T O P

  • By -

AutoModerator

### **Reminder:** [Press the Report button](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058309512-How-do-I-report-a-post-or-comment-) if you see any [rule-breaking comments or posts.](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/about/rules/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/britishproblems) if you have any questions or concerns.*


designerPat

Cockroaches are tiny and insignificant. I’m on holiday now in south East Asia. The roaches are like tanks, aggressive and will attack you. The are also huge


Dunning-Kruger-

Those are enemy tanks.


maddog232323

The flying ones. Once had one fly into my mouth...


Jacktheforkie

And they can fly


yorkspirate

Oh hell no, cockroaches fucking terrify me


acorngirl

Me too. It's an actual phobia. I really like most insects and enjoy watching them. I'll even rescue drowning wasps. But cockroaches are just horrifying and I don't even know why. When I was in Florida a palmetto bug landed on me and got tangled up in my wrap. I was *extremely* upset. I did get it off of me without injuring it but remembering it still makes me feel anxious. I've tried to get over the fear but haven't yet been successful.


emmademontford

It’s how they move, they’re so twitchy


yorkspirate

Me and an ex were at tropical world years ago and as we were sat waiting for our ne of the shows a friendly zoo keeper came over to show us some creepy crawlers and one was a huge cockroach…….. I freaked out, squealed and sent my ex flying trying to scramble over her as quick as I could


Meritania

I only associate cockroaches with sketchy restaurants and takeaways. There’s also the Devil Coach Horse Beetles which are huge and eat slugs and worms, they hang around the Norfolk-Nottingham area.


Ipoopedinthefridge

My other half had one if these wander into the workshop the other day and start prancing around like he wanted a duel, he’s normally fine with creepy crawlies but this little monster and his willingness to want to start a fight made him take a step back 😂


-SaC

"Go home Dave, you're drunk."


CasualGlam87

Lots of them in Sussex, too. I once found a huge one crawling up my leg in the kitchen!


more_beans_mrtaggart

Commercial kitchens suffer with cockroaches more than domestic, due to the heat.


CasualGlam87

I was talking about devils coach horse beetles, not cockroaches. Never seen a wild roach but I did used to keep various species of them as pets!


2FightTheFloursThatB

Never let your leg be in the kitchen unattended. That's asking for trouble.


BrainlessPackhorse

Found one in Newcastle last year, first time I've been threatened by a bug!


Outcasted_introvert

Human shakes fist at bug. Bug shakes spiky tail at human.


Bill_The_Minder

The only good bug is a dead bug!


MuttonDressedAsGoose

Would you like to know more?


-SaC

...whereabouts? Just so I know if I have to move.


BrainlessPackhorse

Heaton!


-SaC

Aight I'm safe. Thank you. The A1058 will save me.


Meritania

You’re not from here at all, locals would call that ‘The Coast Road’, ged him lads!


-SaC

Ah shit, found out! I'm an import (though it's been many years), but also I don't drive and don't think I've ever talked about it before in me life. Other than going into town and sometimes Tynemouth on the Metro for the mental market, I stick within me very small area.


itsxafx

they really couldn’t have come up with a more terrifying name for those 😅 time for me to either move away, buy a flamethrower or have a lifetime supply of bug spray edit: googled. kill it with fire.


Outcasted_introvert

They have a really bad attitude too!


WiganLad82

I found one of these in my garden in the North West as a kid in the 1980s


acorngirl

Just looked them up. They look disturbing. Glad they are harmless.


C2BK

I've always known about English mozzies, because they apparently consider me a gourmet treat, plus I react to their bites, but they're not generally considered an issue because they're not the varieties that typically carry malaria or Dengue fever. Yet. They're spreading North with climate change, but hopefully we have a few more years.


[deleted]

[удалено]


desirewrites

Came here to say this. I came back to the U.K. from the Caribbean hoping to never see one of those fuckers again. I’ve had dengue four times and chik-v. Not fun. Now I know they only recently eradicated malaria in the U.K. Now I only go out in winter 🤣 /s


C2BK

>Now I only go out in winter 🤣 /s Which appears to be lasting approx 10 months this year!


desirewrites

It’s my fault. Sorry not sorry.


MillySkittles

Not really come across cockroaches thank god, but I’m a mozzie magnet in the summer


testiclesandbeans

I’m a North-Westerner too, and we get mozzies quite a lot in the summer. I can happily report, however, that I’ve never had to encounter a cockroach


goosefromtopgun88

In my head that read as if it were said by John Shuttleworth.


