Do bugs make you poor? (Details )

I have also never, to my knowledge seen a cockroach in a dwelling before. A lot of people who don’t have enough money end up in places that are not kept up as well, or in places that are older. These places often have lots of cracks and holes which are perfect for rodents and insects.

The house I rent was built during the civil war. We have some problems with mice and insects. More so than any other home I have had. And we DO live here becuz it’s a place we can afford. We live below the poverty level in the USA. But I am in the midwest, which surely makes a difference in what types of invaders are around.

Not here. Obviously, if the place is overrun with bugs, you need to get the terminator in to do something about them. Cockroaches fly AND crawl here. So yes, you’re going to get them whether you keep the place immaculate or not. It’s all about control and management. We live in the bush, so we had rats in the roof a year or so ago (much to my horror!), they’ve gone now.

Bugs can make you poor. Termites can make you very poor. We have to be really careful about what materials we use, because if we use timber outside, the termites will eat whatever it is. We had a termite problem and it cost a few thousand to get rid of, and our experience was cheap. Other people have had termite problems that have cost many more thousands than we had to cough up. So yes, bugs can make you poor. However, having some bugs doesn’t mean you are poor.

I’m not overrun. We probably see one or two a week. Not exactly an infestation. But we do have a house with cracks. I usually put them (roaches) in a cup and throw them outside. I’ve seen them eat chalk in a school I went to. They can eat pretty much anything and reproduction is crazy. I have palmetto and pine trees near my house. That is said to make them more numerous. Whenever I’ve lived or been in poor or rich conditions, they fond their way in. I find dead ones all the time in nice places that are sprayed regularly, but they are pretty much standard for this area. We are a port city. So we also have rats. Not in residential property, but in warehouses and the like.

Always had roaches in school, homes, and pretty much anywhere. This area is pretty much primordial swamp though.

I’ve lived on rural horse properties for years and rats, mice, ground squirrels come with the territory. The rats & mice get into all the barns, nest in the hay bales and the animal feed. if not stored in sturdy, hard plastic or metal containers is consumed. There is always some spillage of stuff and it is inevitable, no matter how many traps you set that there will be rodents around.

You do not use poison when you have dogs, cats, chickens and never around your animal feeds. The damn ground squirrels burrowed up underneath the hen house and tunneled their way in and ate the eggs. If you live on ranch properties rodents and bugs are just a fact of life and a never ending battle between humans and nature.
I had never seen a cockroach in my life either until I moved to Southern CA. back in my early 20’s.

They were freaking everywhere because the climate is sub-tropical and they flourish. Gah…I’ll take mice and rats over roaches any day of the week. No roaches here, just a lot of earwigs and spiders and rattlesnakes. haha
The bug that grosses me out the most are bedbugs, not in these here parts, thank god, I have never seen a bedbug in my life and hope I never do.

I’m touching wood I don’t see any bedbugs ever either!

I remember opening a rarely used cupboard in my nanna’s house. There was a jar of something at the back and it had cockroaches in it. I freaked out. She thought I was pathetic (I was only about nine). That was the first time I saw cockroaches. Then I moved here. I remember sitting watching TV with my sister and husband and I looked over at my bedroom door and there was a cocky sitting on it that was about three inches long. Far out. I was mentally trying to work out how the hell I was going to go to bed through that door! Thankfully they noticed it and got rid of it. I still can’t stand cockroaches. I do see them as something that’s just part of living in the sub-tropics. @MrGrimm888, they say if you see one there are a thousand you can’t see. I don’t know how true that is. I don’t want to know how true that is!

Yeah. They’re disgusting. But ultimately, they can’t really hurt me. They’re annoying. And I hate them.

In Oregon, I’ve only ever seen cockroaches in the poorest areas. Definitely doesn’t mean they don’t exist in other areas or buildings, but that’s my experience.

This Q is giving me the jim-jams. Ewwww.

I grew up in Michigan and was surprised to learn cockroaches were in everyone’s home when I went to New Orleans. I guess it’s the climate.

We have rat-free and ratty neighborhoods in Chicago and it’s not decided by income. Dense, old areas have them.

