Some apartments had serious vermin problems, and what I mean by vermin, I mean rats. I had cockroaches in my apartment, even in my room. This can be expected in Shenzhen and I have cockroaches in my kitchen here in Taiwan. But, rats?!?! A fellow employee told me he actually had rats in his apartment.

I lived in Miami for a year and cockroaches were pretty standard in most households. Maybe they came over with some American FT's- one or two hitched a lift. Don't worry about them, they're pretty harmless. As for the rats, when I worked in Shandong, I knew one Aussie FT who'd get drunk and chat to a rat half the night- mistook him for a mate- occasionally cursing at him that he didn't have much to say for himself, only nibbled at his host's peanuts on the coffee table. Again they're pretty harmless creatures...and good company for aussies.