Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has revealed that she felt unexpectedly lonely and sad after her staff eliminated cockroaches from her official residence in Tokyo.
Takaichi shared the unusual experience on X on August 22 while responding to a question she frequently receives about whether she had encountered the ghosts reportedly said to haunt the prime minister’s official residence.
However, Takaichi said she had never encountered any ghosts. Instead, she found herself dealing with cockroaches.
The 65-year-old leader said she was shocked when a cockroach suddenly ran past her feet despite her efforts to keep the residence clean.
She explained that she carefully wiped the floor beneath her dining table, disposed of food scraps in a covered bin and washed and sorted plastic containers.
Takaichi also explained that she could not bring herself to k+ll the cockroaches because of her influence from Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, which explores the concept of reincarnation.
Her secretaries, however, were reportedly alarmed when she told them about the pest problem.
One of them reportedly responded, “It’s unclean. I’ll handle it,” before arranging pest control at the residence.
After the intervention, the cockroaches stopped appearing.
While Takaichi said she was relieved that the pest problem had been resolved, she admitted that she also felt an unexpected sense of loneliness.
“I felt relieved, but also a little lonely, or maybe sad,” she said.
The revelation comes as Takaichi has also attracted attention for increasingly using the official residence as a workplace. She said living next to her office allows her to avoid commuting and makes it easier to respond immediately to emergencies.
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