Recently a hospital was torn down in a very expensive neighborhood and people were advised to prepare for ratmageddon when they scattered. The nifty strategy is building little cat motels and making colonies of feral cats, populated with neutered felines from shelters.

In certain cities we lived in roaches were more prevalent. In south carolina they were uncontrollable. Same for the area where we lived in North carolina. Did not matter how much money you had you wete not going to get rid of them. In Tennessee You can still find them but it’s more rare and they’ll be in areas that are not well kept and low income.

It’s more of a problem of how the house is built and managed. It should has nothing to do with where you live if you take precaution in the place where you live to prevent pest from invading your house.

As for the relation of pests to one’s economic capacity I must say that people (even the rich ones) have started making common pests such as cockroaches, rats, mice as pets, or even eat them in some places, so encountering pests won’t produce certain implication anymore.

The perception that roaches, bedbugs or lice as touchstones of the lower classes is one of those surefire indicators of someone decidedly middle class, and insecure with the fear of being mistaken for less. It isn’t so much that the bugs exist, it’s the underlying middle class assumption that only the poor would tolerate seeing one.

It matters greatly where you live, trust me on that one. You could go out into the woods in North Carolina, turn over a log and find roaches. Turn on a light outside at night and watch the driveway scatter. Where they occur naturally you will not be able to control them.

I have never seen roaches in Oregon in either Eugene or Portland. But when I lived in San Diego they were everywhere. I stayed in a hotel for a month there and the first night I went into the bathroom in the motel and turned on the light and hundreds scampered. For the next month I slept with the lights on.

And in S.D. they were so prevalent that they would casually walk across the sidewalks. And this was right downtown.

However, ants are all up in everything in Oregon. When I moved in here the ants were insane. These knocked the bastards out in three days and they haven’t returned.

When I lived in South Africa, which I did most of my life, bugs were a way of life. Even in the city. Cockroaches were the norm and it was more a case of keeping control of the situation as opposed to eradicating them completely. That meant a twice yearly spray, which was expensive.

Things like leaving wet kitchen counters was a no, no, since they like wet counters. All food had to be placed into airtight containers, most stuff was placed in the fridge, like sugar.

So yes, if you couldn’t afford that, you could have gotten over run with them. Snakes were also feeling like moving into the city, so the snake man would be called. (To remove them back into the wild).

One of our biggest pests were monkeys. They’d climb in the kitchen windows at half a chance and steal food and no I am not talking about the bush, this is a built up city I lived in!

Here in the UK, I’ve seen no roaches at all. I reckon you’d have to be filthy to get even one. I’ve seen massive huge spiders. Which, I abhore by the way, a few mice, or rats not sure, and some other bug like things come in from the garden.

I reckon we will get more rats now since they are only emptying our food bins now once a month. Yuk!!

@LornaLove “One of our biggest pests were monkeys. They’d climb in the kitchen windows at half a chance and steal food and no I am not talking about the bush, this is a built up city I lived in!”

This sounds like the most amazing thing. But I imagine if you had to deal with it it would be horrible.

Honestly, our country rats here in the Sierra Foothills are absolutely beautiful and mega healthy. People don’t realize that rats are victims of their environments just like humans. If you are dumpster diving city rat you are going to look dirty and ratty like a homeless person and prone to certain diseases like Hep. C because you are foraging in food gone bad and filth. Rats like squirrels, in a natural and healthy environment would be feeding on fruits, nuts, berries, insects and the occasional bird eggs, not filthy cast off, decomposing, rancid, bacteria laden, food trash.

I happen to really admire rats, they are extremely clever, intelligent, resourceful and I hated killing our lovely country rats but had to trap a few here and there. I am not kidding, these rats, are stunning. Glossy golden brown coats with creamy white underbellies, plump, and uber healthy from a diet of spilled chicken feed, performance horse performance rat haha supplements, various other grains, oat stalks from the oat hay, apples and cherries from the little orchard. Our country rats are show quality rats. haha

I live in the country in the northeastern part of the US, and where I live there are little field mice. Once in a while there will be evidence of one (or some), and once in a while there will be a dead one in the house that was killed by one of the cats.

I have also had fleas in the house, brought in by the cats. For that, twice, I hired an exterminator.

I think in a private house, roaches are less likely (in my area) than in an apartment building, where you can’t control what your neighbors have.

