The cockroaches are dangerous to human health and what harm they cause

Next you will find out:

• What are dangerous cockroaches in the apartment for a person;
• What infections can these insects carry on themselves;
• How much harm is generally from cockroaches in houses;
• Are there really dangerous mutant cockroaches, or is it just a myth.

It may seem strange, but not all people understand how cockroaches are potentially dangerous for residents of the premises. Moreover, many people treat cockroaches in an apartment as something that goes without saying, believing that these insects are absolutely harmless, and their appearance on the kitchen table, in the bathroom or sink is quite normal, except a little unpleasant.

In folklore, cockroaches often play positive roles, and in some cases even good signs are associated with them.Perhaps this is partly due to such a condescending attitude towards the “stasik”, which in fact are the sources of unsanitary conditions and carriers of the causative agents of serious human diseases.

However, even knowing that cockroaches are harmful, people often come to terms with their presence in an apartment, knowing that efforts to destroy these insects far exceed the seemingly insignificant harm.

Well, about the harm of cockroaches and their danger to humans, we will talk further and more - perhaps then these insects will no longer seem so harmless ...

On a note

In scientific circles, the harm from cockroaches to human health is generally called blattopterosis. This term includes allergies, the transfer of worms eggs, and mechanical damage to human skin caused by cockroach bites.

You are surprised and did not know that ordinary red cockroaches able to bite? They not only bite, but are able to nibble epithelium in the nasolabial triangle in sleeping people, especially in children, as well as eat the skin of the lips in the face of lack of water. However, we will touch upon these nuances a little lower ...

 

Cockroaches as carriers of human diseases

The main danger of cockroaches for humans is directly related to the fact that these insects can easily move between the room of the apartment and any other spaces of a residential building, including sewage, garbage disposal, basements and attics. In these, frankly, not very clean places, insects collect a huge amount of a variety of bacteria on their chitinous covers: in the basements they run in the same place where rats feed, in the attics they crawl in bird droppings, and in sewers they come in contact with human sewage.

It is not surprising that various pathogenic bacteria, as well as spores of fungi and helminth eggs (in other words, worms), settle on their bodies (especially on the paws and abdomen). And then the cockroaches carry pathogens and other collected "household" into a dwelling: after a few hours it all happens on your kitchen table, in a bread box, on food that is not cleaned in a refrigerator or even in a glass from which you drink. And thank God, if it does not appear on a children's nipple.

In addition, regularly feeding on waste (and what’s too bad to conceal, even human and animal excreta in sewers, basements and attics), cockroaches collect a considerable spectrum of pathogenic microorganisms in their digestive system. Special studies have shown that ordinary red and black cockroaches are able to tolerate pathogens of the following diseases:

1. Dysentery;
2. Gastroenteritis;
3. A number of urogenital infections;
4. Salmonellosis;
5. Meningitis;
6. Mycobacteriosis;
7. Pneumonia;

... and some others.

On the legs of cockroaches, in their stomachs and excrement, dangerous helminth eggs can be present:

• Ascaris;
• Pinworms;
• Lentetsov;
• Vlasoglava;

... as well as pathogenic amoeba cysts.

Especially great is the harm from cockroaches entering the apartment from the sewage system (some even call them sewer cockroaches). It is not known where and in what a few hours ago this insect floundered, and what set of filth it will leave on bread, on which it will run.

All of the above microorganisms and helminth eggs get on food, as well as on various surfaces of interior elements in kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. In the future, human infection can occur not only through food, but also simply along the chain: dirty surface - unwashed hands. As a result, already being in the hospital, a person may not even suspect exactly where he picked up the unpleasant disease.

People often commit public transportation, canteens or dubious products from the market, and in fact in some cases it would be worth seeing the situation with the cockroaches in their own apartment ...

On a note

According to the results of research, carcinogenic substances are found in the stomachs of black cockroaches, which are formed from various insects consumed by organisms as food. However, this does not allow us to state unequivocally that cockroaches are dangerous for humans by transferring substances that promote cancer to food. In this case, this harm should be considered more mythical than real.

Cockroaches are especially dangerous in schools and kindergartens, where they may well be the culprit for the mass spread of infections. Therefore, if insects are regularly found in such an institution, then it makes sense to urgently attend to their destruction. If the staff of the kindergarten and the school are not too agile in this regard, then you can always communicate with the management - it is certainly aware of the seriousness of this situation (including for them personally).

 

Cockroach Allergy

Cockroaches can cause no less significant harm to humans as sources of allergens in the apartment. A large number of chitinous integuments remaining after the molting of insects, dry excrement, the remains of dead individuals - all this mixes with house dust, and when it comes into contact with the skin, the digestive tract or into the respiratory tract of a person sometimes causes serious diseases:

1. Allergic rhinitis with a bad cold and conjunctivitis;
2. Bronchial asthma;
3. Dermatitis.

It is important that allergies to cockroaches are often chronic: when confronted with the products of their vital activity every day in their home, a person constantly contacts with an allergen, and the symptoms of the disease do not go away at all (often occurring in children). The pronounced symptoms of cockroach allergy are usually sneezing, pain in the nose and eyes, an abundance of clear mucus flowing from the nose.

On a note

Chronic allergic rhinitis is fraught with the development of polyps in the nose and is dangerous for complete respiratory failure. And asthma, as we know, seriously reduces the quality of life in general.

It should be noted that black cockroaches have a strong unpleasant odor.When these insects in the room a little, it is not particularly noticeable, but when the pests multiply in large quantities, the apartment begins to smell characteristic and unpleasant.

