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dang | on: Former Nvidia CEO Huang had a relationship with a second employee, sources say
It's true of kitchen-ant comments as well: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

We have to figure out where this comes from! It's so recent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828285 references https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535 - that's the earliest I've seen so far. Others?

Edit: thanks ChatGPT: https://barrypopik.com/blog/there_is_never_one_cockroach_bus...

Proverb #232 of https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/2759983.pdf says it's attested from 1991:

232 There is never just one cockroach. (1991)

Variant: There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen

Ants are nicer though.

mandevil | parent | next
Warren Buffet said the cockroach variant in his 1989 investor letter.

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1989.html

"In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen."

close04 | root | parent | next
My grandmother was using a similar saying long before that, translated approximately: "there's never just 1 mouse in the barn". I'd bet these expressions have been common across the world for centuries (maybe substitute for local rodent).
mito88 | root | parent | next
"Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out."
jordanb | root | parent
Warren buffet didn't invent it either it's an old saying. I vaguely recall it from an insecticide commercial when I was a child but they probably didn't invent it either.

Not surprising its use has exploded in recent days..

gnabgib | parent | next
Possibly Nathan Calvin on Twitter in August: If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two

August 5th about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535

September 4th.. still about Open AI:

https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2095854095139537064

November 11th.. Alex Lawsen on Twitter, referencing Nathan's post (above):

https://x.com/lxrjl/status/2120640689620861335

morganf | root | parent
It's much much older. As a kid growing up in NY in the 90s, I heard many times the version of this saying, "one cockroach on the floor means one hundred behind the wall."
mkehrt | root | parent
That's different, though. The point of the ant thing is sometimes things just happen, but if they happen twice, that's a very different matter.
Teever | parent | next
Completely tangential but I always find it interesting how different expressions become attached to specific contexts in people's heads.

"This old house as got good bones" is the realtor 'slaps roof of car' meme that seems to have caught on during the 2010s and peaked during COVID. Now I hear people mindlessly propagating it whenever they talk about renovating/buying an old home.

I'm sure that we'll be hearing this ants in the kitchen of the house with good bones thing forever now.

zippyman55 | root | parent
I heard this in ‘93 when I bought a house. Also: I’m worried about the gophers in the back yard. (Taking my focus off more important concerns)
iwassayinbourns | parent | next
This is my favorite HN comment of 2026. Thanks dang.
mmahemoff | parent | next
A 1985 Dallas Morning News article attributes the heuristic to "Sanders", as cited in a 2003 mailing list (https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2003-Septe...).

Fable 5.2 couldn't access the full DMN text (nor can I), but suggests the article is about "local TV journalists reacting to a report on minority hiring" and "Sanders" is probably a reporter named Bob Ray Sanders, a reporter in the region (who was later inducted to the National Association of Black Journalists' Hall of Fame). What he actually said is sadly paywalled in the archives.

busymom0 | parent | next
Aren't these similar to "when it rains, it pours" or "adding insult to injury" or "Troubles don't come alone, they like to arrive in groups"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/9uu7wp/troubles...

throwaway198846 | root | parent
They are more similar to "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action" because they include explicit low numeric information
lovich | parent | next
Viral memetics didn’t disappear just because we got bots pushing narratives.
thaumasiotes | parent
It makes sense for cockroaches, which make it their business to hide from you.

It's not even true for ants. If you find two ants in the kitchen, they were just there by coincidence. Ants aren't concerned with whether you can see them; if they're interested in something in your kitchen, they'll show up by the hundreds to take it away, and they'll be impossible to miss.