“I couldn’t stop coughing,” Hoskins said. “I lost my breath.”
Hoskins said she felt better once going outside into the fresh air, but she and her husband, Michael Hoskins, were still taken by paramedics to Atrium Medical Center for treatment.
A total of five people were inside the house at the time, including two children, according to the police report. Middletown police said they don’t expect any charges to be filed, but Butler County Children Services was notified about the incident.
According to a Middletown police report, “there were bugs all over the inside of the residence.”
Middletown fire Capt. Jeff Spaulding, who called the home “infested,” said roaches were “on the vertical and horizontal surfaces, furniture and stuff, as well as the floor.” He estimated that “there were over a thousand roaches of varying sizes and ages of development.”
“Some of them were feeling the effects of the pesticide being used and were falling off the ceiling,” he said.
Spaulding said at least six different chemical devices were used to try to treat the area, and that two firefighters were also affected by the fumes.
They were “suffering from similar symptoms as the original victim,” he said. “They started to get scratchy throats and got fresh air to get rid of irritation.”
Hoskins told the Journal-News a different story, however. She said police and fire officials claims are false and “blown out of proportion.”
“They said they (the roaches) were crawling up the wall and crawling on the ceiling; that was a lie,” Hoskins said. “I had to clean up the next day and I didn’t see one in my living room, and not one in the dining room.”
Hoskins also said she only used four foggers in the living room, dining room, kitchen and patio areas and not six as Spaulding claims. She admitted to seeing a few roaches, but insisted her home is not infested.
“It’s not a shame to have bugs; it’s a shame not to try to get rid of them,” Hoskins said.
Spaulding said total release foggers are safe to use if people follow directions. He advises people to not be in the same room as the foggers once they are activated.
“Air out the area for 30 minutes,” Spaulding said.
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