Impossible: Meet The 9-Year-Old Girl Who Keeps Hundreds Of Cockroaches In Her Bedroom As Pets (Photos)

A nine-year-old girl from Claremore, Ohklahoma, is so obsessed with cockroaches she has over a thousand that she keeps as her pets.

Shelby Counterman kisses her cockroaches and shows off the “play tank” of bugs she keeps in her room.

A video from TLC UK shows Shelby and the cockroaches she keeps in her bed.

She said: “When I started collecting cockroaches I had five – now I have thousands!

“I want to teach people about my roaches, because they’re not monsters, they can be really cute and funny.”

There are seven tanks of cockroaches in her house including the one in her bedroom and another she persuaded her brother to keep in his room.

Two more tanks of crawlers are in the garage and there are three in the laundry room of the house.

And she says her goal is to teach the world to not hate cockroaches.

Shelby said: “They don’t bite, they’re not harmful at all except they may be a little stinky every once in a while.”

The girl’s parents aren’t overly enthusiastic about their daughter’s hobby, but allow her to keep her pets in the house.

Her mum said: “I absolutely don’t love the cockroaches, but I can deal with them.

“I do have freak out moments every once in a while!”

The video opens with a shot that shows the roaches Shelby keeps in her bed.

She spills baby cockroaches onto the floor and picks up the bugs to stroke them.

Her favourite cockroach, Blackie, passed away last year and she created a gravestone for it that she sits by often.

Counterman keeps her pets in egg cartons because the bugs “prefer the dark”.

Source: The Sun UK