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This American Roach

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://zpr.io/UNKsMz7ZaLvb) by Lindsay Garcia, Arcadia Books - Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (https://zpr.io/6E5wJBM4Kvcv) by Bethany Brookshire The Cockroach Papers (https://zpr.io/CvKePYxEMEAW) by Richard Schweid Cockroach (https://zpr.io/UuEAjmfqKccQ)  by Marion Copeland Other cool stuff - Have fun with neuroscience and ... Roaches @ www.backyardbrains.com Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.
Duration
39m
Broadcast on
29 May 2026
Audio Format
other

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 Wang

EPISODE CREDITS: 
Reported by - Alex Neason
Produced by - Jessica Yung and Annie McEwen
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Sophie Samiee
and Edited by  - Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles - 

Books -  

Other cool stuff -

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.


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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Okay, so I have to tell you a story. I'm Lutz Vanosser, this is Radio Lab, sitting with reporter Alex Nise. 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. And I had like a nice day, I 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 lived that I like to go to, and so I'd been outside all day. And I came home and needed to take a shower. 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. 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. Wait, what? I thought you were going to say like a serial killer. You mean like a roach, like a cockroach? And American cockroach, yeah. And this was like a big one. And it was on its back, like it was dying? Yeah, but with roaches, you just never know, like it could look dead, but be just alive enough that it's going to flip back over and run at my leg. And with my foot hovering over this bug, I'm flooded with revulsion. But also terror, like this bug has got to 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. The dying or dead roach. Right. Okay. I run 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, okay, 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. And I'm just like, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then I get a trash bag, scoop it up and stick it in there and then tie it up super

Transcription truncated.

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://zpr.io/UNKsMz7ZaLvb) by Lindsay Garcia, Arcadia Books - Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains (https://zpr.io/6E5wJBM4Kvcv) by Bethany Brookshire The Cockroach Papers (https://zpr.io/CvKePYxEMEAW) by Richard Schweid Cockroach (https://zpr.io/UuEAjmfqKccQ)  by Marion Copeland Other cool stuff - Have fun with neuroscience and ... Roaches @ www.backyardbrains.com Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s 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.