Atlantans are facing a cockroach outbreak: 'Fear lives in my heart at all times'

No home, restaurant, or street is safe from Atlanta's rampant invaders.

Cockroaches are having a moment — nay, a takeover — in Georgia's capital city, and there's apparently no simple explanation as to why. Some experts say it's because Atlanta is having a dryer than average summer, while others say it's wetter, or that it's because of trees — in short, no one knows what's going on, Atlanta Magazine reports.

Author Gray Chapman starts with a series of horrifying anecdotes about roaches crawling through her bed and across her feet, saying that even though she has "lived in Georgia my entire life," she's "never seen anything quite like it." A resident of Decatur, just north of Atlanta, put it this way.

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Chapman eventually called an exterminator, who told her it was "a big summer for roaches" because Atlanta had gotten less rain than usual. Another exterminator said it was because there was more rain, and also because roaches were getting "more active because they are looking for a mate" around August. Both weather phenomena could explain the outbreak, Chapman found, and Atlanta had seen both wetter and dryer months throughout the year. And as entomologist Brian Forschler told Atlanta Magazine, "I don't think there’s a house in Georgia that hasn't had signs of a Smokey Brown cockroach infestation in the walls at some point in time.”

Read more about this downright disgusting debacle at Atlanta Magazine.