
A couple summers ago, Radiolab reporter Alex Neason got out of the shower and almost stepped on her worst nightmare: an American Cockroach. It was flipped onto its back, struggling, and for a split second, Alex swears she felt the spiny tickle of its legs on the underside of her bare foot. And, like every other time she has come into contact with a roach, this sent her into a debilitating spiral of fear, anger, and disgust. This week, Alex tries to understand what might be behind her fear, in the hopes she can overcome it. And in doing so, Alex learns more about these so-called pests than she could have ever wanted to.Special thanks to Jessica Ware, Timothy Marzullo, Alexandra Bell, and Changlu WangEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Alex NeasonProduced by - Jessica Yung and Annie McEwenwith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Sophie Samieeand Edited by - Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Articles - American Cockroaches, Racism, and the Ecology of the Slave Ship (https:/...
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Latif Nasser
Hello, friends. We're doing something new and fun. A show not just for your ears, but also for your eyes and your skin and your tongues.
Aubrey
Latif, that sounds a little weird.
Lulu Miller
What we are doing is a live show where we give the full Radiolab treatment to other senses. Not just hearing, but now taste and touch.
Latif Nasser
We're taking the stage as part of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. One night only, 6-9-20 to explore pleasure.
Lulu Miller
You're going to be literally tasting things and feeling things that hopefully you have never tasted or felt before.
Latif Nasser
And with the help of friends, musicians, science, writers, foodies, we're going to try to blow out your senses to give you a new understanding of how you taste and feel this world.
Lulu Miller
We would love if you join us, make us your Tuesday night date, June 9th at 6pm in Tribeca.
Latif Nasser
I love that it's Tuesday night. Like, we're not asking for a Friday night.
Lulu Miller
We're not a Friday night date, sure.
Latif Nasser
But Tuesday night, you know, you can spare one of those.
Lulu Miller
I love a Tuesday night date.
Latif Nasser
You can buy your tickets@tribecafilm.com audio that's tribecafilm.com audio and we're gonna give you
Lulu Miller
a little discount code. So get your pen or your notes app ready. That's TF26.
Alex Neeson
Radiolab.
Latif Nasser
That's it. Join us.
Lulu Miller
Hope to see you there.
Latif Nasser
Oh, wait, you're listening.
Alex Neeson
Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio lab radio from WNWeiss. Okay, so I have to tell you a story, all right? And I think I'm.
Latif Nasser
I'm Latv Nasser, this is Radiolab, and I'm sitting with reporter Alex Nissan.
Alex Neeson
So my birthday is in August, and a couple summers ago here in New York, we were in the middle of this very hot, very sticky heat wave,
Cedric Simmons
okay?
Alex Neeson
And I had, like, a nice day. Didn't do too much, I think I went to my community garden. I remember spending some time there. There's a park near where I live that I like to go to. And so I'd been outside all day, and I came home and needed to take a shower, okay. And I was getting out of the shower in this, like, cloud of steam, drying off, putting, like, moisturizer on my face. And I went to leave the bathroom barefoot to go into my bedroom, which is right next door, to get dressed, okay? And I lifted my foot to take a step into the hallway, but right before it touched the floor, I felt these thready little legs on the bottom of my foot. And I looked down, and there on Its back was a gigantic roach.
Latif Nasser
Oh, wait.
Alex Neeson
What?
Latif Nasser
I thought you were gonna say like, a serial killer. You mean like a roach? Like a cockroach.
Alex Neeson
An American cockroach. Yeah, and this was, like, a big one.
Latif Nasser
And it was on its back like it was dying.
Alex Neeson
Yeah, but with roaches, you just never know. Like, it could look dead, but be just alive enough that it's gonna flip back over and run up my leg. And with my foot hovering over this bug, I'm flooded with revulsion, but also terror. Like, this bug has gotta go now. And so I got back in the shower, scrubbed my foot, wrapped myself in a towel, ran to go find my cat, put her next to the roach, take a few steps back, and I wait. And she's looking at the roach and looking at me, and I'm like, do something. But she just walks away. So then I'm like, pull yourself together. Like, buck up. I have to square up against the roach.
Latif Nasser
The dying or dead roach.
Alex Neeson
Right?
Latif Nasser
Okay.
Alex Neeson
So I put on yellow rubber gloves, and then I get a wad of paper towels saturated in water, grab toilet bowl cleaner. You know, like the blue gel.
Latif Nasser
Okay.
Alex Neeson
Squirt a bunch of it into the paper towel, and from, like, three feet away, toss it so that it lands gel down on top of the roach. And then I take a shoe, and holding it, like, as far away from my body as I can get it, I'm just like. Like,
Latif Nasser
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Alex Neeson
And then I get a trash bag, scoop it up, and stick it in there, and then tie it up super tight.
Latif Nasser
Wow.
