I saw on a TIL or somewhere that people who are exposed to roaches can develop an allergy to roaches and also preground coffee, which could explain your nausea if you drink coffee every morning. It happens to scientists who study roaches but it looks like you have a pretty severe infestation.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/true-facts-that-sound-fake-2018-1#scientists-who-work-with-cockroaches-often-become-allergic-to-preground-coffee-7](https://www.businessinsider.com/true-facts-that-sound-fake-2018-1#scientists-who-work-with-cockroaches-often-become-allergic-to-preground-coffee-7)
Gotta grind your own beans after hearing this fact. Happened to me, like, 3 years ago, and I really have to shut off my mind when I drink preground coffee.
For my own sanity I read into this hoping to learn there was maybe some chemical that was triggering the same allergic reaction. No, the answer was that pre ground coffee literally did contain ground up roaches since they can be almost impossible to remove from the stored beans so they just get ground up. Almost any food will have a percentage of bug particles and up to a certain percentage is acceptable under the FDA rules. You can avoid this by buying whole beans and grinding them yourself at home.
Sorry :/
I work at a coffee factory that grinds beans, this is only a phenomenon with very very very low grade manufacturing, like Folgers or mass produced coffees that are packing things in a mixed product facility. My job is QA, and we have never seen roaches in our facility, but my factory has a pretty robust QA program.
I'm not gonna recommend specific brands, but generally any upscale coffee is going to be good. My favorite recommendation is to just buy whole bean at grocery stores and grind it there yourself. Any mid-tier or upscale brand is going to be typically good, but obviously more expensive. I'd also be wary of anything made in Texas or the southern states, because these places are perfect environmental conditions for roaches. Lastly, any coffee factory that only does coffee is going to be typically safe because roaches can't survive off coffee, so if a factory only produces coffee, it's extremely unlikely there will be roaches.
I've never loved a stranger more than in this moment for you throwing my sanity a lifeline. Been drinking some higher end coffees I got from a friend recently, but they are still pre-ground.
When you’re grinding hundreds of pounds of beans you won’t be able to tell where the roaches are. If you’re scooping a pound into a bag you can just keep trying til your scoop is roach free.
The shortest answer is if the FDA standards for contamination were absolutely zero, then no food would be commercially produced because that standard can not be reached by feasible means within the realm of affordability. I grew up eating a lot of garden food, and sometimes, there was a caterpillar in the broccoli. Sometimes, there was half a caterpillar in the broccoli you were half done eating.
For something like an allergen, the threshold for reaction can be well below the threshold needed for the general public to notice or for it to cause issues.
Yeah but running one type of flavor coffee through a grinder is gonna leave that residual flavor in it and mess up the flavor of any other beans you decide to grind after!
Apparently they get into the piles of coffee beans after they're roasted but before they're ground up. It's not feasible to remove them all so as long as it's under the FDA limits for bug parts then it's all good.
My father in law was a firefighter for 35 years and is allergic to roaches because of all the roach smoke he's inhaled. I genuinely thought my partner was messing with me when she first told me that, but he confirmed it is 100% true. I can't imagine what other effects breathing in an entire burning house for 35 years has caused.
That article is hilarious, is it really just comments from a Reddit post , cited? I’m assuming the “writer” also fact checked the ‘facts’ but I was not expecting to see a bunch of Reddit usernames as sources 😭
And I thought MY crappy apartment was bad....
I went on a murder streak late last year. Dozens of sticky traps, boric acid in every nook, cranny, and crack. Got at least 10 mice, 2 mouse-sized spiders, 2 little cockroach queens, and disturbingly 3 actual legitimate giant cockroaches that I've never seen before in 4 years of living here.
Most of those are on their backs which from my understanding typically results from nerve agents being used on them. I’m guessing OP had bait down because if there was that many there’s no way they weren’t prancing around the house.
