Cockroaches? myth or reality

... but if you're really phobic, you might want to stay away from pet shops, as stag beetles are a very popular summer-time pet for small boys here. And there are cicadas (completely harmless but noisy) in the trees in the summer.

Are you kidding? Japan is where the gokiburi hoi hoi was invented... gas bombs... to fumigate your apartment, etc. When I lived in Ebisu, I had a lot of cockroaches and there were also these little black mosquitos that had a bite that actually hurt. Now I live in the countryside and there are very few cockroaches out here and i found out why... one night I noticed a very large cockroach on the wall in the corner of my kitchen not moving, but it's feelers were moving back and forth like crazy.. I noticed that not too far away in the darkened corner was a very large black and hairy spider about the size of my hand... I waited and watched to see what would happen. I think the cockroach was sensing the danger in the corner with it's feelers, cause he suddenly started to walk away from the spider... I tapped the wall in front of him and he turn and moved a couple steps toward the spider and immediately the spider pounced on him digging it's fangs deep through the shell of the cockroach... as the spider jumped I could hear it's legs hit the wallin a clatter... with the cockroach quivering in its fangs... it retreated into the darkness and what must have been a horrifying fate for the cockroach. Every spring I notice these huge spiders in my house and I leave them alone, cause they control the cockroach population much better then the gokiburi hoi hois I used to buy in Tokyo. The spiders are harmless... but there are huge centipedes out here that get into the house and one night I awoke to one crawling over my forehead... I didn't move until it got past and then ran for the vacuum cleaner and sucked him up and sprayed some insecticide into the vacuum cleaner hose while it was running. These centipedes are poisonous and can give you a mean bite that swells up. There are no mosquitos out here which surprised me... but I hear thousands of frogs singing every night in the rice paddies. I guess the frogs eat them and keep them under control. There are millions of these frogs and they are very easy prey for the mamushi to catch. Mamushi is a poisonous viper resembling the American Copperhead and they have a mottled autumn leave pattern on their bodies that camoflages them perfectly in autumn leaves. Anyway, before you start killing insects... watch and study them... some of them may turn out to be your good friends that keep the more disgusting ones under control. Good luck and enjoy your stay in Japan and the wonders of living close to nature.

Well considering I have lived in Malaysia for 2 years and worked in other Asian countries before - I don't know why the forumer 'thinks' Tokyo is humid.

It isn't that humid at all even in Summer.

Those links provided are just from people who are like me, suffer from insect-phobia (just like the originla poster). Yet I didn't have a problem in Tokyo at all.

Even all the talks about spiders - there are heaps more of them in my house anytime in Australia.

The cockroaches aren't that big in Japan either. Some of the ones I saw in Malaysia are like a lighter..

And they die in the hundreds, which makes the whole house stink.


As a very insect phobia person myself, I can assure u u have nothing to worry about. Sure there are insects somewhere. They're probably our ancestors haha

that was the most revolting story i have ever heard.

Well... as they say... don't let the bed bugs bite.

In the hot summer... I sleep nude with just a sheet over me. I don't know if it's my imagination or not... but often in the middle of the night, I get the strangest tickling sensations. Sometimes I think I'm dreaming, but sometimes I think I'm awake. When morning comes... I don't really know if I was dreaming or was awake. Anyway, whatever it was, I hope they had a good time, after all, we all have something in common, we are all members of the food chain.

where the hell are you living? in a log cabin in the rain forest?

Dear god man...move!

Never seen any cockroaches in any of the hotels we stayed at or home we visited. Japanese keeps them pretty well under control I think.
I haven't seen any in years.

ok no roaches,but is godzilla or king kong monkeyin' around there beacause i am afarid of monkeys.

Unfortunately, King Kong is deceased, although Godzilla is still lurking somewhere downstream from the Diet building.

There ARE large flying cockroaches, at least in the non-urban areas, in Japan. This is not so-called "uninformed web chatter." I lived with them for three years.

Move? I love it here. Much better than Tokyo and the Discovery channel.

I wish I lived in the same part of Tokyo as the poster Rouge lives in, because I've lived here for 8 years and every summer is stiflingly humid- the humidity is usually above 90 percent in July, which is statistically and by definition, VERY humid. People sweat buckets- that doesn't happen in a dry climate. The salarymen on the trains have their shirts sticking to them, the high school girls are mopping their necks with little towels- if that is not humid, I don't know what is, and I have also spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia, mostly Thailand.

I have lived in about 6 different apartments and houses in the Tokyo area, in my 8 years here, and I can tell you that the likelihood of their being roaches is directly related to a) how old the building is, and b) how often food or food scraps gets left out.