Alex Neeson
Then it goes into the trash chute. And standing there in rubber gloves next to the trash chute on my birthday, I'm just like, what is wrong with me? Like, this is not the first time that this has happened. Every single time I see a roach, I completely unravel. Like, I just go nuts. And I don't even hate bugs in general. It's just something about this bug. I don't know. Like, I just snap. And for some reason, when it happened this time, I was like, I'm a whole adult person. I'm a science reporter. This has to stop. Huh?
Latif Nasser
Okay, so is what is what we're doing here like, it's like how Alex learned to stop worrying and love the roach.
Alex Neeson
Uh, not really. Um, I'm not really trying to get cozy with roaches. I just want to figure out how to get to a place where I'm not terrified of them. And obviously, I know this is something that a lot of people are afraid of, and I wanted to figure out, you know, is there something I can do so that the next time I see one I don't completely lose my mind? So I figured I'd go hang out with people who face basically the worst version of this every single day.
Latif Nasser
Okay.
Alex Neeson
Which is how I ended up at the after party. One of the finest expos in New York, probably in the nation, for the New York City Pest Expo. And we get top notch pest control
Sammy Ramsey
companies and exterminators from all over.
Latif Nasser
There was like a roach ball.
Alex Neeson
Yeah, it's like the social part. Like there's food, there's drinks, there was a dj, like there's music. And also. Oh yeah, I've seen roaches drop off the ceiling. A ton of people who have been in straight up nightmare scenarios. I've knocked on doors and seen them running up and down the doors.
Sammy Ramsey
Roaches were in everything from the record player to the TV to the bedhead.
Alex Neeson
This place was literally, I'm telling Stephen
Cedric Simmons
King levels of roaches.
Alex Neeson
And yet, no fear. We had to take care of the situation. How many insects do you have at home?
Joseph Yoon
Oh, I have about four or five thousand bed bugs. Yeah.
Alex Neeson
This is Lou Sorkin, an entomologist and pest control consultant.
Joseph Yoon
All these three cockroach species, millipede, centipede, spiders, whip scorpion.
Alex Neeson
And right next to him, he had this huge plastic tub of cockroaches.
Joseph Yoon
This is a Madagascar hissing cockroach.
Latif Nasser
Oh, yes. Madagascar ones are huge, right?
Alex Neeson
Yeah. Like some of the biggest roaches in the world. And at one point, Lou just picked one up with, with his bare hands.
Joseph Yoon
They won't bother you. They're just, you know, sitting. They're tasting. You can see the palps come from the mouth down and touch my skin.
Alex Neeson
I think I might have nightmares tonight. We'll see. And I was like, how are these people like that? Hi, nice to see you. And could I get like that? Well, let's go. Let's take a stroll. So I found some exterminators who agreed to let me follow them around. One named Lakeisha Fulcher. Here we have 11 buildings, all 16 stories. She works at a public housing complex on the Lower east side. I go in your house, you have 300 roaches. I'm happy. Give me five days. Let's go. And also a guy named Cedric Simmons. He has his own company.
Cedric Simmons
So right now we're headed to North Bronx to a residential unit that has been having some issues with German roaches.
Alex Neeson
And they just started showing me the ropes.
Cedric Simmons
Flashlight is the most essential piece of the toolkit.
Alex Neeson
We went into basements and trash rooms. If I turn the light on, of course they're scattered. They're going to places like this. They showed me how to find signs that roaches were living there Even when they're hiding.
Cedric Simmons
So you'll be looking for marks like this, what look like pen tapping.
Alex Neeson
It'll look like pepper, like stuck pepper on a wall.
Cedric Simmons
It's roach droppings.
Alex Neeson
And of course, how to kill them.
Cedric Simmons
There's one right back there. Look.
Alex Neeson
Oh, yeah.
Cedric Simmons
See it?
Alex Neeson
Cedric takes me inside this house, and the first thing he does is take a look around the closet with his flashlight. And you can see the roaches perched up on the wall.
Cedric Simmons
Oh, there's two more up there.
Alex Neeson
And then he goes to the kitchen sink and he pulls out this jug. And it's this chemical, you know, it's basically industrial strength. Raid.
Cedric Simmons
Yeah, it is pretty strong. It has a pretty good knockdown, too. Knockdown meaning how quick it reduces the population.
Alex Neeson
The kind of stuff you need a license to buy. Like, you can't get this at home depot. So what does this actually do to them?
Cedric Simmons
So it attacks their nervous system and it disrupts it, and it makes them basically just incapable. And then it succumbs them.
Alex Neeson
Is it painful for them?
Cedric Simmons
I don't know. I don't know.
Alex Neeson
At some point he pointed out a pregnant roach.
Cedric Simmons
That one back there has its egg sac about to come out.
Alex Neeson
The one on the wall?
Cedric Simmons
Yeah, in the corner.
Alex Neeson
Is that that little, like, protruding area?
Cedric Simmons
Yeah, that's an egg sack.
Alex Neeson
Oh, man. And then he started spraying them. And after about 10 minutes, they made their last twitches.
