Have a roach infestation dad wont call exterminator because he thinks im obsessing. Found another one in my room this morning after finally thinking they were dead… last week i found 8 in my room in total. Decided to look up if roaches crawl on humans in sleep. Already haven’t been sleeping so this is great . 😄

Yes! After my last severe bout of ocd i feel like my parents dont take anything i say seriously. At all. Now im in my head questioning if im overreacting and I am being obsessive but ive had others tell me its an alarming rate the amount we have in the house. They were even on the stove! I also have contamination ocd so im just petrified in fear like that my clothes have roaches and my bed has roaches. I feel stuck 😭. Im sorry you’re going through the same.. were you fourtunate enough to call an exterminator?

@Coul.C I would focus on taking reasonable measures. So maybe spraying and cleaning 1x/day. I’m in an apartment, so luckily management will take care of it!

Oh man ur a good bf. I definitely feel paranoid at night thinking they could be crawling on me. I dont have the money to afford an exterminator as i am a recent college grad and am looking for a job. So besides spraying and getting bait traps not much… have you had any luck?

@Coul.C But yes living with my parents

@Coul.C So far, so good. there still may be more to go for us, but we’re probably going to wait and see if things become a problem again. The problem areas for her apartment are mainly kitchen and bathroom, near water sources, so part of her nightly routine now is to make sure the sinks and shower are dry and to pour bleach down the drains. She also sprays the sink with a mixture of bleach and water (do not use an ammonia based disinfectant if you pour bleach down the drains ofc). Taking the trash out frequently is also recommended (every night preferably but it doesn’t have to be every night, just make sure food goes out). Anyway, the point is to remove sources of moisture and decomposing organic matter. Just make sure things are dry and clean of food scraps. Having the place be uncluttered is good too. If you want to keep them out of your room, you might try keeping it cold. If you don’t want to raise your electric bill, you can cover the windows with blankets and see what that does. My gf’s roommate does this and his room feels like a refrigerator. Supposedly the roaches don’t really go there (though he also has good aim with a rubber band and uses that to kill them frequently— i’m not even kidding). When you do the dishes, put them away (no drying rack if you wash them by hand) and make sure they are fully dry when you do so. The roach traps are good. Roaches are cannibals so if you leave the dead ones in the trap you’ll have more luck. Roach cookies (boric acid tablets with some kind of lure; you can make them yourself with boric acid, shortening and sugar i think, but also Harris’ Famous Roach Tablets is what we use) can also help. However, be careful where you place these bc you do not want a human or animal to swallow them. There’s also insect growth regulator, which is basically roach birth control… we have not tried to use this. We might end up doing so, but as far as I can tell my gf’s roach problem is worse than yours, so you may not have to resort to this. And we have our eye on some roach gels but we’re going to wait and see. There’s another thing which you might want to weigh the pros and cons of: caulking up, or duct taping gaps in the house. My gf’s apartment is horrible with these gaps bc it was poorly made and also very old so the wood has warped. Exterminators don’t always like not being able to access the gaps bc it prevents them from being able to spray or put baits in the gaps, so you might try spraying there first. However, it will prevent more of them from getting into the main area of the house and you can have traps set up there if they do. I should note that the apartment complex does have a bug guy, but everything he does (spraying the apartment every month, placing traps, sprinking roach bait in cracks and corners) is probably all stuff you can do and are doing. There are some other measures we took or plan to take if things get worse that maybe your parents would not really be on board with if they don’t see the problem as bad and think you are obsessing. I don’t know where the problem areas are for your house so I’m not sure whether or not you’d even need them. It’s also worth dealing with your anxiety on this matter as well. Sitting with the contamination fears, the disgust, the creepy-crawlies. Where I live (the deep dirty south), we get big ol buff roaches which are uglier and trigger more disgust/fear in me but aren’t as much of a contamination threat and respond pretty quickly to a can of raid. They are mostly harmless but I have seen ones so big I could literally hear their footsteps lol. I actually would look at pictures of these as an exposure. Ultimately, I’ve developed an appreciation for them as animals, even if I’d rather them be animals outside than in my house lol. Still working on it though.

@CaptainKierkegaard Really and truly thank your for this. It turns out i have carpet beetles as well ( i was inspecting for cockroach larvae or remenants) and it explains alot of symptoms ive been having that i wanted to go to the doctor for… its pretty bad. Since I’ve had this for atleast a year. Boric acid seems to work in both instances. Im just at a loss. I feel dirty and idk what to do as it is actually literally impacting my health… i do live in the south as well. I will take all your tips and try and do this. Im kinda scared. Its been harder to breathe and i was about to go to the doctors about this but turns out this can be a side effect of their presence. It sucks that I can’t even talk to my parents about this. I want to just burn all my clothes and move out lol…

@Coul.C There might just be a lot of dust too (which may attract the carpet beetles). Give your room a good vacuum (under the bed if possible) and thorough dusting and it will feel a lot better. The desire to burn everything is understandable, but I will say this: you can’t just say “it’s a valid fear” and then let your anxiety run wild. Within reason, do what you can, but exercize those ERP skills at the same time. Anyway, hope some of these suggestions work.

@CaptainKierkegaard I looked under my bed holy cow so much dust lol. And you’re right as im typing this im sitting downstairs since i dont want to sleep at night due to cockroaches being more active and i keep the room too freezing for me to sleep in lol. I will say i do have asthma and my breathing feels better not being in the room. I know ocd can cause my perception to change though so idk. I appreciate all your kind words though. Youre a kind person to talk me through this and give me suggestions that also keep into account my ocd. Im re reading the earlier comment as ive calmed down a bit and it may be good to invest in some rubberband aim training lol. Our house has 3 floors and many rooms so duct taping it will be a bit of a project the issue really seems to be my room/the upstairs bathroom etc. (the basement is always carrying a few but no one goes down there so idk) my room is above the garage and connected to the attic idk. Ive heard some ppl say that could be a cause and others say it doesn’t matter. Touching on the anxiety when i think of them as you know from a biological standpoint im like oh ok these are kinda interesting but id like them to stay interesting oustide of my house lmao.