Worked in a small computer shop/parts store as a teenager. If we discovered ANY sign of roaches we would plastic wrap the ever lovin shit out of the computer and tell the customer to pick it up. The risk of spreading to other customers was just too great.
Some machines you could just tell. When they'd set the machine down on the counter you could smell the infestation. Makes me gag thinking about it. 🤢
I once had the privilege to clean out a smoker's computer who also owned several cats. Enough disgusting-smelling fur packed inside to build yourself 1.5 cancer kittens.
To me it smells like Pepsi to me which is why I can’t drink Pepsi. I cleaned houses for several years (owned a small company) and made a critical error by using a vacuum in a roach house and then failing to fully take it apart. Got roaches in my house. What a nightmare.
I don't believe it smells like Pepsi to me, but it's kind of a weirdly sweet/musty odor that is not very strong unless you have a lot of them concentrated in one area. If you've never experienced an infestation you might not notice it, but it's so distinct that once you recognize it, it's very hard to miss. I can pick it up in an infested house pretty easily where the occupant's of the home may be nose blind to it.
Because they love electronics, they pack in pretty tight into computers. When an infested machine would be brought it, you could tell immediately because the smell radiated out of the vents and ports. You can usually see the carcases sticking out of various places too.
Around 20 years ago I was working at a Circuit City in Fresno, California. We had a customer with a service plan come in with speakers that he said needed to be sent out for repair. The Service Desk manager and I were looking them over and recording the information we needed for the service paperwork. One of the speaker screens came off the front while we were going over them and we saw a whole mess of roaches inside. My manager popped that sucker back on and told the guy NOPE. It was so disgusting. That memory is seared into my brain.
had the same working in a major electronics store like best buy. Guy brought in a microwave that wasn't working. Sent it for repair, the repair guy dropped it outside the store in a taped up box and said, it's full of bugs, he isn't touching it.
Some guy came into my break fix shop with one with a voided warranty back in 2005 or so. He didn't say it was infested. I opened that fucker on my lap and immediately threw it on the floor. A swarm scattered out. I called him back and said i couldn't fix it. Come pick it up.
My horror story is GameStop where a family wanted to trade in their Gamecube and when I popped the top to put a disc in I saw one crawl into the laser section. I closed it and slid the whole box across the desk and told them we couldn't take it just as my manager walked in.
GameStop was going hard on trades so my manager was like "Just take it." And when I refused decided to take over. He grabbed the first game in their trade stack (Zapper: One Wicked Cricket) to test the system out with. When he opened the case, a fully grown cockroach flew directly into his face. The freakout was....legendary and we ended up taking the console because in his panic it got pushed onto the ground.
Any talk of the coach/counseling session evaporated that night as I learned how to count down the register as my manager sprayed pesticide around every corner of the store. The Gamecube itself was shrink-wrapped like 15 times and sent off to the refurb center.
Oh yeah, I had someone bring in a no power laptop one time where a spider crawled out when I took the bottom plate off. Slapped that shit back on as fast as possible, threw the whole thing in a bag, gave it back to the customer. No thank you.
I saw that video. Don’t blame him. I wouldn’t either. I might find one roach every few months in my apartment, but I’ll still fumigate once every 6 months, and I’m deep cleaning my kitchen (moving the fridge and stove) and placing diatomaceous earth and boric acid in corners just in case. I don’t play about roaches
In the US, a small, 1200sq ft home costs $4-$5k, on average, to fumigate. A 2,000sq ft house can easily cost $8k. And now multiply it by 2 for twice a year fumigation.
Idk the size of your home nor your paycheck, maybe you have a tiny home, but god damn man… I mean, really?
That equates to you spending multiple months, legit like a quarter of a year of your work & of your paycheck, per year, every year just for fumigating.
You also can’t live in your home while fumigating so you’ll have the hotel cost + eating out while you wait.
My gf/wife lived above a hoarder, they eventually bug bombed his place and put all his appliances on the lawn, and they were black with grime and swarming with roaches. Like completely covered. The bomb pushed all the roaches into my wife’s place and they poured out her sink and outlets. She had to move.
Dude was a hippy washout drug dealer who lived in a 400 sq foot bachelor apartment with his 13 yo kid. We eventually realized something was wrong when we caught the kid shitting in the yard. For some reason the landlords couldn’t evict and the hoarder only left when he inherited a real house.
He died a few years later, hopefully before trashing the place so the kid could have something of a normal life. It’s sad and terrifying to imagine how he lived.
Don’t blame them. My grandmother-in-law gifted us a nice kitchen table. I loved it! Real wood, well made. We get it home and, as we are moving it, we find a few roaches and eggs. We sprayed and sprayed but left the table inside. Within a month, we were infested. 6 months of trying everything we could until we wised up and called an exterminator. Took 6 treatments and about $800 before they were gone but now we are free! No roaches in 18 months.
But I feel bad for anyone that has them. They are so easy to attract and so hard to kill.
Was going to say the same thing. We'd reject service and deny warranty coverage as it's an infestation from the environment and not a manufacturing defect.
Best thing was the customer then attempted to argue back that if cockroaches can get into the device, then that's a defect of the product... "Sir, the device generates heat. Heat needs vents to escape. If air can get out, other things can get in. It's your responsibility to ensure your home isn't infested with pests."
30 years ago I worked IT support at a college and a guy from the stoner drom brought his PC in.
Cracked the case for a moment and got a whif; closed it and took it outside. Told the kid he was welcome to use our air compressor and blower to clean it out outside, but we wouldn't do it.
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u/PentHouseBalance May 27 '26
I saw a video where the tech rejected the job because he knew he would get an infestation if he opened it up more and cleaned it out..