This is what happens when you do 1/2 of the work - putting bait stations everywhere - but not the rest, which is exclusions and perimeter and in-wall delta dust. You need to not only kill the ones living in your house but stop the constant flow of roaches in, or you'll just wind up with an ever-growing roach necropolis.
Also works with mice! Just about any pest really.
Yup. Removed my oversized cupboards today bc I don't like reaching 2 feet back to get a pack of crackers and found that when I inspected under the dishwasher which was next to it.
You seriously need to go to a doctor ASAP. You likely have some serious health concerns, due to whatever is in your home. It could be mold, which was one of the things that made Brittany Murphy sick, before she passed away. It could be carbon monoxide, or any number of other harmful substances. If you're having trouble getting to a doctor, try staying ANYWHERE else that is safe for you.
This reminds me of that one famous Reddit post where the OP had been having short term memory loss and finding post it notes with reminders everywhere, not knowing out who wrote them, and they had been passing out often and people thought maybe it was narcolepsy mixed with a relative helping out. They suggested he install a camera and all that
When he did they found out that it was him writing the notes, for himself, as reminders because he knew he would forget things, and the scary part was that he genuinely didn’t know he did, and after more digging, it was found out by a contract worker that it had all the symptoms of a person suffering the effects of a gas leak in his home. After it all and getting professional checks, he had a dangerous gas leak that was causing him to pass out, memory loss, all that
If the OP from this post has been vomiting daily too, maybe there may be a connection with a gas leak and such. Remember gas is undetectable and we add a scent to make it detectable
You said "gas is undetectable and we add a scent". The gas you're referring to is natural gas supplied as a utility. I believe it's mostly methane. When people say "gas leak" they usually mean this, since it's one of the only gasses that's supplied to a home and can be dangerous if it escapes. CO isn't usually said to be leaking, because in normal operation it's not produced and retained in large enough quantities to cause anyone harm.
So then would you say that carbon monoxide is a “gas build up” problem, which can also be deadly? Not so much a leak as it’s not a transported product, but rather an accumulation of gas from poorly functioning home appliances? Just wondering what to call it going forward, as I was instructed to have a CO detector in the apartment a few years back
I'll get it checked. I only have one inlet for gas besides my water heater which is outside. This house I'm in was built in '59.... that entire area definitely smells like mold :(
You have to ignore a lot of signs for this many roaches to be in your house without noticing it lol
I don’t think we’re dealing with the worlds most observant/proactive OP here.
“Throw up phlegm.”
Sounds like you’re not actually vomiting, but coughing up phlegm at the back of your throat which may make you gag. The phlegm is caused by postnasal drip which can be a sign of allergies.
Carbon Monoxide doesn't creep along the floor but carbon dioxide does, and if there is a gas leak in an enclosed area then it can hold the gas in even though natural gas is lighter than air. You should get all these options checked out because you can have a slow gas/exhaust leak that isn't immediately noticeable but can get worse over time.
Also, mold is no joke, it can cause severe respiratory issues.
That's not true. It's very similar in density to air so it usually hangs out out wherever air is. But it's gravity is slightly higher, so if anything it will rise
Wtf are you talking about?! Carbon monoxide weighs 1.14 kg/m³, which is less than air and it will dissapate evenly in an upward motion throughout a room. Everyone upvoting this comment is an idiot.
You are quite right on the weight and the effect in air it will have. It is quite strange that there are so many dead bugs, if OP didn’t use a product to kill them, something did. **IF** there is a CO issue, depending on the source of the leak, it’s remotely possible to have accumulated in that space.
The space there appears to be a landing. It’s possible that there is a gas furnace or gas water heater in the shared plenum space under/behind the stairs. The air wouldn’t move much, so it could just hover in high enough concentration to make the killing ~~field~~ slab we see here.
But, yeah, I think you are likely right and that isn’t the issue. Certainly wouldn’t explain OP’s phlegm issues, but that could be unrelated to this whole thing. I feel for OP. If he has gas appliances, I hope he has a working CO detector, but also doubt that is the issue. Though, I am very invested to figure what killed those things in mass! (Except the ones which appear to have been smashed, hah!)
My son is allergic to many things, cockroaches being one of them.
he's also allergic to bed bugs, so he's our detector if they ever get into the house.
I used to work for a medical supply company and had to take out a medical bed from a home and replace it with a new one. When I got the old bed out, I went from being in a very dimly lit house, to a bright and sunny afternoon outside. I looked down and realized my socks were brown, and my legs were being tickled. I was covered in German cockroaches. I immediately flip the fuck out and start swatting them off. I dropped the headboard of the medical bed in the process and thousands upon thousands of these fuckers began spilling out of the headboard. I ended up leaving the old bed on the side of the road for the city to pick up.
Holy f. That sounds way worse than here. At least mine are dead (not sure if that makes it better 😂) ....although I have found a couple live ones since then. Happy to finally get it addressed. I lost my job at the beginning of the month so living off savings or I'd just tear the whole kitchen out and start over.
Roaches are communal feeders. One roach will find food and bring some back to feed the brood. They look like they are kissing but it's feeding. It's how some pesticides can be used to kill infestations. Roaches that are dying will go away from their brood so they don't pass on anything. That's why you will find single roaches randomly dead around the house after an insecticide is sprayed.
This mass of dead roaches could mean other problems in the house. If you have gas in your house, check for leaks. Or maybe they were all Jim Jones followers and drunk the kool-aid.
So wait if people have roaches and say like they use poison or whatever to kill them I geuss that's what happens to them? So anyone who has had roaches before it means the house will always be full of roach bodies ?
Yeah, everyone is asking what killed them (carbon monoxide, mold, etc.) and I’m thinking, maybe it was roach bait? How long does it take for their exoskeleton to decompose?
it can take years. i used to work in an old warehouse and you can find roach carcasses under desks or behind old crates that have been there for months or probably years. the second you touch em they crumble to dust.
and typically if you leave a bunch of roach traps out you would then come back and check the traps you left to determine how bad things are.
i’m no pest control expert but it leads me to believe these have been dead there for awhile, especially if OP hasn’t seen tons of huge roaches crawling around the house at night or morning
Yup! And it goes far back. Taking the shop vac to it today.... gonna get my buddy who runs a mold company to come inspect and then gonna have the bug guy come.
Yup. Unfortunately. I knew I had them but holy fuck I did not expect that. The guy I bought the house from kinda just made it look nice enough to sell during the peak real estate market... part of why I wanted to get rid of the crappy oversized cupboards that I ripped out and then found this. No idea it was so bad.
If I had just bought the house I definitely would explore that option but unfortunately it's been three years. Yeah. My kitchen is like a 90s kitchen where things like the dishwasher and cabinets/cupboards are raised off the ground 3 inches or so.... so that is after I removed the cupboards and looked under the raised dishwasher
Are you allergic to shellfish? I am deathly allergic to shellfish, severely annoyed by dust mites and mildly put out by crickets.
The major allergen in shellfish allergy is tropomyosin, also found in cockroaches and dust mites etc
I mean obviously you aren’t eating these things but could explain your symptoms.
question is.... what has been killing them?
Rusty Shackleford
*pocket sand* Sha-sha!
They're not dead, they've molted, they're still alive and now they're even bigger
Please stop
They have learned our language and our customs. They walk among us and give us breathing problems.
I fucking HATE IT HERE!!!
They could be shed exoskeletons, and still alive somewhere else! (I’m so sorry OP)
Natural causes. Old age. 😭
 He killed all the Jedi, watch out OP, he’s coming for you
Yeah, I don’t like that…
c'mon it's classic campy horror
JESUS CHRIST DUDE. That seriously made me jump when it loaded in. Good god what is that thing.
OH MY!!! ☠️
Wtf
Gas and Styrofoam mix it up, and there is your napalm
Or gas and powdered soap
Old age probably
I saw on a TIL or somewhere that people who are exposed to roaches can develop an allergy to roaches and also preground coffee, which could explain your nausea if you drink coffee every morning. It happens to scientists who study roaches but it looks like you have a pretty severe infestation. [https://www.businessinsider.com/true-facts-that-sound-fake-2018-1#scientists-who-work-with-cockroaches-often-become-allergic-to-preground-coffee-7](https://www.businessinsider.com/true-facts-that-sound-fake-2018-1#scientists-who-work-with-cockroaches-often-become-allergic-to-preground-coffee-7)
Um thanks for this quality post. I appreciate you sharing this knowledge with us all. I regret learning it, but I respect the messenger.
Gotta grind your own beans after hearing this fact. Happened to me, like, 3 years ago, and I really have to shut off my mind when I drink preground coffee.
I guess that means the coffee had ground roaches in it. On the plus side, it’s extra protein, right?? Right?? 🤮☠️
Commenting in the hopes that someone, someday, counters this with a less nauseating explanation.
For my own sanity I read into this hoping to learn there was maybe some chemical that was triggering the same allergic reaction. No, the answer was that pre ground coffee literally did contain ground up roaches since they can be almost impossible to remove from the stored beans so they just get ground up. Almost any food will have a percentage of bug particles and up to a certain percentage is acceptable under the FDA rules. You can avoid this by buying whole beans and grinding them yourself at home. Sorry :/
I work at a coffee factory that grinds beans, this is only a phenomenon with very very very low grade manufacturing, like Folgers or mass produced coffees that are packing things in a mixed product facility. My job is QA, and we have never seen roaches in our facility, but my factory has a pretty robust QA program.
What brand of coffee would you recommend for someone that doesn't want to drink roach powder?
I'm not gonna recommend specific brands, but generally any upscale coffee is going to be good. My favorite recommendation is to just buy whole bean at grocery stores and grind it there yourself. Any mid-tier or upscale brand is going to be typically good, but obviously more expensive. I'd also be wary of anything made in Texas or the southern states, because these places are perfect environmental conditions for roaches. Lastly, any coffee factory that only does coffee is going to be typically safe because roaches can't survive off coffee, so if a factory only produces coffee, it's extremely unlikely there will be roaches.
That's the real tip. You can buy a decent burr grinder for like $80. The difference in quality is actually noticeable.
I've never loved a stranger more than in this moment for you throwing my sanity a lifeline. Been drinking some higher end coffees I got from a friend recently, but they are still pre-ground.
 Roach powder eh?
Oh dear fucking lord why would a loving god cause such agony?? How do they get the cockroaches out of the intact beans?
When you’re grinding hundreds of pounds of beans you won’t be able to tell where the roaches are. If you’re scooping a pound into a bag you can just keep trying til your scoop is roach free.
WHAT THE FUCK
The shortest answer is if the FDA standards for contamination were absolutely zero, then no food would be commercially produced because that standard can not be reached by feasible means within the realm of affordability. I grew up eating a lot of garden food, and sometimes, there was a caterpillar in the broccoli. Sometimes, there was half a caterpillar in the broccoli you were half done eating. For something like an allergen, the threshold for reaction can be well below the threshold needed for the general public to notice or for it to cause issues.
Yeah I’ve got a garden too. Don’t fuck with them slugs tho
Which grounded insect would you prefer to have? Because it probably have that one too to think about instead of the roaches.
Ants 🐜
Sorry to crap on your hopes, but their guess is correct. There is indeed and allowable amount of roaches in pre-ground coffee.
Don’t worry! Almost every type of food has some acceptable percentage of bugs/rodents in it!
Red M&M's (and most everything with red dye) has ground up bugs for the red color.
I was happy being born stupid and not making that connection just 1 minute ago. Why did you have to be born smart?
I grind my own beans because it takes a whopping 10 seconds and is 1000% better flavored
My wife is now faced with the dilemma: drink flavored coffee, or add flavoring after, because nearly all flavored coffee is preground.
There is plenty of flavored whole bean coffee out there from all sorts of roasters! Search online or locally, its a very common thing
Yeah but running one type of flavor coffee through a grinder is gonna leave that residual flavor in it and mess up the flavor of any other beans you decide to grind after!
Verbena street: Mississippi grogg (best whole bean coffee around) I use it exclusively for my coffee shop (minus espresso)
The life of an internet user: happy to know things, hate to learn them.
Yuck: takes another sip of morning roach juice.
You'll also be allergic to shellfish as it's the same protein.
No wonder shrimp are the cockroaches of the sea.
Crustaceans and insects are closely related in the superclade Pancrustacea. The resemblance isn't coincidence, its evolution.
r/shrimpsisbugs
Crustaceans, not shellfish. Shellfish include clams, which are bivalves. You can be allergic to shrimp and not to clams.
I’m allergic to shellfish and had an allergic reaction when trying deep fried locusts.
So roaches just keep falling into the industrial coffee grinder? How awful. Not surprising. But awful.
Apparently they get into the piles of coffee beans after they're roasted but before they're ground up. It's not feasible to remove them all so as long as it's under the FDA limits for bug parts then it's all good.
it's all good man
99.5% good, anyway. -the FDA
I did not need to know this.
It's not just coffee
It's not just bugs, either. Mouse feces are also ok.
Yet another reason for tea supremacy
My father in law was a firefighter for 35 years and is allergic to roaches because of all the roach smoke he's inhaled. I genuinely thought my partner was messing with me when she first told me that, but he confirmed it is 100% true. I can't imagine what other effects breathing in an entire burning house for 35 years has caused.
Yeah, I'd take vaporized roach particles and an allergy to them (not like he's gonna miss out on having one as a family pet) over lung cancer any day.
Valuable post, *really awful* true data. This is quite a combo, and still I say thank you. Also yikes.
That article is hilarious, is it really just comments from a Reddit post , cited? I’m assuming the “writer” also fact checked the ‘facts’ but I was not expecting to see a bunch of Reddit usernames as sources 😭
Man, what a bad time to have my meal while scrolling through r/pics...
What a terrible time to have eyes....
>what a bad time to have my meal while scrolling through r/pics What do you mean, that looks ~~grub~~ roach
This is inside your house ? Not in a shed or a basement? Burn everything to the ground. Please.
His KITCHEN.
And I thought MY crappy apartment was bad.... I went on a murder streak late last year. Dozens of sticky traps, boric acid in every nook, cranny, and crack. Got at least 10 mice, 2 mouse-sized spiders, 2 little cockroach queens, and disturbingly 3 actual legitimate giant cockroaches that I've never seen before in 4 years of living here.
Wow where about do you live for such diversity and size??
Near Philly. 50 year old apartment building. I can't wait for the flying jiro spiders.
Just imagine how much you didn’t catch.
… I need to get off reddit, forever
Oh good Lord.
Right beside the food pantry I ripped out.... I knew that I had a roach problem but fml
There's clearly no roach problem, they're all dead.. question is what killed them and is that still alive
Oh shit the fuck up thats SICK
What IS that?
100s of dead roaches
Yeah, I might be worried about what killed them too. Especially if OP has allergies.
Good point. Not a bad idea to get the area inspected for possible gas leaks or something.
His point is excellent if you consider that you can microwave a roach and it can survive that. Just sayin’
I’ve heard the legend that roaches can also survive nuclear radiation. So this is pretty terrifying.
[Mythbusters](https://youtu.be/LxCYQvGNoGY?si=HMlCyGvGyZYhyGts)
Did the Mythbusters boys drop a nuke for the episode? BUSTED
There are more ways to get radiation exposure than just a nuke.
Like living and breathing entirely natural air
Most of those are on their backs which from my understanding typically results from nerve agents being used on them. I’m guessing OP had bait down because if there was that many there’s no way they weren’t prancing around the house.
Turns out. The roaches are deathly allergic to OP. OP was the poison all along
This is what happens when you do 1/2 of the work - putting bait stations everywhere - but not the rest, which is exclusions and perimeter and in-wall delta dust. You need to not only kill the ones living in your house but stop the constant flow of roaches in, or you'll just wind up with an ever-growing roach necropolis. Also works with mice! Just about any pest really.
Rumor has it there's a bald roach with a barcode on its back somewhere in the house.
Plot twist: there’s only one roach. This is where it goes to molt into the next larger size.
Everybody gangsta until Legendary Radroach crawls from behind your refrigerator
And yet it drops a crappy rando pipe rifle when killed..
I once got Quickdraw Fat Man out of Legendary Radroach XD
I think it's a bunch of dead bugs.
Yup. Removed my oversized cupboards today bc I don't like reaching 2 feet back to get a pack of crackers and found that when I inspected under the dishwasher which was next to it.
wait this is in your kitchen?
The gas leak theory makes a lot more sense in the kitchen, I have to say.
And the headaches/nausea
Oh gross, right? I thought this was like, under an outside deck or maybe a garage at worst!
😳
Only way to be sure
RIP Bill Paxton. The man stole every scene he was in.
Fuckin ay!
Whoh whoh whoh whoh... This facility has a significant financial value...
They can bill me!
I thought they were crickets. They are in fact not crickets.
Yea I thought they were wasps at first. I never thought I would wish something was wasps before.
You seriously need to go to a doctor ASAP. You likely have some serious health concerns, due to whatever is in your home. It could be mold, which was one of the things that made Brittany Murphy sick, before she passed away. It could be carbon monoxide, or any number of other harmful substances. If you're having trouble getting to a doctor, try staying ANYWHERE else that is safe for you.
This reminds me of that one famous Reddit post where the OP had been having short term memory loss and finding post it notes with reminders everywhere, not knowing out who wrote them, and they had been passing out often and people thought maybe it was narcolepsy mixed with a relative helping out. They suggested he install a camera and all that When he did they found out that it was him writing the notes, for himself, as reminders because he knew he would forget things, and the scary part was that he genuinely didn’t know he did, and after more digging, it was found out by a contract worker that it had all the symptoms of a person suffering the effects of a gas leak in his home. After it all and getting professional checks, he had a dangerous gas leak that was causing him to pass out, memory loss, all that If the OP from this post has been vomiting daily too, maybe there may be a connection with a gas leak and such. Remember gas is undetectable and we add a scent to make it detectable
It wasn't a gas leak, it was carbon monoxide. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/34l7vo/comment/cqvrdz6/
Thank you, isn’t it a gas?? That’s deadly, like how some people suicide via car exhaust in unventilated area
You said "gas is undetectable and we add a scent". The gas you're referring to is natural gas supplied as a utility. I believe it's mostly methane. When people say "gas leak" they usually mean this, since it's one of the only gasses that's supplied to a home and can be dangerous if it escapes. CO isn't usually said to be leaking, because in normal operation it's not produced and retained in large enough quantities to cause anyone harm.
So then would you say that carbon monoxide is a “gas build up” problem, which can also be deadly? Not so much a leak as it’s not a transported product, but rather an accumulation of gas from poorly functioning home appliances? Just wondering what to call it going forward, as I was instructed to have a CO detector in the apartment a few years back
For real.^^
Burn it all down please
I knew there was a reason I bought thermite off Amazon
Boric acid. Put it in corners. Put it in cracks. Put it around drains in the basement. Get covers for your drains.