A long time ago I lived in a gaijin house where I would see up to 10 a day in the kitchen- they were behind the fridge, in my knife and fork tray, abandoning ship as I lifted my plates down off the shelf. As that kitchen was shared by about 20 people there was little I could do other than move out. You will see them around the garbage areas if you look, only in summer, they're around 3-5 cm long and they do fly. I now live in a brand new 4th floor apartment and don't see them- we keep the place clean and the building is too new to be infested.

Those hornets exist anywhere there are a reasonable number of trees etc. To those who have never seen them in Tokyo, try spending a bit more time in Yoyogi park in summer- they're around, not in the numbers you see them in in the country obviously, but they're there.

So to sum up, Tokyo has many fairly large roaches, some hornets, and is phenomenally humid in summer.

Well,it listen awful what you all describe about cockroaches and bugs..... in Japan!
I live in an apartmenthouse in a european city with more than a milion inhabitants,so no countryside even if it is not so big as Tokyo is.I never saw in my life a single cockroach or a bug in a house,flat or apartment!!! I lived by my self in many apartments and as well in not so nice districts and very old, sometimes ugly houses.I never saw such beasts! As well no one whom I know saw them and also I never heared about it. Your stories giving me a bad impression about Japan!!! Is it realy true what is reported at this forum here??? I only know such cockroaches and bugs from us-american films and I always thought that it should be a strange american kind of humour !??

I used to live in a central city apartment in Granada, Spain, and I saw a few cockroaches there- huge black ones- at least 6 cm long. I've not seen them in my home country New Zealand, but I'm told they are there. They are in virtually every country in the world and are thought to be one species that will survive a nuclear holocaust- there's no getting rid of them!

Sorry I do not want to offend someone,but we consider that such south-european areas are dirty! Maybe they are all around the world but if they are so much that you even can -meet- them in a house,it listen for me awful! agin my question,are they realy so often in Japan!??

Aspara - may be I have lived much nearer the equator before and as such I did not find Tokyo to be highly humid as others think, especially compared to Malaysia/Singapore which is humid all throughout the year. I guess this is just my 'relative' experience as I didn't begin feeling that hot until it was 36-37C in Japan compared to even 28-32C in Malaysia.

Although in Melbourne which is dry in Summer feels different. It doesn't feel sweaty even if it gets to 42-46C here... but u just dry out like u're in the oven.

Here's a comparison -
Tokyo:
http://uk.holidaysguide.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-1230555-tokyo_weather-i

Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) -
http://uk.holidaysguide.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-239458-kuala_lumpur_weather-i

Notice how KL is ALWAYS 95-97 humidity any time of the year, and you'll understand how relieved I was compared to living in Tokyo :)

Look I've seen a fair few cockroached in Tokyo before -probably saw one every week. But it just doesn't compare with China and Malaysia - there is always one around the corner, or a hundred of them.

I had to pre-spray cans and cans of RAID or similar insecticides around the whole wall/floor of the house when I was living in Malaysia. Otherwise if they come inside and then die, its make the scene in Men in Black II a child's play :(

Just type "Cockroaches in Japan" into Google and verify by reading all the websites that come up.

How about type Cure for Paranoia in google instead?

Or.. Share World with other creatures?

I really don't see the point, especially when the links from such general keywords only turn up a few entries from 6.5 Billion world population.

No one ever denied there aren't cockroaches in Japan.

Stop using GOOGLE to augment a point of view, because

In case people weren't aware, GOOGLE's search engine is designed to turn up whatever keyword people enter into it.

The spiders here are enough to keep U on your toes.
Just this evening I was cooking and the kitchen started to heat up so I pulled open the sliding door to let some more air in and a spider the size of a small melon dropped down.

I come from Australia and have never seenanything the size of this thing. Sorry to say I had to kill it, I just ain't comfortable with anything crawling around of that size.

My fiance says she must have smelled the good cookin coming fromt he house lol

ugh

Can I expect more of them this time of year ?

Does anybody know if the sprays available here are available in a surface spray type of spray?
We have that back home and you just spray it all around the doors and windows outside and it keeps every kind of bug out.

Yes, relax Rhi,

If there are cockroaches or any other insects in your apartment they are totally controllable.

There's some info at: www.jp41.com/help/killcockroaches/ including some photos you can print out and take to the hardware store for easy shopping.

Good luck!

I'm an insectophobe too, I live in Missouri right now in the US. Every summer we get a few cockroaches but as I'm a rabid neatnik they're not really a problem.....only an inch long at most and usually smaller. I kill them pretty quickly.

Do they have sump pumps in Japan? A sump pump is a kind of water pump in the basement or sometimes outside the house. A lot of times roaches crawl up their pipes. I find it to be a good idea to pour bleach down the sump pump. You only have to do it maybe a couple times a year, and it seems to control the population.

Also if the place has communal trash chutes....whoa. Watch out. Roaches use them like elevators to get into each level and apartment in a building.

Now even knowing that there are large insects in Japan makes me afraid to go!