7 Horrifying Pest Infestations You Had No Clue Were Possible
The occasional big-cat rebellion aside, humans have the run of the animal kingdom. We own this world, and those damn beasts are lucky we leave them even a sliver of Amazonian jungle to creep around in. But sometimes, critters get sick of us telling them where to go, and they strike back by invading whatever human territory they can, be it our homes, our video game consoles, or even our mouths. Speaking of ...
Your Dog's Mouth Might Be Infested With Bugs
Dogs are man's best friend, but they're that type of friend who sits around in their underwear all day eating week-old chili with a moldy spoon. They're disgusting, is what we're saying, even more disgusting than you might want to believe. Because while you might think that the worst thing you can find in your dog's mouth is the lingering smell of a thousand licked assholes, it turns out that the winner is an actual bug colony.
Bugs can and will set up shop en masse right inside your beloved pet's treat-hole. But these are no cute little ladybugs, they're actually a tough species of Asian lady beetles that can cause ulcers on the dog's mouth and tongue so severe they can be mistaken for freaking chemical burns. To be fair, the dogs bring it on themselves: The apparent cause is attempted canine nommage of the bugs, because there's no floor on the weird shit dogs will try to eat. Once they're inside that slobbery death trap, the beetles simply accept their fate and try to live the best life they possibly can inside your cute pet's trash-slide.
Thankfully, it's an uncommon and relatively easy-to-fix problem. If you notice your dog foaming at the mouth and refusing to eat, stop reading this comedy article and take them to the vet, Jesus Christ. But it wouldn't hurt to take a look down the ol' kibble tube first. If you happen to notice an entomological horror show, you can pluck those fuckers right off, provided your dog knows he's hosting a low-budget Pixar movie in his mouth and lets you. A spoon or tongue depressor can be used on more stubborn friends, but make fun of him for going down on a literal bush for a few days to teach him some humility.
Your PlayStation Is Filled With Cockroaches
If your ambition in life is to become a video game console repair person, we have a million questions, but you should also know the job will require you to develop a supernatural bug-detection sense. That's because you'll be spending a lot of time dealing with cockroaches that have turned PlayStations into their very own tenement buildings.
People who repair consoles for a living deal with cockroach infestations in PS4s so often (up to half of the PS4s brought in), they can instantly detect the smell and color of roach feces, according to Kotaku's Cecilia D'Anastasio. What most owners think is some faulty wiring often turns out to be a cockroach genocide, entire families of bugs and their poop, fried and melted onto the various parts that make the games go vroom. D'Anastasio learned of this when visiting a Manhattan console repair shop that had several trash bags filled with roaches that had been scraped from inside of PS4s. She was assured by one technician that they were "probably dead by now," which must be the first time that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics has ever been applied to a trash bag filled to the brim with cockroaches.
It turns out that PS4s are uniquely built to be ideal roach motels. Part of the reason is the vents, as the grates are wide enough for roaches to easily crawl inside. The technicians also suspect that the PS4 runs hotter than the Xbox, turning it into some roach family's cozy Christmas fireplace. For those who prefer to use their PS4 to frag invaders than fry them on the hardware, remember that few things can stop a cockroach -- not even a trash-bag graveyard -- but it helps to keep the console somewhere up high and out in the open. Or just do what those rude people on the internet keep telling you to do, and get an XBOX OMG PS4 SUXXX.
Giant Cat-Eating Lizards Are Taking Over Tampa
Remember the Goliath Bird-Eating Spider? The ambitious spider that skipped about seven rungs of the food chain to hunt creatures its brain shouldn't even register as potential food sources? He's yesterday's news. Meet the Goliath Cat-Eating Lizard.
At least, that's what they'll be called if science ever starts answering our letters. For now, they're known as tegus and they are the embodiment of scaly menace. They grow to anywhere from two-and-a-half to four feet long, or "leg-sized" as one heroic reporter puts it. And much like your dog, they'll eat just about anything. Sometimes they couldn't possibly take more than just a nibble of fruit, sometimes they could go for a small mammal -- including, one expert speculated, a cat or two.
Tegus originated in South America, where they're a lot more tolerated than up north. Now, these scaly motherfuckers are pouring into Florida, where they were imported by exotic pet breeders to sell to hapless owners who realize too late that this Chamber Of Secrets resident isn't the best companion, and proceed to set them loose into the wild. One person alone is known to be responsible for releasing thirty of these bastards into the Florida wilderness, where they've started breeding out of control, as Florida's climate makes it a hospitable environment to both reptiles and eldritch horrors. Now they've started showing up on the properties of people who often mistake them for small alligators, which is apparently no cause for alarm among Florida homeowners.
And these critters, straight out of a bad 80s horror movie, aren't going anywhere. Each female can lay up to 35 eggs per year and experts say it's impossible for them to estimate how many of them are already out there. They hide underground in the winter, emerging in the spring like Satan's hunger made flesh. They mostly roam on land, but, like any good swamp monster, can lurk underwater for long periods of time if need be. Their population is highest in the Miami and Tampa Bay areas, but they've been spotted as far as Panama City. That's right: They're moving north. Lock up your cats.
Apple Stores And Computers Are Filled With Bed Bugs And Bacteria
Though the PC master race refuses to admit it, everyone loves popping into the Apple Store and poking at all the bright and beautiful screens. However, walking around in one of those not-so-sterile pods could be up there with taking selfies on bridges and eating "found" birthday cakes on the list of whimsical impulses that could kill you.
