RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Cockroaches Make for Bad Neighbors

She wants out of her lease because of pesky insects that are taking over apartment.

"Sometimes we see them walking across the floor,” says Peggy Bublitz. “They come through the stove while we're cooking.”

She says cockroaches have taken over her Taylorsville apartment.

“They come through the vents and it oozes with sticky stuff,” she says. “Horrendous.”

That's why Bublitz keeps the light on at night. She says it keeps the cockroaches at bay.

For several weeks, Bublitz claims she has been seeing cockroaches take over.

And when she asked for help, the property manager for the Calloway Apartments sent over a pesticide company.

“They've been doing that for weeks now,” she says.

But she says cockroaches are still around and now she wants out of her lease without penalties.

“It's no way to live and I've begged them to get out of lease,” Bublitz says.

But the apartment's attorney says the cockroaches were brought in by a neighbor and it's not the landlord's fault.

“It's not a pleasant thing sometimes that when you have bad neighbors that do bad things and all the landlord can do is take the best action they can to remedy the problem," says Kirk Cullimore.

So she's stuck. She now duct tapes the stove, the windows and vents to keep cockroaches out.

“So I am to understand that I am going to have to live her for the duration of my lease sleeping with the roaches,” she says.

Cullimore says they can’t let her out of her lease because it’s about economics. He says if they let one tenant who complains they’d have to do it for the next person.

“They’d be bankrupt,” says Cullimore.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Chocolate Allergies Linked to Cockroach Parts

Most people who are allergic to chocolate aren't having a reaction to cocoa or any of chocolate's other official ingredients. No, the flare ups are most likely triggered by the ground-up cockroach parts that contaminate every batch.

According to ABC News, the average chocolate bar contains eight insect parts. Anything less than 60 insect pieces per 100 grams of chocolate (two chocolate bars' worth) is deemed safe for consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.

Allergists say most foods contain natural contaminants. Aside from chocolate, cockroach parts also make their way into peanut butter, macaroni, fruit, cheese, popcorn and wheat. The roach bits can affect people with asthma, as well causing migraines, cramps, itching or hives in people who are allergic to them.

The first cockroach allergy was reported in 1943, and skin testing for cockroaches began in 1959. Cockroach allergies can be treated with allergy shots that contain trace amounts of the insect. [Could Edible Bugs Solve World Hunger?]

According to Morton Teich, an allergist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, contamination by cockroaches and their droppings is unavoidable, because it happens at cocoa beans' source — the farms where they are produced. Preventing them from infiltrating the harvest would require the use of more pesticides, which Teich says are much worse for you than consuming a few extra bug parts.

Avoiding insects in your food is "almost impossible," Teich told ABC. "You probably would have to stop eating completely."

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA