Pest Horror Stories That Will Make You Go on a Cleaning Spree
If cockroaches coming out of an electrical outlet sounds like something from a horror movie, think again. While virtually everyone will deal with a pest infestation from time to time, nothing compares to these homeowners who almost had to burn their house down to get rid of the pests.
1. When Bees Move In
For Loretta Yates of Ontario, Canada, the yellow, sticky substance that was dripping from the ceiling of the first floor in their house wasn’t sap, but honey that had accumulated from nearly 80,000 bees that had coalesced in between their boards. Her husband had noted how they had seen a lot of bees around lately, but didn’t fully understand the extent of the infestation until a lightbulb exploded and bees began to swarm around a pantry door. All in all, 220 pounds of honeycomb were removed from the house over a 6-hour process that cost nearly $15,000. The most amazing part? Neither Loretta nor her husband were ever stung!
2. Code Bug
Apartments are normally havens for bugs to roam freely, as they can share air conditioning ducts and common roof space, but nothing is like the great bed bug disaster of 2016 in Augusta, Maine. According to the building code enforcer, there were so many bugs in the apartment complex that the rooms were almost gray from the skins that bed bugs had shed behind as they traveled. Eventually professionals were called in to spray the entire building with chemicals, top to bottom, and a restriction was placed on the landlord to maintain higher standards of pest prevention, including replacing any belongings that were lost from further bed bug infestations.
3. Swimming in Roaches
I hope you have a strong stomach, because this one will test your resolve. A routine noise complaint to the Schenectady, New York, police department in 1979 turned disgusting in a hurry when the officers that responded realized that the dog that had been barking for a few hours was not barking at another dog, but an entire floor of cockroaches. In some places, the police noted, the cockroaches were “ankle-deep.” The 68-year-old resident at the time was covered in bites and the ambulance that took her to the hospital had to be fumigated, along with all the gear. You might want to sit down for this next part: what’s even worse than that is that the animals inside the apartment had been so malnourished that they were beginning to eat each other, as had the cockroaches. This is the stuff of nightmares.