Cedric Simmons
That guy's definitely dead.
Latif Nasser
How did you feel about that? Like, did you feel bad?
Alex Neeson
Sort of.
Cedric Simmons
The sack is coming out.
Sammy Ramsey
Damn.
Alex Neeson
I was like, that sucks for a second.
Joseph Yoon
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
And then it's like, I didn't think about it for the rest of the day. Oh, well, Sorry. Honestly, what I really felt were these little glimmers of confidence.
Latif Nasser
Like you weren't afraid?
Alex Neeson
Well, it's not that I wasn't afraid, but it was like my fear had shrunk just enough that I was starting to feel kind of bold, like maybe I could kill these things too.
Cedric Simmons
So here we have roach activity and rodent activity, and then also.
Alex Neeson
That's the granular bait.
Joseph Yoon
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
Okay, we saw one. I didn't freak out. Like, Cedric took me to Grand Central Station.
Sammy Ramsey
656 train up Wing.
Alex Neeson
And let's, let's. Let's go for it. I was seeing fat roaches and acting like it was no big deal. Oh, big one. Okay. I didn't like it. It's so tall. But it was nothing like before.
Cedric Simmons
So I can step on them or I can spray them.
Alex Neeson
I don't know. Stepping seems kind of old school. Maybe we do that. Wow, that was fun.
Joseph Yoon
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
But then one night, I was just sitting around my apartment. A friend was over. We were watching tv.
Latif Nasser
Okay.
Alex Neeson
And I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and I saw something slightly moved in the sink. So I looked inside, and I saw antenna. And I was like, nope. Walked straight out of the kitchen, got my friend, told him he needs to come deal with it. And then I stood behind him and squealed while I watched him kill it.
Latif Nasser
Wait, what happened to all your training?
Alex Neeson
I don't know. I just couldn't do it.
Bethany Brookshire
What?
Alex Neeson
I mean, first of all, lakeisha and Cedric, nowhere to be found.
Latif Nasser
Right.
Alex Neeson
And second of all, I was seeing this roach in my house in my sink, where I had just washed blueberries that morning. And I think it triggered some kind of survival instinct. And I just don't think any amount of pest control knowledge was gonna override that. Yeah, basically, I was just like, okay, well, that didn't work. Back to square one. You know, I gotta start over. And one day, I was just googling around, and I stumbled across this guy.
Joseph Yoon
Hey, guys. I'm chef Joseph Yoon, edible insect ambassador at Brooklyn Boggs. And we're gonna show you how to
Alex Neeson
eat all these bugs.
Latif Nasser
Yay. I've seen this YouTube video of him doing, like, different dishes with bugs.
Alex Neeson
Yeah, like gourmet dishes.
Latif Nasser
Yeah.
Sammy Ramsey
Bug appetite.
Joseph Yoon
The beautiful notes of cricket, umami, and nuttiness. This is perfect.
Latif Nasser
Oh, wait, but you're not gonna.
Alex Neeson
Well, I just thought if anyone could help me get over that revulsion I feel towards these bugs.
Joseph Yoon
The scorpion literally adds so much flavor.
Alex Neeson
Maybe it's this guy. Like, if I could just eat a roach, maybe it wouldn't be nasty anymore. It would just be a little snack.
Latif Nasser
Okay. All right.
Alex Neeson
And so I sent him an email, and I was like, do you ever cook with roaches? And he wrote back to me and was like, absolutely not. I'm already having to do a lot of work to convince people that they should eat other bugs. Roaches have such a bad reputation. Like, roaches don't help my cause, basically.
Latif Nasser
I love that it's a bridge too far for him.
Alex Neeson
So I went back and forth with him being like, you're the only person I can possibly think of who could make me, like, eating a roach.
Latif Nasser
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
And then finally, you bullied him.
Latif Nasser
Into doing it.
Alex Neeson
I fear I might have. I fear I might have. Smells good. It does smell good.
Sammy Ramsey
Well, let's see. Let's see.
Latif Nasser
Okay, so what happened? Let's do it. What's going on?
Alex Neeson
Right. So me and eight of our colleagues, Joseph had, like, very, very generously invited us to his home. Ingrained.
Joseph Yoon
We're all gonna try something really kind of unusual and weird.
Alex Neeson
So obviously all of us are really nervous, including Joseph, because he's never actually eaten an American cockroach before. So we started with his usual dishes. Crickets, ants, mealworms.
Joseph Yoon
This is the brewed 19 cicadas. And it has a cricket tempura batter on it.
Latif Nasser
Okay, so this is just a warmup?
Alex Neeson
Yeah.
Gabby Santis
Delicious.
Aubrey
I love it.
Alex Neeson
It's good. And the whole time I'm looking over at the bowl of cockroaches on the counter out of the side of my eye. And by the way, they weren't like random roaches. These were food safe from a lab.
Latif Nasser
Okay, Good to know.
