Roaches

As humans we are not fond of cohabiting with many insects, especially roaches.  They are not sanitary and are messengers of old or dirty structures or remnants of food around the house.  That is as far as I used to think badly about roaches, till yesterday!  I was watching a sad documentary on TV about some government housing conditions in poor areas of New York; how people lived in rental apartments that had mold and many roaches; how they cooked and bathed there, getting sick, and landlords ignored tenants requests for repairs; how rate of Asthma for those residents was much higher than other neighborhoods; how finally a concerned mother after years of persistence and taking the subject to the media and her community, was able to force the management company renovate her bathroom and fix a pipe's leak instead of just providing a band-aid solution by cleaning and painting over the mold, which made mold come back soon later.  Anyways, apart from the interesting story, I learned that not only mold but also roaches contribute to Asthma!  One more reason why pest control and vacuuming often is more important than what you can imagine!

To learn more about the relationship between roaches and asthma please visit here. 

The mentioned documentary broadcasted on January 5, 2014 on NBC's Dateline program can be watched here.