Rage Against the Roaches

Ugh, I can’t even stand to look at that picture. Roaches, they make me so sick, (funny cause I love earthworms so much).

I guess I had an early education on Roaches. My Dad found one in our kitchen in the town house once, went crazy. Put in a glass jar and held in under each of my four sibling’s noses and made us give the dead thing a real good look, then he told us how dirty they are, and how they poop on everything and can make us sick. Well as a child just learning about bacteria and thinking how dirty poop was at that age, (poopface and buttheads being the biggest insults I knew at the time) I was pretty freaked out.

That was the one and only time I ever saw a cockroach growing up (as we have established, I’ve lived a very shelter life). Imagine my surprise when I moved up to the Big Apple, HA, it’s like cockroaches on steroids up here.

I was innocently in the shower when I spied my first one, I haven’t been able to sing ABBA in the shower since, what was a line from Dancing Queen quickly turned into me dancing and screaming. I got a pretty good look at the little bugger before he became mush on the bottom of the shampoo container. Still in my towel I jumped on to Google what the F**K it was. Turns out my apartment building has German Cockroaches (view the ugly shit; he’s the third from the left.)

It was then that I realized that all the gooey brown stuff I’d been peeling up from the corners of EVERYWHERE was what I now fondly refer to as Strategy 1 – Roach Gel. (I don’t know if you can imagine my disgust, it was intense let me tell you).

I immediately went on the rampage. You see I thought we had roaches in my apartment because my apartment was dirty (oh so sheltered…). So I went positively crazy between writing cover letters with the Lysol Cleaner. I swear, this place hasn’t been cleaner since 1944. I did more research, I made sure there was no standing water anywhere, I took all the food in the cabinet and put it in gallon size ziplock bags, and for good measure I washed all the dishes over again (didn’t want to be eating of dishes where poopy roach feet had marched).

It was about a month till I saw my next roach, I still shudder to think about it. Again I was in the bathroom, innocently brushing my teeth when I looked in the mirror and saw a little creeper watching me from the ceiling. This time my boyfriend was home, I called him in screeching like a banshee the whole way. I saw him trying to make his escape back up the steam-heating-pipe. And that’s when I figured it out. Roaches don’t pop out of midair because your place isn’t clean, I apparently don’t have clean neighbors.

Again, I went on a rampage. This is when I discovered what I now refer to as Strategy 2 and 3. Armed with my Roach Gel Pistol, I shot up all the holes I could find in the apartment that might lead to other apartments. Oh the plethora of holes I found, it pisses me off even now, the holes in the top of the steam-heating-pipes were the first to be plugged, where the shower taps meet the tile, holes there too, cracks where the floor doesn’t meet the wall, were the counter doesn’t meet the wall, you name it, if it’s a hole, roaches can get in it and in to my apartment. Strategy 3 was actually my boyfriend’s contribution. He bought little roach hotels, (I think I just threw up in my mouth a little) and he put them all over the apartment.

Its all out war here, a full on assault against these creepy creatures; I won’t rest until I feel safe.

…..I’d so rather live with earthworms….