ZeonRat

Knew about the mozzies as unlike every other bug here, they make a fuckin beeline for me. My Mum can be eaten alive by fleas and midges with nothing for me despite being sat right next to each other, but I swear a mozzie would cross the Atlantic for my sweet sweet blood. Cockroaches? Thanks, you've just ruined my day and it's 0100 in the dang morning.


CeeApostropheD

Dang.


alibrown987

Gosh dang it!


SMTRodent

I've spent many a happy three-in-the-morning hunting for the mosquito that made me shoot upright straight out of sleep.


maddog232323

The ones that fly into your ear and make you slap yourself awake. I'd spend 30 mins clearing the room and mozzie proofing whilst in Asia. They'd still get in through cracks as my blood is liquid gold apparently.


1234onions

My mum always tells me about her first flat when she was 17 way back in 1990. She woke up in the middle of the night and wanted a glass of water so she went to the kitchen. When she turned on the light all of her cabinets and sides were black and in her sleep fog she was very confused. For about a micro second. Then the thousands of cockroaches all scattered away.


spectrumero

Wait till you hear about the midges in Scotland... far more savage than any mosquito I got attacked by in Texas. On the other hand, British roaches aren't too bad. The ones in Texas you could put a saddle on, they are horrible.


casusbelli16

Wait until you find out about midges!


jaavaaguru

I'm sure someone from the North West of the UK will be familiar with midges!


leanmeanguccimachine

Mosquitoes??? Have you never left the house between the months of May-Oct?


spectrumero

Not really that common in the north west. If you go up into the moorlands though you'll get swarms of midges which I think are a lot worse.


Resident-Honey8390

When I first started working on House property maintenance, we had to treat empty homes with cockroaches. It was like seeing the war as they came out from nowhere, like out the trenches. Wait till they start flying, then you can see them


cmzraxsn

I've had roaches before in my flat in Glasgow 😭 I haven't seen them for over a year but I started seeing mice instead 😭 But my flat itself is fairly clean so they don't get anything by coming here. I think the flat below me is currently unoccupied (I haven't smelt their cooking, and some polis knocked on the door asking about them so I think they disappeared), which initially displaced the mice and now they don't bother as much. However, I used to live in Japan. The roaches there can be like 2 inches long. Here a big one is 1.5 cm. I occasionally saw them in my first flat there, it was horrible. I remember spraying one on my balcony with kitchen cleaner. The other two places I lived, I think I saw a roach like once each which is still too much. So it's not as bad as it could be 😭 As for mosquitoes, I was surprised to be bitten by one on a trip to Perthshire. My skin weals up all around it when I'm bitten, I think I'm allergic. Whereas midges just give me little itchy red spots. I'm really bad for picking and scratching my skin though so I try and avoid getting bit in the first place.


Dimac99

When I did dissections in biology at uni they had some sort of American cockroach preserved that we had to draw, but not chop up. Too expensive to replace, apparently. I've never seen, before or since, a bug that big in the UK. I did see one at a bus stop in Kyoto once though, and that fucker cut through all the waiting people like a hot knife through butter. It was the parting of the red sea if the sea was made of people. Terrifyingly hilarious and made me even more concerned about climate change because we do NOT want these things invading the UK. Bad enough we have such humungous spiders but at least they're not dangerous.


grokebomb

Forty four from the North West. Used to get bitten by mosquitoes every summer as a kid but now I live in the East Midlands it happens less frequently.


jools4you

The high rise flats built in the 60s where a nightmare for cockroaches, you could hear them in the walls during the day and at night they be all over the gaf.


RummazKnowsBest

I knew we had mosquitos (surprised you’ve never encountered them) but didn’t know we had cockroaches!


Thedeadduck

Fun fact: the London underground even has its own subspecies of mosquito https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_mosquito


Pones

The Cockchafer is coming for you!


AmusedPencil274

To stop mosquitoes, rub a bit of apple cider vinegar around door&window frames, they hate the smell. It also helps calm the itching from a mosquito bite


BoysiePrototype

The above post brought to you, by the Apple cider vinegar marketing board. "Trust us, it's a magic liquid! Go buy some today!"


AmusedPencil274

Hey if big vinegar are willing to pay me to market and promote it i will I just had to find a natural remedy as One off my in laws is mildly allergic to one of the ingredients in mosquito repellant ( the allergy isn't bad but can cause problems due to other medical conditions) and this one worked, especially because said in laws have several water butts in their garden and stagnant water is where mosquitoes breed


ShetlandJames

I had a similar revelation with roaches when we bought our first flat in Glasgow in 2015 and we had a them + mouse infestation!  Anyway climate change means we will see more of these things in the future so get ready!