Alex Neeson
And honestly, Latif, I was kind of in denial that any of this was about to happen.
Joseph Yoon
They're quite frightening.
Cedric Simmons
I think
Joseph Yoon
maybe I'll pull the legs off of them.
Alex Neeson
Please do. First up, dubia roaches.
Joseph Yoon
There might be innards that squirt in your mouth.
Alex Neeson
Fried. I can't really taste anything, which is ideal. Something.
Joseph Yoon
It's mental.
Alex Neeson
Something poked the inside of my mouth.
Latif Nasser
It's a leg. You think it's a leg?
Alex Neeson
I love to. I don't know what it was, but I hated it inside of the battery.
Aubrey
You're doing really good.
Alex Neeson
Next. Madagascar hissing cockroaches. And he had blanched these and done nothing else.
Joseph Yoon
I can dress a cockroach, but still a cockroach.
Alex Neeson
He put them on a cutting board and sliced them so we could slurp the insides out like an oyster. It looks like cottage cheese. But this one was not that bad.
Joseph Yoon
It has, like, a really umami smell.
Alex Neeson
Better. Much better. It was like eggs.
Latif Nasser
Huh?
Alex Neeson
And then finally, my arch nemesis, the American cockroach.
Joseph Yoon
Oh.
Alex Neeson
So he grabs some kind of cooking oil, throws it in a pan, and adds all these aromatics like garlic, red pepper. And then he throws in the roaches.
Joseph Yoon
You know what? It has kind of a chemist smell to it that the other two didn't have.
Alex Neeson
It's kind of weird, but as he started to cook, everyone's faces, including Joseph's, just started to fall. Because no matter how long he was, like, sauteing these freaking roaches with all these aromatics, it just smelled off. Let's Just have the chocolate crickets. But Joseph still grabbed a spoon.
Joseph Yoon
I think someone has to do it.
Alex Neeson
Took a bite. What, what does it taste like? And the look on his face made me feel really guilty.
Joseph Yoon
I mean, I, I, I, I almost spit out what I ate.
Alex Neeson
Terrestrial's producer Alan Gaffinsky also tried it.
Joseph Yoon
Nervous. I mean, it doesn't. Oh yeah, there it is. Well, initially it just kind of just was tasting sort of the garlic like an onion. But that's that smell that you guys have been smelling is. It's also a taste. It tastes like something that you shouldn't eat. Yeah, yeah.
Latif Nasser
What does the roachy smell smell like?
Alex Neeson
Kind of like medicinal, but in like a foul, sour kind of way.
Latif Nasser
So you did not eat it?
Alex Neeson
No. Like according to a Bugs as food expert, the American cockroach is literally inedible.
Joseph Yoon
It's a warning sign to me. It's kind of like, don't eat me. I dare you to eat me. I'll kill you.
Latif Nasser
Man, this is really not going well.
Alex Neeson
Yeah, no, the whole thing completely backfired.
Latif Nasser
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
So we're gonna take a quick break.
Latif Nasser
Yeah. Cleanse our palates.
Alex Neeson
Yeah. But after the break, things are gonna get even messier. We'll be right back.
Lulu Miller
Radiolab is supported by Capital One with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder that Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yup. Even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com Bank Guy Capital One NA Member FDIC. Every day WNYC Studios is working to get closer to New York and to New Yorkers. The underwriting we get from businesses helps power our independence. Learn how your organization can join in at sponsorship.wnyc.org foreign.
Latif Nasser
This is Radiolab back with reporter Alex Neeson, who has just faced her deep seated fear of the roach in a number of unspeakable ways.
Alex Neeson
Yes.
Latif Nasser
But it backfired and she only managed to surface her maybe even more deep seated disgust for them.
Alex Neeson
Yeah, I didn't want them in my life, in my city, in my state, anywhere.
Latif Nasser
Sure.
Alex Neeson
On planet Earth.
Latif Nasser
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
I just hate them. And this boom likes to slide sort of. Amidst all of this, I came across this book called How Humans Create Animal Villains by science writer.
Bethany Brookshire
Can I Cuss on this program.
Alex Neeson
Yes. Bethany Brookshire.
Bethany Brookshire
So this squirrel is known as fucking Kevin.
Alex Neeson
And this book, it was just on the front table at my neighborhood bookstore. But it turned out to be exactly what I needed, because while the animal Bethany hates is a squirrel, he lives
Bethany Brookshire
in the maple tree in front of my house.
Alex Neeson
Particularly the ones that she named Kevin. Fucking Kevin, who were eating all of her tomatoes.
Bethany Brookshire
Doesn't even eat it. Just one bite and then leaves it.
Alex Neeson
So this is, like, personal.
Bethany Brookshire
Yes. I really did contemplate a BB gun.
Alex Neeson
Wow.
Bethany Brookshire
But Kevin is one of the creatures that led me to this deep question
Alex Neeson
of the question the book was asking.
Bethany Brookshire
What is it that makes us hate animals?
