Tilburg neighborhood overrun by plague of cockroaches

Tilburg’s Reeshof neighborhood is being overrun by cockroaches, especially around Lombardijenlaan. Residents find hundreds of the bugs in their homes, cars, and tires. The cockroaches come from the hedges that are long overdue for maintenance, locals told Omroep Brabant. And they’re not getting much help from the municipality.

“It’s the German cockroach,” one local told the broadcaster. They are smaller and faster than the cockroaches typically found in the Netherlands. And they’re attracted to heat. “So they sit on your car,” the local said. “And when you open the car door in the morning, the entire edge is full of cockroaches. With hundreds of creatures on the roof.”

“When it was at its worst, I left the car with my parents for a week,” another local said. If she isn’t careful, cockroaches crawl into the top floor through her attic window. “I sprayed all the joints with this,” she said, producing a can of roach poison from next to the door.

Overdue maintenance is not new for Reeshof - the district falls under category C of the municipality’s maintenance levels. The city center is category A and tops the list. Reeshof is often at the end of the line when locals request maintenance or work, according to Omroep Brabant.

As a result, there are more weeds on the municipal land. The hedges grow higher and higher, and fallen leaves remain lying on the ground - a paradise for cockroaches. Residents have tried to do maintenance themselves where they can, but these pests are the final straw.

“I get itchy just talking about it,” another local told the broadcaster. “I also had a really bad night’s sleep. They just sit against the screen of your bedroom window. Normally, it is always so neat here, and we do everything we can to keep it tidy. But if the municipality does nothing about this, we must sound the alarm.”

PvdA municipal councilor Bea Mieris asked municipal questions about the plague of cockroaches after receiving a letter from locals. The office of mayor and aldermen still has to answer those questions, a spokesperson for the municipality of Tilburg told Omroep Brabant. They couldn’t say much about the matter, only that the cockroaches caught by locals are currently being examined in a specialized center. The municipality must then find a way to get them out of the street for good.

Locals are desperate for a quick solution. “What if you want to sell a house here? Or if your company is here. If people hear that you have cockroaches, that is not very good advertising,” a concerned resident said.