Aotearoa / New Zealand

When Northland ear specialist Marg Hunt was driving to work on Thursday morning, she was not surprised to hear on the radio that there were hundreds of ACC claims relating to cockroaches in ears over the past five years.

"I was laughing because I was thinking 'oh gosh, you know, that's bread and butter for me'," Hunt, who has been in the ear-cleaning field for 40 years, said.

That same morning she removed a pesky mosquito lodged in a person's ear canal.

"It's mainly flying bugs [like moths and mosquitos]. I've only seen a cockroach [in ears] a couple of times actually."

If you have ever been paranoid about getting a bug in your ear, you may want to close your ears now: According to Hunt, it is mostly a coincidence when it happens and it is often while we are asleep.

"When the person's asleep, the cockroach is looking for something warm and dark to hide in.

"But flying bugs at night ... just happen to egress into the ear and flutter and cause all sorts of irritation for the person.