Sales of ear plugs may well skyrocket as a result of one poor Australian man's ordeal with a cockroach.

Hendrik Helmer from Darwin revealed that he was recently forced to seek help from a doctor after a cockroach burrowed into his right ear while he was asleep – and refused to come out.

Mr. Helmer was alerted to the presence of the unwanted tenant by a sharp pain in his ear, which woke him up. The pain rapidly got worse so Mr. Helmer tried to suck out the critter with a vacuum cleaner.

When that failed to work his flatmate decided that it would be best to seek medical help. The doctor's initial strategy, thinking the insect was small, was to put olive oil down the ear, but that only made matters worse. The cockroach simply burrowed further in.

The doctor eventually pulled the cockroach out with forceps and its size astonished them both, because it was an inch long.