I’m struggling to handle being in my bedroom after seeing roaches
I come from England, and have neverrrr seen a cockroach before, until I moved to Lyon, France for my year abroad. Then, a few days ago, I saw 4 all at once. 1 was in the bathroom of my flat and 3 were hidden under paper id thrown around in my bedroom.
At first I approached it without too much fear, trapping the roaches under plastic boxes/glasses as they appeared. However, it didn’t take long for me to descend into total panic to the point I left my bedroom at 4am, called my mum and had a panic attack on the phone, refusing to go back into my room. God bless my flatmate, who woke up at 8am to go to class, found me in disarray, and took the roaches out of my room, explaining that she has dealt with them before.
However, that day I booked the first flight home and left for 3 nights until today. This is my first night sleeping in my bedroom in France again, and I literally feel like I can’t do it. I feel really helpless to this newfound phobia - I’m scared of sleeping in case they run on my face or bed, I don’t want to hear them in my room scuttling around on the floor, I don’t want them anywhere near me. I’ve cleaned my room, made sure there’s no food and vacuumed. Before I got my flight I sprayed my room with RAID specific to roaches. But what if I’ve missed a spot or a place when vacuuming crumbs? What if their way into the flat is through my bedroom?
My friends are taking the piss out of me for this but I literally don’t know how I’m supposed to recover myself from this. I can feel my body breaking out in hives from the stress of it all.
Posted Jan 14, 2026, 12:01 AM UTC