Aubrey
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
I could sort of feel it elevating me out of my murder, murder, murder, kill, kill, kill, lizard brain to this idea that I could really get behind.
Bethany Brookshire
Every time an animal has succeeded really well at living near us, we hate them. If we can't take it in, tame it, and put it in a little doggy sweater, we do not want it.
Alex Neeson
That word pest takes an animal that is like a living, breathing creature that lives here on this planet with us and turns it into an object.
Bethany Brookshire
We're saying that that animal has no value. We are saying that anything we need to do to get rid of that animal is worthwhile,
Alex Neeson
which is exactly how I feel about roaches. And she sort of proposes that we should do away with the category of pest altogether.
Latif Nasser
Mm.
Alex Neeson
Wait, that's fascinating. And, you know, the wheels in my head just, like, start spinning, and I just kept thinking, like, huh? This is how I want to be in the world. What? I want my politic to be like, I'm going to make a T shirt that says abolish pests and let people ask me about it. Like, I'm down, and I really want to not hate the roach. Yes, but how?
Bethany Brookshire
Well, so a lot of the way we respond to animals and the anger we feel and the frustration arises out of our own ignorance.
Latif Nasser
Sounds like you need to, you know, walk a mile in their little weird, disgusting feet.
Alex Neeson
Ugh. I know. I think it's time to learn about these revolting, repulsive, nauseating, offensive, terrible animals.
Sammy Ramsey
Okay, so let's chat a little bit about the disgust response.
Alex Neeson
So I called up entomologist Sammy Ramsey, professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Sammy Ramsey
Okay. I needed you to see what is happening on this tree. Look at this.
Alex Neeson
Because this guy.
Sammy Ramsey
Somebody look at this.
Alex Neeson
Really? How cute is this bug? Loves bugs.
Sammy Ramsey
This bug. How cute is this bug?
Alex Neeson
He even has a YouTube channel where he sometimes sings to Bugs.
Latif Nasser
Okay. He likes bugs.
Alex Neeson
I love it. And so I thought if anyone could help me abolish the pest in my heart, it would be Sammy.
Sammy Ramsey
All right, Alex listeners, y' all ready for Dr. Sammy Storytime? Yes, it's Dr. Sammy Storytime. All right, y', all, we might get some theme music for that at some point.
Alex Neeson
But anyway, and maybe it's just because Sammy is really charming, but talking to him, I couldn't help but feel my hatred of the roach.
Sammy Ramsey
They are the coolest.
Alex Neeson
Begin to soften.
Sammy Ramsey
Cockroaches are survivors.
Alex Neeson
I learned that they're at least as old as the dinosaurs. As a species, they can go for
Sammy Ramsey
ridiculous amounts of time without food. You can cut off a cockroach's head, and it can survive for more than a week.
Alex Neeson
They can run, like, three miles an hour. They're basically the cheetah of the insect world.
Sammy Ramsey
They are very resistant to. To nuclear radiation. They can eat paper, just paper.
Alex Neeson
It's some of these survival techniques, like their tendency to run away from light and their ability to flatten their bodies
Sammy Ramsey
and squeeze into even the tiniest crack
Alex Neeson
or crevice that make people distrust them.
Sammy Ramsey
Like, we step on a cockroach
Alex Neeson
and then ever so slowly lift our foot,
Sammy Ramsey
and it runs away. And we're just like, how? What sort of sorcery did you just do?
Alex Neeson
So I was listening to all this stuff Sammy was telling me.
Sammy Ramsey
Do they have nine lives?
Alex Neeson
It was almost like I could feel the roach begin to transform into something more than just a pest. So they've sort of evolved to protect themselves in this way from us, the predator. And like, other predators, I guess.
Sammy Ramsey
Like, these organisms are absolutely incredible. And had they not been.
Alex Neeson
But then he told me that as much as I didn't want cockroaches around,
Sammy Ramsey
cockroaches, they don't want to be here.
Alex Neeson
They didn't want to be around either.
Latif Nasser
Huh. What does that mean?
Alex Neeson
Well, apparently, the name Paraplanita americana, the American cockroach, is a misnomer.
Sammy Ramsey
They used to live their best lives just running around on a totally different continent.
Aubrey
Okay.
Sammy Ramsey
But in order to really tell its story, I need to take you back hundreds of years. When colonists showed up on the west coast of Africa, they corralled a bunch of human beings onto these ships. They stacked them like furniture and gave them no opportunities to behave like humans, to go to the restroom. The cleanliness standards on those ships were pretty low. And there were also some hitchhikers on those ships. See, the American cockroach is actually from Africa, and they climbed Aboard those ships that had a bunch of unprotected food in various places. And they found the slats of wood between the ships to be great spaces for them to wedge their bodies. And when they got to the US they set up a whole new population.
Alex Neeson
So they got here on slave ships.
Sammy Ramsey
They didn't really have too much of a choice in the matter.
