Campground cockroach claim seeks $107

Woodward Reservoir infestation like 'locusts'

By Garth Stapley
gstapley@modbee.com

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Cockroaches ruined a summer family reunion at Woodward Reservoir, according to a claim against Stanislaus County.

The lowly insects, known for resilience and making people recoil, swarmed the group's food, tents and cars around dusk Aug. 21, family members said. Later they showed up in a toddler's diaper and in Kirsten Cicairos' kitchen in Santa Rosa, she said.

"They're disgusting and vile," said Cicairos, 30, who fled to a motel with her in-laws and their families. "When you go camping, you expect ants and mosquito bites. You don't expect an invasion of cockroaches."

KRT - cockroach illustration

The extended family, from various points in California, enjoys meeting up at campgrounds around the state. Kelly Cicairos, 46, has traveled with her sister from Redondo Beach to the lake north of Oakdale for 14 years because waterfront camping is hard to find, she said.

So everyone agreed to meet for four days in August, they said. The first was uneventful. But something went down Kirsten Cicairos' shirt around dusk the next day, wriggling toward her belly.

"I'm trying to flick it off and I'm flashing my goods at my in-laws," she said.

Everyone laughed, others said, and went back to barbecuing a roast. But then, "all hell broke loose," said Albert Cicairos, the group's 68-year-old patriarch.

"All of a sudden, thousands came swarming us everywhere, in our food and cars and tents," Kirsten Cicairos said. "You know a swarm of locusts? That's what it was like. They were everywhere."

Kelly Cicairos said, "These things were flying around, jumping on us, we're freaking out, running around and hitting them. It was like a movie. It was the most disgusting thing."

Albert Cicairos said, "We went through four or five bottles of bug spray and we couldn't combat them."

Family members corralled two rangers, one of whom phoned the county's deputy parks director on the spot, according to the claim. She offered to refund the family's $15-per-night fee for undeveloped campsites while the rangers snickered, Kirsten Cicairos said.

"They thought it was hilarious," she said.

The families fled for the night to Quality Inn in Oakdale, bought foggers and insecticide at Kmart the next morning and spent five hours trying to save belongings at the lake, setting off bug bombs inside the tents.

"But there were still live ones, hundreds crawling in every nook and cranny," Kirsten Cicairos said. They tossed out food, two tents and a canvas chair, she said.

An agricultural inspector later classified the insects as field roaches, she said.

"But field roaches are cockroaches," she said. "I know people make frivolous claims. I'm a paralegal, trained to have actual facts and not to make things up, hoping people believe me."

Albert Cicairos said he bug-bombed his tent multiple times after returning home. "I don't want them getting in my home," he said.

Kirsten Cicairos and her husband washed everything at a laundromat before returning to Santa Rosa, but she found cockroaches in containers and ultimately had a pest expert evaluate her home.

"It was physically and mentally exhausting, what we endured," she said.

Kelly Cicairos said, "Even now, I think I have a bug crawling across my foot and I look and there's nothing there. It was the biggest nightmare."

Her brother, Jacob Cicairos, 28, filed a claim with the county seeking a $107 reimbursement: $50 for groceries, $25 for insecticide, $25 for "future fumigators" and $7 for having Waterford's Big Bear Carwash clean underneath his vehicle.

County supervisors Tuesday referred the claim without discussion to their risk management division.

Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or 578-2390.