to see that that line of history actually started With a roach on a slave ship is just like wow. that is Yeah, it just feels like it's just like, damn Yeah. I told Cedric Simmondons, the exterminator. You know, a lot of people won't treat it with carrying hands and he spoke to this fear of mine. I think they'll weaponize it, you know? Like should I suppress this? L Everything winds up in the wrong hands. And it's like, o those people they probably already know. you know, I just like assume That GP is probably telling people this information, you know, We live in a dystopia. But still, does putting this in my story Cut it deepen this racist idea, like does it give legitimacy to the idea that some people have that black people and roaches go together? It's really it's legitimate. the feelings of I've tried since I knew I was going to come and talk to you about cockroaches, which who I also you know I really don't like them. And I've been thinking about of the origins of my dislike. and when I was growing up, my mom was raarely like we would go over a certain relativative's house or whatever and she would like make us shake everything out on our porch before we came inside the house. and she was very over the top, like vigilant about roaches and assumptions about like cleanliness And some of that had to do with this idea of like shame and like socioeconomic shame. and it's This says something about us. like we might not have all the money, etcetera, but we're fastidious. And one evidence of that is like We don't have roaches. Yeah. The honest thing is that like when I tell A stranger a story on the record about a roach in my home, like there is something However small in my chest, that's a little bit like damn. Now they know Well You have to free yourself, L you have to free yourself in that shame? You know? Yeah You have to free yourself of the burden of Like st ring Im me to be with you Yeah I think of roaches in the same way that I think of rats. Again, Bethany Brookshire. These are animals that are succeeding because our social contract has failed H Right The Roach arrived in America and succeeded because of a massive failure of a social contract that we called enslavement. right? And they continue to succeed where social contracts fail, where racism thrives, you know, where people end up underserved and kind of forced into histories that leave them in a state of poverty and lack of opportunity. Right. And so you could see them Not so much as a parallel story, so much as a symbol of the failed social contract. that kind of got us here My goal here is to regard the roach as a roach. And in so many ways, the roach is not just a roach. The roach is stand in for like class and race And like all of these things that are like way more consequential than just like a bug being a bug, you know? Yeah And all of this got me thinking about another roach fact. I can talk about bugs forever. that Sammy told me about, which is that roaches are only dirty because they live in our sewer systems, which are filthy. And just like in New York, the way we dispose of trash, what do we do with it? We stick it out on the street all night, and then the roaches crawl all over it and pick up germs and stuff. Th these roaches, as gross as they can be sometimes are Cstant cleaners. They're actually naturally very clean animals, cleaning their antenna almost the way that cats clean their whiskers. Making sure that they're getting rid of all the bits of foreign matter that could accumulate bacteria or fungi. They spend a lot of time trying to clean themselves of filth that they picked up. from us And it made me wonder If you take away all the different layers of human filth that we've placed on the roach What's left What is that animal Yeah, and where I'm curious. I want to hear more about like how how they live on the continent that they are native to Yeah, so like they live. Basically anywhere that there's vegetation. So jungle, forests