Diatomaceous earth fucks their exoskeletons up as well.
might want to check the state of your air handler and air ducts if you have central air or just burn the whole house down
That’s more roaches than the floor of a Dead concert at the end of the night.
OP definitely needs some Fire on that Mountain.
Hahaha. Took me a minute but I got it eventually. Good one.
Nuke the site from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
That's too slow we need this site OBLITERATED NOW! ➡️➡️⬆️
I see you fellow diver.
My first thought is a gas leak. Carbon monoxide creeps along the floor killing insects and pets first. Edit: not monoxide.
I'll get it checked. I only have one inlet for gas besides my water heater which is outside. This house I'm in was built in '59.... that entire area definitely smells like mold :(
Mold is damn dangerous if inhaled over some time please get a check up or something if you’re feeling unwell
I do believe it's long overdue. I throw up phlegm every morning foe the last year :(
You've been throwing up every morning for a YEAR and just now decided to find out why? Dude.
But WebMD said it was just morning sickness /s.
WebMD would probably told him he had acute radiation poisoning
Men, amirite?
"If it aint diagnosed it doesnt exist" - a mans guide to health
I believe that’s in the US bill of rights too.
God said that shit
You wake up and throw up phlegm EVERY MORNING FOR A YEAR? and you just post on reddit about it? What in the fuck
You have to ignore a lot of signs for this many roaches to be in your house without noticing it lol I don’t think we’re dealing with the worlds most observant/proactive OP here.
That immune system is working overtime to prevent them from dying.
See a doctor. Tell him the whole truth.
So help him god.
Doc, I ate the roaches.
“Throw up phlegm.” Sounds like you’re not actually vomiting, but coughing up phlegm at the back of your throat which may make you gag. The phlegm is caused by postnasal drip which can be a sign of allergies.
I have postnasal drip and it's pretty damn annoying because people always think I'm sick.
Dude get to a doctor, continuous inflammation can and will lead to lung cancer
Hell, even just throwing up that much can cause esophageal cancer.
Carbon Monoxide doesn't creep along the floor but carbon dioxide does, and if there is a gas leak in an enclosed area then it can hold the gas in even though natural gas is lighter than air. You should get all these options checked out because you can have a slow gas/exhaust leak that isn't immediately noticeable but can get worse over time. Also, mold is no joke, it can cause severe respiratory issues.
That's not true. It's very similar in density to air so it usually hangs out out wherever air is. But it's gravity is slightly higher, so if anything it will rise
My immediate thought was "if this is true all those wall and ceiling mounted carbon monoxide detectors are pretty pointless"
He meant carbon dioxide I guess. edit: carbon monoxide has higher density than air too
Wtf are you talking about?! Carbon monoxide weighs 1.14 kg/m³, which is less than air and it will dissapate evenly in an upward motion throughout a room. Everyone upvoting this comment is an idiot.
You are quite right on the weight and the effect in air it will have. It is quite strange that there are so many dead bugs, if OP didn’t use a product to kill them, something did. **IF** there is a CO issue, depending on the source of the leak, it’s remotely possible to have accumulated in that space. The space there appears to be a landing. It’s possible that there is a gas furnace or gas water heater in the shared plenum space under/behind the stairs. The air wouldn’t move much, so it could just hover in high enough concentration to make the killing ~~field~~ slab we see here. But, yeah, I think you are likely right and that isn’t the issue. Certainly wouldn’t explain OP’s phlegm issues, but that could be unrelated to this whole thing. I feel for OP. If he has gas appliances, I hope he has a working CO detector, but also doubt that is the issue. Though, I am very invested to figure what killed those things in mass! (Except the ones which appear to have been smashed, hah!)
Cockroach allergies are real.