Alex Neeson
He tells me this in this conversation, and it just, like, it felt like, damn, okay, why, like, why would you. Let's start this whole conversation over and just like, can we just not. It was just sort of like. Like, I can't even just hate a bug without the shadow of slavery. Like, I just wanted to hate this bug and see if I can not hate it. And then it's like, now this.
Latif Nasser
Hmm. I mean, can you. Like, what was inside of that moment for you?
Alex Neeson
Well, I talked to a bunch of people about this.
Aubrey
Are you asking me if I feel kinship to these roasters?
Alex Neeson
Nope. Absolutely not. And one of them was author and my friend Angela Flournoy.
Aubrey
Obviously, the. The metaphor is abound because there's, like,
Alex Neeson
this thing that I think everyone's going to do, which is be like, oh, great shared history. You guys survived something together. And so, you know, you should feel some special conn to this insect, Right. That just sort of walks itself into the room.
Latif Nasser
It does.
Alex Neeson
And I'm like, absolutely not. That story just plays straight, like, directly into, like, all the old. Just the oldest and most boring racist story that's been told about black people in this country. I mean, roach is an old anti black slur. And because of racism, black people were forced into poor housing conditions and so sometimes had to live in closer proximity to the roach. And of course, I knew all that. But to see. See that that line of history actually started with a roach on a slave ship is just like, wow, that is. Yeah, it just feels like. It's just like, damn. Like, yeah, I told Cedric Simmons, the
Cedric Simmons
exterminator, you know, a lot of people won't treat it with a kit with caring hands.
Alex Neeson
And. And he spoke to this fear of mine.
Cedric Simmons
I think they'll weaponize it.
Alex Neeson
You know, like, should I suppress this? Like, everything winds up in the wrong hands.
Aubrey
And it's like, oh, those people, they probably already know. You know, I just, like, assum. Chatgpt is probably telling people this information. You know, we live in a dystopia.
Alex Neeson
But still, does putting this in my story, like, could it deepen this racist idea? Like, does it give legitimacy to the idea that some people have that black people and roaches go together.
Aubrey
I think that it's really, it's legitimate. The feelings of. I've tried since I knew I was going to come and talk to you about cockroaches, which I, who I also, you know, I really don't like them. And I, I, I've been thinking about some of the origins of my dislike. And when I was growing up, my mom was really like, we would go over certain relatives, house or whatever and she would like make us shake everything out on our porch before we came inside the house. And she was very over the top, like vigilant about roaches and assumptions about like cleanliness. And some of that had to do with this idea of like shame and like socioeconomic shame. And it's, this says something about us. Like we might not have all the money, etc, but we're fastidious. And one evidence of that is like,
Alex Neeson
we don't have roaches. Yeah. The honest thing is that like when I tell a stranger a story on the record about a roach in my home, like there is something, however small in my chest that's a little bit like, damn, now they know.
Aubrey
Well, you have to free yourself. Don't you have to pay yourself in that shame, you know?
Alex Neeson
Yeah.
Aubrey
You have to free yourself of the burden of like, that roach ain't got nothing to do with you.
Alex Neeson
Yeah.
Bethany Brookshire
I think of roaches in the same way that I think of rats.
Alex Neeson
Again, Bethany Brookshire.
Bethany Brookshire
These are animals that are succeeding because our social contract has failed. Right. The roach arrived in America and succeeded because of a massive failure of a social contract that we called enslavement. Right. And they continue to succeed where social contracts fail, where racism thrives, you know, where people end up underserved and kind of forced into histories that leave them in a state of poverty and lack of opportunity. Right. And so you could see them not so much as a parallel story, so much as a symbol of the failed social contract that kind of got us here.
Alex Neeson
My goal here is to regard the roach as a roach. And in so many ways the roach is not just a roach. The roach is a stand in for like class and race and like all of these things that are like, way more consequential than just like a bug being a bug, you know?
Latif Nasser
Yeah.
Alex Neeson
And all of this got me thinking about another roach.
Sammy Ramsey
Fact, I can talk about bugs forever.
Alex Neeson
So that Sammy told me about, which is that roaches are only dirty because they live in our sewer systems, which are filthy. And just like in New York, the way we dispose of trash, what do we do with it. We stick it out on the street all night, and then the roaches crawl all over it and pick up germs and stuff.
Sammy Ramsey
Then these roaches, as gross as they can be sometimes, are constant cleaners.
Alex Neeson
They're actually naturally very clean animals, cleaning their antennae almost the way that cats clean their whiskers, making sure that they
Sammy Ramsey
are getting rid of all the bits of foreign matter that could accumulate bacteria or fungi.
Alex Neeson
They spend a lot of time trying to clean themselves of filth that they picked up from us. And it made me wonder, if you take away all the different layers of human filth that we've placed on the roach, what's left? What is that animal?
Latif Nasser
Huh? Yeah. And where. I'm curious. I want to hear more about, like, how. How they live on the continent that they are native to.
