“Where you see one, there are hundreds more you can’t see,” my stepmother said. She’d gone with me to look at apartments. She’d pulled open a drawer to reveal a dead cockroach beneath. Other than that, the apartment was just what I was looking for, and the managers said they’d take care of the pests before I moved in. So I signed a lease.

It was fine for a while, but then I began noticing the occasional roach. Nothing horrible, and I’m not easily squicked out by insects, but still. You expect to live roach-free when you’re paying to live in a middling-decent place. So I called the managers, and they called the exterminator.

That seemed to help, but within weeks, the roaches were back. And breeding. Roaches big and small, bold and cowardly, multiplying exponentially. The more persistent ones got the Rolled Up Magazine o’ Doom. But for every one I whacked, it seemed a dozen more would flood in. I kept the place exquisitely clean, took out the trash promptly, swept up – and still they swarmed. They left their detritus everywhere: droppings, corpses, egg cases. People say that cockroaches scatter and hide when the lights go on, but not these. Bold as brass they were, and positively preened in the spotlight.

The exterminator became a regular presence. And he did try. But, as he explained, we were fighting a losing battle. Management was trying to handle the problem one apartment at a time, but that just meant the roaches could skitter off one apartment over and wait until the poison was no longer potent before swarming back. You’d get a few of the dumber ones, but the rest would survive. And management wouldn’t take the sensible step of having the entire building done.

So the roaches thrived.

Even when we fogged my apartment, that didn’t stop them for long. They’d just scamper off, then come back.

In the end, because management wouldn’t adequately handle the problem, I had to move to get away from them. A few stowed away in boxes and plagued me in the new place, but weren’t as successful there (probably because of rather more aggressive pest control), and a second move rid me of them entirely.

But I wouldn’t have had to deal with that if the first complex had done the right thing to begin with.

Our community has a cock roach problem.

We’ve tried to eliminate them from some of our spaces, but they skitter off and hide in safe places until they can sneak back to plague us. So far, many of the people in management positions have done the slumlord thing of denying the problem. Some have done what my complex did: the minimum, never adequately dealing with the problem. And some have done a brilliant job of ridding their spaces of cock roaches, but without a coordinated, concerted effort by all in the community, the cock roaches will always have a safe place to go. And we’ll always be plagued with them.

That’s unacceptable.

We shouldn’t have to deal with this problem. It’s not something you can just put up with. No one should have to carry a metaphorical Rolled Up Magazine o’ Doom to fend the cock roaches off with.

We have choices.

We can do our best to force management to face the problem and deal effectively with it.

If they refuse to do that, we can move. Build our own community and keep it cock roach free. It’s difficult and expensive, but may be the only thing left.

Because ignoring the problem is no longer an option. These predatory men I’m talking about aren’t like real cockroaches, annoying and gross but mostly harmless (and in some ways, beautiful and fascinating creatures you may not mind having around, if you enjoy critters). Our infestation is one of men* who feel entitled to harm, assault, traumatize, and sometimes rape their victims.

I’m not willing to live in a community that includes them. Nor, I daresay, are you. But I’m not yet willing to leave the community to the cock roaches. I’d rather try to force the orgs into throwing them out first. It shouldn’t be the victims who have to flee the community.

I want to see the victimizers unceremoniously tossed out, and never allowed to return. We should demand no less.

Inspired by Amy.

*Yes, women can be predatory, and it isn’t any more acceptable. But the overwhelming majority of perpetrators are, in fact, men. And so I will not use the generic people here.

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