"Doug" wrote in message

stuff snipped

When I lived in the restaurant district in DC, I once heard something
scuttling under the bed. I grabbed a flashlight and looked under to see
a
cockroach as large as mouse, just waddling across the floor. I couldn't
believe that it was so big I could actually hear it moving around. It
was
like that scene from Aliens where the Marine lifts up a suspended ceiling
panel for a look and sees giant bug-like aliens. I moved out shortly
after.


You reminded me of when I was walking thru a tunnel at CCNY (NYC) and
I saw a dead cockroach. I never saw one so large. I remember it had
to be at least 3 to 4 inches long... big. I have never seen one
since anything close to that size but I don't live in NYC nowadays. I
guess around certain areas where these rodents or insects are well
hidden and feed well, they can grow extra large. This seems obvious
from your story and mine.

Dad was a CCNY grad. (-: I recall hearing a health inspector say just what
you did. With places to hide and a steady food supply both roaches and rats
can grow to be pretty disturbingly big. Places like Georgetown, DC have
buildings over 200 years old and many of the first floors of those places
have been restaurants for 50 years or more. I just read they found a
beached whale with a harpoon in it from the 1800's. I wonder what the
maximum span of a cockroach is? Is there one running around in the walls of
Fraunces' Tavern in NYC or the Old Stone House in DC whose father was
stepped on by Thomas Jefferson? (-:

I remember visiting a girlfriend who lived in a 4 story walkup in Brooklyn
in the '70's. I got up to get a drink of water late at night and when I
turned on the bathroom light, all the spots on the wallpaper suddenly
started moving. They weren't really spots, just dozens of cockroaches,
fleeing from the light. I have never seen so many before or since, except
on Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs" program about sewer maintenance workers.

--
Bobby G.