Alex Neeson
Yeah. So, like, they live basically anywhere that there's vegetation, so jungle forests. And they eat primarily organic matter. Leaves, decomposing trees, logs. They're decomposers. So they also eat, like, the bodies of dead animals and plants.
Latif Nasser
It's so funny to think of them, like, not in a house or a city or something like that. They're actually, like forest creatures, you know?
Alex Neeson
Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I thought I would end this story by taking you there, to the place they came from. We're deep in a tropical rainforest in the Congo Basin. Huge trees, kapoks and mahoganies, tower hundreds of feet overhead, their canopies filled with monkeys and parrots and eagles. The air is thick and humid, and on the ground, scurrying along along the edge of a rotten log, is a female American cockroach. And this one is about to become a mother. At the base of her abdomen is a reddish capsule called an ootheca. It's shaped like a tiny kidney bean. Inside it are 16 eggs. She carries them and incubates them within this protective casing, dragging it along like a wagon. She pauses briefly to nibble at the edge of a damp leaf. She carries on, gliding effortlessly across the jagged debris that comes, covers the forest floor until she comes across a small hole in the soft, muddy soil. She pauses, looking both ways, making sure the coast is clear before dropping the utheca inside. She stares down at her children, or maybe past them. One by one, she oscillates her antennae up towards the sky and back down again, slow and considered, as if reciting a prayer. And then she scurries away. A month passes. The eggs inside become tiny, translucent, translucent larvae, each the size of a grain of rice. They've grown long thin antennae which are folded forward into a tangle of their six stringy legs. The larvae have no lungs, so they breathe through 10 little holes along the sides of their bellies. They're getting hungry and thirsty, and one day, as if responding in perfect time to an invisible conductor, all 16 babies flex the muscles in their abdomens and in unison take a giant collective breath. Their slender bodies swell with air, growing and growing and growing, until the utheca pops, cutting the last tie to their mother that they've got. And together they scatter, some towards the river, some towards a wall of underbrush, some up the thick trunks of hundred year old trees out into the forest to begin their lives.
Latif Nasser
This episode was reported by Alex Neeson and produced by Jessica young and Annie McEwen. It was edited by Pat Walters and fact checked by Sophie Sami. Special thanks to Jessica Ware, Timothy Marzullo and Alexandra A. Bell. That's it for us. Thanks for listening.
Gabby Santis
Hi, I'm gabby. I'm from the bay area, california and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by lulu miller and latif nasser. Soran wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah sandbach is our executive director. Our managing editor is pat walters. Dylan keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes jeremy bloom w. Harry fortuna, david gable, maria paz gutierrez sindhu, naina sambandan, matt kielty, mona margauker, alex neeson, sara khari, natalia ramirez, rebecca rand, anissa vitze, arian wack, molly webster, and jessica young, with help from gabby santis. Our fact checkers are diane kelly, emily krieger, natalie middleton, angeli mercado, and sophie semay.
Aubrey
Hi, I'm aubrey calling from salt lake city, utah. Leadership support for radiolab science programming is provided by the simons foundation and the john templeton foundation. Foundational support for radiolab was provided by the alfred p. Sloan foundation.
Lulu Miller
Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts. It's no wonder that Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yup, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com BankGuy Capital One NA Member
Geico Gecko
FDIC and now for a bit of breaking news. Between your breaking news with me, the Geico Gecko, here are some things you ought to know. Today, people who switch their car insurance to geico save about $900 a year. Experts are calling that. Nice to know. Also, plants can hear when bees buzz. My ficus just heard that. And finally, animal experts have confirmed that goats have regional accents. I'm getting a hint of Irish there.
Sammy Ramsey
It feels good to get good news. It feels good to Geico.
In “This American Roach,” Radiolab’s Alex Neeson sets out on a personal and investigative journey to confront her profound fear and disgust of cockroaches—specifically, the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). Through storytelling, expert interviews, culinary adventures, and historical context, Neeson and the Radiolab team explore why humans are so deeply repelled by “pests,” how these feelings intersect with history and social stigma, and whether we might be able to see these creatures—and ourselves—differently. The episode deftly weaves together humor, discomfort, science, and cultural critique to challenge our collective perceptions about this much-maligned insect.
[02:02–06:44]
Alex Neeson shares a visceral story of a birthday encounter with a large American cockroach in her home, vividly describing the sense of panic and disgust.
Despite being a science reporter and not hating all bugs, she describes unravelling at the sight of a roach, feeling helpless and overwhelmed.
“Every single time I see a roach, I completely unravel... I just snap.” — Alex Neeson [05:24]
Sets the stage for her quest: Can exposure and knowledge help her conquer this fear?
[06:44–12:01]
Visits the New York City Pest Expo, meeting seasoned exterminators and entomologists who show no fear—only professional detachment and curiosity.
Exterminators Lakeisha Fulcher and Cedric Simmons take Alex into the thick of infestations, explaining how to spot roach signs and use industrial pesticides.
