No insects above the 11th floor

[snopes]

Comment: I live in New York City and have heard that
insects do not survive above a certain floor, I think the 11th.
Therefore, residents of this floor or higher can have windows open without
screens with no problems of bugs flying in. But I have a friend who lives
in Toronto on the 20th floor and she does have bugs. What gives? Are New
York bugs just wimpier, or is this all a myth?

[charlie23]

We lived on the 23rd floor in a highrise here in Varna, and we got the occasional fly or bee coming in through the window. But common sense seems to say that most insects are going to go after the most direct food source and won't fly any higher than they have to...I know we had fewer flies, ants and other bugs than neighbors on the first few floors.

[rlobinske]

Flying insects will tend to stay in areas where there is more food available, which in an urban area and therefore be less dense at higher floors, but they would not have a strict "ceiling" either.

Crawling insects inside the building, such as roaches or ants, I can't see having such a height limit ether. They can freely move around inside and there would be food potentially available in all occupied levels (roaches will eat some surprising things). They could be less dense higher up, or take longer to get there, but if not controlled, roaches potentially could infest every floor of even a very tall building.

[Zachary Fizz]

I once lived on the 23rd floor of a block quite high up in the hills on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Cockroaches would fly in the bathroom window if it was left open.

[Xia]

There is a WGN weather camera at the top of Tribune Tower here in Chicago, and you can often see bugs around it when they show the film on tv. Sometimes there are even spiderwebs over it. My brother also works at Tribune at he's seen spiders crawling around or making webs outside the windows at the upper teen floors. If there are spiders around, there must be prey as well...

[Fantine]

When we moved into our apartment on the 10th floor, we were told the windows did not have screens because we are above the tree line and wouldn't have to worry about insects. However, if the windows are left open, we get flies, bees, ladybugs, and the occasional grasshopper coming in through the windows. So much for that theory.

I wonder if the management puts screens in the windows on the lower floors.

I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I saw flies when I was at the top of the Empire State Building. There are a lot of food scraps up there (old bags of chips, pieces of bread, etc.) that could keep them pretty happy.

[WildaBeast]

If this were true there would be no insects in Denver.

[Mateus]

It's because they can't reach the buttons in NY elevators. Toronto elevators use this configuaration:

1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
.....
31 32

So, in Toronto, insects can only reach the top couple of floors, say, to the 20th floor and above.

In NYC, the elevators are as such:

31 32
29 30
....
11 10
9 8
7 6
5 4
3 2
1 B

Which means the insects can't reach the buttons above 10 & 11.

Or not.

[Little Galaxy]

Originally Posted by Xia

There is a WGN weather camera at the top of Tribune Tower here in Chicago, and you can often see bugs around it when they show the film on tv. Sometimes there are even spiderwebs over it. My brother also works at Tribune at he's seen spiders crawling around or making webs outside the windows at the upper teen floors. If there are spiders around, there must be prey as well...

I work on the 27th floor of my building, and I've occasionally seen webs on the outside of the windows and thought the same thing. Plus every now and then we'll see a fly or perhaps a bee or wasp hovering outside.

[Spookshow Baby]

Well, they get high enough that there are studies on their effects on Radar anyway.

Radar reflections from insects in the lower atmosphere
Abstract
The backscattering characteristics of various types of insects found in the lower atmosphere were measured and the results are reported in this paper. The magnitudes of the insect cross sections and the effects of incident electromagnetic energy polarization are presented along with physical characteristics of the insects. The measuring equipment is described and its capability discussed.[1]

[rlobinske]

Originally Posted by Class Bravo

I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I saw flies when I was at the top of the Empire State Building. There are a lot of food scraps up there (old bags of chips, pieces of bread, etc.) that could keep them pretty happy.

Without a doubt. They could arrive by simple flying outside, or be carried by the wind, or travel upwards inside the building in the elevators and stairwells.

[High Eight]

Originally Posted by rlobinske

Flying insects will tend to stay in areas where there is more food available, which in an urban area and therefore be less dense at higher floors, but they would not have a strict "ceiling" either.

Crawling insects inside the building, such as roaches or ants, I can't see having such a height limit ether. They can freely move around inside and there would be food potentially available in all occupied levels (roaches will eat some surprising things). They could be less dense higher up, or take longer to get there, but if not controlled, roaches potentially could infest every floor of even a very tall building.

According to Howell and Ford in their book The Ghost Disease: and 12 other stories of detective work in the medical field, (Penguin books, 1986) during outbreaks of yellow fever in New York in the 19th century, people living on the second floor or above were relatively safe from infection because mosquitoes rarely fly that high.

[Muncle]

Originally Posted by rlobinske

Without a doubt. They could arrive by simple flying outside, or be carried by the wind, or travel upwards inside the building in the elevators and stairwells.

And all you need are a couple of mommy flies and a couple of daddy flies and a nice hot dog for a nursery...BAM!