It’s an issue of handling the infestation when it comes. If you can’t afford proper treatment of the rodent population or the bug population, then it’s a sign of being poor. If you can afford an exterminator or products to handle the bugs and rodents, then you’re probably not so poor.

Gawd I hate cockroaches! I’ve had to deal with them a few times in the past.

@johnpowell Yes, ants are everywhere here!

True Cockroach story.

Back in the early 80’s when I was 1st married and my ex and I moved to Long Beach CA. where his ship was stationed. he was in the navy for a few years I saw my first giant cockroach. This thing was in my silverware drawer and I about shit myself when I opened the drawer and this 3 inch long monster roach leapt out at me. I tossed a towel over it and then dropped it into a dixie cup I filled with about 2 inches of raid bug poison. After about 5 minutes I was sure it was dead and I scooped it into a cardboard match box to show my ex when he got home.

I’ll be damned if that thing did not come out of the box alive after it’s submersion in poison for over 5 minutes! Trauma # 2 for me. lol

I used to work at Boeing Computer Services at Boeing, Wichita. They had a basement level, HUGE, poorly lit basement level, full of stored crap. One time I was walking down there when I was confronted by a giant cockaroach. I moved around behind him and stomped my foot to scare him away. Instead of running, though, he spun around to face me and made his legs really long so he was twice as tall and very threatening. I ran away. I think those giant, aggressive roaches were maybe the reason we didn’t have rats down there.

Another time, in a rental, not long after my husband and I got married, I took out the iron, plugged it in…and as it started getting hot roaches just stared pouring out of the iron. OMG, it was nauseating. I called the land lord and he treated the problem with gasoline. (WTF?)

After battling a roach infestation about 15 years ago I discovered this sticky greenish black stuff that you squirt on the walls behind places that roaches like to live, like behind the oven and fridge. They get into it, eat it, and take it back to the nest.
We haven’t had roaches since.

Anyway, to answer the questions, “Do bugs make you poor?” No, they don’t make one poor. If one doesn’t deal with the problem, when they can, that makes one disgusting.

Roaches see the world, and act very different from most other creatures. They are a very old ‘design. ’ They see shade or darkness as cover. When you lift your foot, the space created under it seems, to them, like a good place to hide from such a big animal. So they run as fast as possible to get under your foot. It can make them seem ‘aggressive. ’ I don’t usually kill them, but it’s very easy if you want to.

Yeah. No. This one was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Roach. Never seen anything like it. He spun around to the sound of me stomping my foot. My foot was flat when he faced me and “stood up.” There was no attractive shadow to entice him. He just stood there glaring at me, not moving, not running, just all humped up. I tried walking around him and the SOB creeped around with me, keeping me in his sights, until I RUNNOFT!

Oh man. Has anyone ever turned on a light in the middle of the night, like, if you’re wandering toward the bathroom, and saw roaches scatter? OH MY GOD!!!!

@Dutchess_III Yes! The same apartment in Long Beach. It was an old building built in the 1930’s and had a slated, refrigerator cupboard. The old fashioned way of keeping foods cool where the cool air from beneath the house rose up through the slated bottom. We had a real fridge of course, but this was the old architecture.

I had roach hotel glue traps everywhere and yep, when you went in the kitchen at night and flipped on the light roaches scurried around everywhere. These were the smaller german brown species but still had a few of the huge ones too. The roach traps were an inch deep in roach carcasses. So effing gross for some one who had never seen a cockroach in her life. It was also so damp being a couple blocks from the beach that my mattress molded being up against the bedroom wall. I have fond memories of that little place but not the climate I would want to live in long term. Roaches, mold, fog so thick you couldn’t see to drive a few blocks in winter. 10 months there was more than enough. haha

Bill Gates could live in the farmhouse we lived in for five years and he would have to deal with rats. Where there are grain bins there are rats.

Frow up, @Coloma!

@Dutchess_III Oh, that’s not all..then, when my daughter was in 7th grade her science teacher gave her some of these guys. They lived in an aquarium in her room and I would often freak out because the knot holes in my wood floor looked like escaped roaches. haha She had these things for years, until she was like 22.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ6kZOqKy_0

OMG. Frow up @Coloma!