Question:
My (5 year old )daughter she’t’chiyeh has a good friend, and I am friends with her mother. She frequently invites us over. She is very kind and I really appreciate her friendship. The problem is that their apartment is infested with roaches, which for whatever bizarre reason seems to not bother them. They are aware they have roaches and yet do not do extermination, despite bringing in exterminators for other problems like mice. I am scared to go there and expose my children ( we have two other small children bli ayin hara) to the roaches. There isn’t a way for me to refuse food for myself and my children when we go there. Additionally I’ve heard that roaches like to enter into ears. I just can’t watch all of our children at the same time and make sure they are not near any roaches. On the other hand I’m terrified of embarrassing my friend and telling her I don’t want to come because of the roaches. I’m running out of excuses why we can’t go. Should I just tell her and risk embarrassing her and losing her friendship (and my daughter losing her daughter’s friendship) or should we go there and trust Hashem harm won’t come to us? Additionally, I know that if my husband were to know about the roach problem, there is no way he would allow us to go. I haven’t told him because of lashon hara.
Answer:
You are in an uncomfortable predicament, because you are uncomfortable with the thought of even getting close to the roaches. It is important or you to know that as much as you don’t want to be near them, they are even more terrified of getting close to you. They are deathly afraid of getting killed (pun intended). Don’t believe the horror stories, that they want to try to get you’re your child’s ears! There is no chance that they will do something like that. You are very correct, you should not say anything to your friend, because you will be doing a lot more damage to your self by embarrassing her, and possibly losing the relationship, then the damage that the roaches can do to you (besides nauseate you). Therefore, the best thing is to just keep quiet.
Best wishes