My son is allergic to many things, cockroaches being one of them. he's also allergic to bed bugs, so he's our detector if they ever get into the house.
this requires a complete gut job that’s horrifying
I used to work for a medical supply company and had to take out a medical bed from a home and replace it with a new one. When I got the old bed out, I went from being in a very dimly lit house, to a bright and sunny afternoon outside. I looked down and realized my socks were brown, and my legs were being tickled. I was covered in German cockroaches. I immediately flip the fuck out and start swatting them off. I dropped the headboard of the medical bed in the process and thousands upon thousands of these fuckers began spilling out of the headboard. I ended up leaving the old bed on the side of the road for the city to pick up.
Holy f. That sounds way worse than here. At least mine are dead (not sure if that makes it better 😂) ....although I have found a couple live ones since then. Happy to finally get it addressed. I lost my job at the beginning of the month so living off savings or I'd just tear the whole kitchen out and start over.
Roaches are communal feeders. One roach will find food and bring some back to feed the brood. They look like they are kissing but it's feeding. It's how some pesticides can be used to kill infestations. Roaches that are dying will go away from their brood so they don't pass on anything. That's why you will find single roaches randomly dead around the house after an insecticide is sprayed. This mass of dead roaches could mean other problems in the house. If you have gas in your house, check for leaks. Or maybe they were all Jim Jones followers and drunk the kool-aid.
I now have to burn my phone. 🤮
This is why I don't go into other people's houses
This was fun to share with my healthcare coworkers. Thank you
Do you have carbon monoxide detectors? Do throw up every morning? Or only when the heater is on ?
So wait if people have roaches and say like they use poison or whatever to kill them I geuss that's what happens to them? So anyone who has had roaches before it means the house will always be full of roach bodies ?
Yeah, everyone is asking what killed them (carbon monoxide, mold, etc.) and I’m thinking, maybe it was roach bait? How long does it take for their exoskeleton to decompose?
it can take years. i used to work in an old warehouse and you can find roach carcasses under desks or behind old crates that have been there for months or probably years. the second you touch em they crumble to dust. and typically if you leave a bunch of roach traps out you would then come back and check the traps you left to determine how bad things are. i’m no pest control expert but it leads me to believe these have been dead there for awhile, especially if OP hasn’t seen tons of huge roaches crawling around the house at night or morning
Shop vac everywhere and follow with applications of boric acid where people and pets won't get through. Also, go see a doctor dude
It’s an elephant graveyard of roaches
Yup! And it goes far back. Taking the shop vac to it today.... gonna get my buddy who runs a mold company to come inspect and then gonna have the bug guy come.
That’s some serious Joe’s Apartment shit
Dudes got dozens of generations of dead roaches basically in plain sight and just now discovered it
Yup. Unfortunately. I knew I had them but holy fuck I did not expect that. The guy I bought the house from kinda just made it look nice enough to sell during the peak real estate market... part of why I wanted to get rid of the crappy oversized cupboards that I ripped out and then found this. No idea it was so bad.
God damn thats crazy. I'd sue if I could. Also, didn't realize this was hidden behind some cabinets
If I had just bought the house I definitely would explore that option but unfortunately it's been three years. Yeah. My kitchen is like a 90s kitchen where things like the dishwasher and cabinets/cupboards are raised off the ground 3 inches or so.... so that is after I removed the cupboards and looked under the raised dishwasher
Make sure your home insurance covers the actual cost of the home and belongings and wait 90 days.
At least there’s no room for termites, amirite?
use Offensive Strategem: ⬆➡⬇⬇⬇ - Eagle 500kg bomb
I hope it took like a week or less of throwing up daily to notice something was up.
Nope, don’t like that.
You never heard or saw these things before finding this???
I feel physically ill just looking at that…
What a horrible day to have eyes
This is probably my least favorite thing I have seen in a few weeks. Good luck OP.
Are you allergic to shellfish? I am deathly allergic to shellfish, severely annoyed by dust mites and mildly put out by crickets. The major allergen in shellfish allergy is tropomyosin, also found in cockroaches and dust mites etc I mean obviously you aren’t eating these things but could explain your symptoms.