“Flashlight is the most essential piece of the toolkit.” — Cedric Simmons [09:04]
“Give me five days—let’s go.” — Lakeisha Fulcher [08:16]
She experiences a sense of growing confidence but quickly hits a wall when, alone at home, her reflexive disgust returns despite her training.
“I didn’t freak out... it was nothing like before. But then, a roach in my own kitchen... and I just couldn’t do it.” — Alex Neeson [12:40]
[13:19–18:39]
Chef Joseph Yoon, edible insect advocate, introduces Alex and colleagues to gourmet bug dishes—with one caveat: even Yoon avoids cockroaches.
“Absolutely not. I’m already having to do a lot of work to convince people... Roaches don’t help my cause.” — Joseph Yoon [14:06]
After persuasion, Yoon prepares dubia roaches, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and finally American cockroaches. The group samples each in turn—some are tolerable, but the American cockroach proves deeply unpalatable.
“It tastes like something that you shouldn’t eat.” — Alan Gaffinsky [17:44]
“According to a Bugs as food expert, the American cockroach is literally inedible.” — Alex Neeson [18:24]
Even the edible insect chef is nearly repulsed to the point of spitting it out.
“It’s a warning sign to me. It’s kind of like, ‘don’t eat me, I dare you to eat me. I’ll kill you.’” — Joseph Yoon [18:31]
[20:03–22:14]
Science writer Bethany Brookshire joins to reflect on how humans designate animal “villains,” drawing on her own vendetta against squirrels.
“Every time an animal has succeeded really well at living near us, we hate them. If we can’t take it in, tame it, and put it in a little doggy sweater, we do not want it.” — Bethany Brookshire [21:19]
The term “pest” is interrogated as a tool of dehumanization and objectification.
“That word ‘pest’ takes an animal... and turns it into an object. We're saying that animal has no value.” — Bethany Brookshire [21:30]
[25:17–31:03]
Entomologist Sammy Ramsey reveals a little-known history: the American cockroach originated in Africa and arrived in North America on slave ships.
“The American cockroach is actually from Africa, and they climbed aboard those ships... when they got to the US they set up a whole new population.” — Sammy Ramsey [25:28]
Alex and author Angela Flournoy discuss the loaded cultural associations of roaches, particularly as tied to race, poverty, and shame in the Black community.
“That story just plays straight, like, directly into, like, all the old... racist story that’s been told about Black people in this country. I mean, ‘roach’ is an old anti-Black slur.” — Alex Neeson [27:26]
They discuss the shame, vigilance, and stigma tied to cleanliness and roach encounters in Black American homes.
“When I tell a stranger a story on the record about a roach in my home, there is something... in my chest that's like, damn, now they know.” — Alex Neeson [29:31]
Brookshire reframes roaches (and rats) as symbols of social contract failure and systemic neglect, not as reflections of personal worth.
“These are animals succeeding because our social contract has failed... You could see them... as a symbol of the failed social contract.” — Bethany Brookshire [30:10]
[23:04–32:49]
Sammy Ramsey explains their remarkable biology:
“Cockroaches are survivors... had they not been, they would not have survived this long.” — Sammy Ramsey [23:48]
Roaches’ supposed filthiness is contextualized: they’re naturally clean and become dirty from living among human refuse.
“They’re actually naturally very clean animals, cleaning their antennae almost the way that cats clean their whiskers.” — Alex Neeson [31:43]
In their native African habitats, they are crucial decomposers in vibrant ecosystems.
“They eat primarily organic matter... leaves, decomposing trees, logs. They’re decomposers.” — Alex Neeson [32:23]
[32:49–36:38]
Alex Neeson delivers a vivid, almost poetic narrative about the life cycle of a wild American cockroach in the Congo Basin rainforest, humanizing the creature and placing it back in its natural context—far away from the “pest” we know.
“At the base of her abdomen is a reddish capsule called an ootheca... inside it are 16 eggs... she pauses, looking both ways... as if reciting a prayer.” — Alex Neeson [33:10–33:55]
This segment reframes the roach as just another animal, separated from centuries of stigma, shame, and displacement, inviting listeners to reflect on empathy and interconnectedness.
“I just wanted to hate this bug and see if I can not hate it. And then it’s like... now this [history].” — Alex Neeson, reflecting on learning about the roach’s journey with enslaved Africans [26:21]
“That roach ain’t got nothing to do with you.” — Aubrey, encouraging liberation from personal shame [29:54]
“Our social contract has failed... These animals succeed where racism thrives.” — Bethany Brookshire [30:10]
“They're just trying to clean themselves of filth that they picked up from us.” — Alex Neeson [31:55]
“This American Roach” delivers classic Radiolab insight: what we revile says as much about us as it does about the reviled. Roaches—in all their adaptation, history, and proximity—mirror back our fears, prejudices, and systems. Understanding them, even just a little, is a portal to re-examining ourselves.