7 Horrifying Pest Infestations You Had No Clue Were Possible

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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