Think about it: A person's own smartphone carries about 18 times as many germs as a toilet handle. Now multiply that by every shnook who comes in to fondle the latest iPhone. In just one Apple Store, half of the devices swabbed tested positive for bacteria ranging from the merely gross to the potentially deadly. You might as well stick your head in a bucket full of bodily fluids from every member of Buckcherry. Experts have recommended that Apple Stores start offering hand sanitizer, but they're being a bit slow on the uptake, so maybe pack a little bottle of Purell every time you go and stare at the ridiculously expensive shiny slabs.
And we haven't even mentioned the bed bugs. A bed bug infestation is already its own circle of hell, but while people know to burn their sheets and clothes and significant portions of their family's skin, many neglect to treat items like electronics. The warm, dark, narrow spaces inside your keyboard and hard drive are like cozy ski lodges for bed bugs and the only way to get rid of them is to seal your laptop in a bag with some chemicals for at least a week -- which means your only option is to buy a new laptop. Maybe you should take a look at the newest MacB- ohhhhh, now we get it.
Vultures Are Just Hanging Out In People's Yards Because Of Global Warming
Have you ever had a disagreement with a neighbor and for as long as you lived there, you were afraid to go outside in case you ran into them and their stink eye? That's what the southern United States is dealing with right now -- except with vultures instead of neighbors.
Turkey vultures usually pass through the South on their wintertime migration to Florida, but lately, they've been deciding that Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina are plenty warm enough for them to spend the winter. That can result in people having dozens of carrion eaters angrily staring into their backyards. For all of you climate change deniers out there: How much clearer a message do you need that global warming is bad than vultures showing up to hang out at your pool?
Fortunately, the vultures aren't dangerous, because vultures are actually nice birds that do us all a favor by eating diseased corpses. Unfortunately, they're gross as hell, being birds that eat diseased corpses. They smell terrible, they shit on everything, and they'll fuck your lovely patio furniture right up. You can't even chase them off because, when threatened, they'll projectile vomit their maggoty lunch straight at you. In that sense, they're more like your shiftless cousin who asks to sleep your couch "just for a few days, I swear," refuses to leave, and then pukes all over your duvet. Their general unpleasantness has convinced several people to abandon their homes to escape this Hitchcockian madness.
On the bright side, according to the videos people have posted, the vultures spend most of their time just lazing around, and when threatening can muster only a feeble "come at me, bro" stance. So, you know, at least you have something to giggle at as you gag on the stench of death that has eternally shrouded your yard.
Cockroaches Are Taking Saunas In Coffee Machines
Cockroaches, who will inevitably conquer the Earth and outlive us all, have taken to flaunting their strategic genius by hitting us when we're at our weakest: pre-caffeine. How? By hiding inside our coffeemakers.
According to coffeemaker company Aquaspresso, cockroaches "are naturally attracted to three things: darkness, moisture, and nutrients." All three of those things can be found inside coffeemakers. Also, graves. You can make coffee in graves, is what we're saying. Anyway, it's becoming such a big problem that an Atlanta-area Starbucks failed its health inspection thanks to the little buggers. Not even the moderately trained semi-professionals at Starbucks can withstand this jittery scourge.
Fortunately, Aquaspresso has stepped in to fill the dire need of helping you figure out how to wipe out the hordes and have a caffeinated feast upon their corpses. However, the helpfulness of these solutions is mixed at best. The company advises to take out the roaches with boric acid, which they admit should "come nowhere close to being in contact with any of the consumables of the machine," i.e. anywhere near the machine. Some other tips are suspiciously pseudoscientific, like shining a bright light on the coffee maker at all times to ward off the six-legged demons. Others require the purchase of Vaseline traps, which sounds like something you buy at a store once and then never ever return there ever again. Aquaspresso admits that all this talk of cockroaches is probably not what you want to hear from their company, and that most companies "choose to overlook, avoid, and even deny" the issue, but they want you to know that they're on your side. But the other corporations are doing their bit, too. If there's one thing that will outlive the roaches, it's capitalism.
Airplanes Are Disgusting Rat Tubes
You know how they say that you're never more six feet away from a rat? (And if you didn't -- now you do.) Being tens of thousands of feet in the air doesn't mean that rule stops applying to you, smarty pants. So while Rats On A Plane doesn't sound like a very exciting movie, in this case, the horror lies in its reality. There's certainly a better chance of running into them on the red eye than a snake -- or Samuel L. Jackson.
In 2014, an Air India flight had to be grounded when "scores" of rats were discovered running around the cabin, flagrantly violating airline policy by not wearing their seat belts. It's kind of weird that it took them so long to notice -- but then again what bad could possibly come from rats stowing away on trips around the world? Apparently, these plague passengers had hidden away inside the food carts, fattening themselves up on scraps of chicken Kiev before enjoying their free flights. The plane in question had to be immediately taken out of service for fumigation, just like any plane coming out of Florida.
The offending rats were escorted, kicking and screaming, off the plane. Also common in Florida.
Lest you think this only happens in countries like India, similar incidents have occurred all over the world. On a Delta Airlines plane, inspectors found rat droppings "too numerous to count," which is never the metric you want to use when tallying poop. In England, British Airways discovered they had a rat problem when a passenger was bitten on two separate flights, which is a clear indicator that the two rodent children from Roald Dahl's The Witches were stowing away. No airline appears to be safe: an American Airlines flight was found to be so full of mice that they'd begun chewing on the electrical wiring, which is an outrageous oversight by the same industry that will tackle passengers for trying to board with slightly oversized nail clippers.
For more reasons it's time to pack our things up and fly to Mars, check out 5 Terrifyingly Advanced Ways Animals Know How to Kill and The 6 Deadliest Animals Too Adorable to Run Away From.
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