The only way to get rid of this smell of cockroaches is to kill the insects themselves, and then remove their remains, excrement and chitinous integuments left after the moult grille and in various slots).

 

Real pests in the household

Cockroaches are also harmful because they spoil food. And, above all, it is spoiled, not destroyed.

Scientists estimate that one thousand cockroaches consume about 9.6 kg of dry food per year. It would seem that it is not so much. However, imagine that you noticed a cockroach on a dish with salad. Immediately you remembered that a few hours ago the same pest could crawl in the garbage disposal or climb in the sewage. Will you eat this salad?

The situation is similar with other foods. If cockroaches regularly come across in the kitchen,then they were likely to run through all the products that were not hidden in the refrigerator or in tight-fitting packaging. So, all that was not removed, to be thrown. Most often it is pastry, bread, fruit.

If the cockroach is found in the refrigerator, then here, with a high probability, he has already managed to “get acquainted” with all the products on the shelves, which should lead to the question of their further edibility.

 

Do cockroaches attack humans?

The cockroach is not a parasite. Accordingly, purposefully, these insects do not attack humans and do not cause direct harm to them (in particular, they do not drink blood, such as bed bugs, lice or mosquitoes).

However, even being not parasites, but pests, cockroaches sometimes still not only bite a person, but also create additional trouble:

1. There are cases when, with a very large number of cockroaches in the room, they nibbled pieces of skin on the fingers and toes, as well as in the lips of sleeping people. Evidence has been documented of sailors who had to sleep in gloves due to the fact that cockroaches nibbled the skin on their fingers, which led to the appearance of unpleasant wounds.
2. Being very dependent on the availability of water sources in the room, cockroaches can lick saliva from the lips at night and nibble on the epithelium, especially in children. It is clear that if on the paws of such a cockroach there are eggs of worms or causative agents of dysentery, then such bites are fraught with more dangerous diseases.
3. Red cockroaches can crawl into a person’s ear, looking for shelter here. Sometimes it can be extremely difficult to remove an insect from an ear: when trying to do it with a finger, the cockroach will hide even harder. In some cases, the victim has to consult a doctor.

It is interesting

In one of the Taiwanese hospitals, a cockroach was taken out of the patient’s nose for three days, constantly scratching the mucous paws and causing a bad cold. After extraction, the insect was alive.

So, parasitic cockroaches, which would purposefully and regularly bite a person, do not exist. In the home, cockroaches are dangerous to humans, primarily because they carry pathogens of various diseases and can sometimes cause chronic allergies.

 

Cockroaches are dangerous, even if they poison!

Some danger may even be poisoned cockroaches - that is, after the apartment has been treated with special insecticidal agents. Such poisonous cockroaches are dangerous primarily for pets — cats, dogs, birds — that can be fun to catch and eat and disoriented insects, after which sometimes severe poisoning ensues.

The principle of action of many modern insecticides is that they do not kill the insect immediately, but only after a few hours so that the pest has time to transfer part of the poisonous substance to the places where its relatives are accumulating. So it is quite lively and seemingly frisky cockroach can already contain poisonous stuffing.

On a note

Cats are especially sensitive to some insecticides (in particular, to pyrethroids): the first signs of poisoning they may be a strong drooling and inappropriate behavior.

For the period until the insects are completely destroyed in the room, all pets should be placed with relatives or friends.

Poisoning with a means of cockroaches can occur also at the person who is processing the room, as well as with his relatives who live here.Rules for the use of insecticidal drugs require that no one except the handler be in the house, and the handler uses a respirator.

Of course, in real conditions these requirements are not always met, and poisoning from a cockroach, generally speaking, is not a rare occurrence. It is usually limited to nausea, vomiting, and severe headaches, but sometimes much more severe and even life-threatening conditions are observed.

The above hazards are real. But sometimes cockroaches are credited with numerous imaginary abilities that turn these insects downright into real monsters.

For example, there is a well-known myth that mutant cockroaches often have gills and float well. In fact, it is a swimming beetle, remotely similar to a cockroach. In some Ukrainian cities such beetles in the spring, in the period of their mass appearance, get into apartments and private houses in rather large numbers, which greatly frighten people.

The photo shows a swimming beetle:

In other cases, mutant cockroaches are considered to be mutant cockroaches. These centipedes are often found in open spaces, in attics and in summer kitchens.The most interesting thing is that they are good helpers of a person in the fight against cockroaches, as they actively catch and eat small cockroach larvae (nymphs).

The photo below shows a flycatcher:

Some people believe that this is the same mutant cockroach with many legs, the cause of which is radiation.

In fact, mutant cockroaches do not exist - at least in your apartment you will not exactly meet them. Including not known to science and poisonous cockroaches, as a separate species (and such a concept as "poison cock" refers to drugs that poison cockroaches).

However, one should not assume that if cockroaches in the house are malicious carriers of infection, then always and everywhere these insects are harmful.

In fact, the benefits of cockroaches in nature are very great: thousands of different species of these insects utilize and recycle a huge amount of decaying plant debris, loosen the soil in the forests, serve as food for numerous animals and birds. Therefore, the harm from cockroaches is a very relative concept and is manifested only in the dwelling of man.

 

Interesting video: removing a cockroach from a human ear

 

An example of a mass invasion of cockroaches in an apartment building

 

Comparison of the effectiveness of various insecticidal agents to kill cockroaches