We've lived in Memphis for almost 3 years now. In that brief period of time, I've had enough encounters with cockroaches to last me a lifetime. Seriously, eww! They need to leave me alone. Since they seem intent on cohabitating with me, I'll cope by recording the more disgusting of my encounters with them.
But first, a photo of a flower garden at the Alabama State Capitol. There are probably some bugs living here. I'm ok with that. I'm just posting this picture at the top so when I link to my blog on Facebook, people don't have to see a roach picture!
Roach on the Garbage Can
When I used to work from home (when we lived in an apartment), I had a desk set up in our spare bedroom where I camped out with my laptop. Under the desk, I had a little garbage can. One day as I went to get up from my chair, I glanced down and saw a GIGANTIC cockroach perched on the side of the garbage can. I was too paralyzed by fear to move, so of course I had to grab my phone to take a picture of the humongous invader.
After gathering my wits, I used a piece of paper to knock the roach into the garbage can. Then, I flipped the can over, trapping the bug inside. I slid a piece of cardboard over the opening, then carried the whole collection outside where I dumped the contents on the sidewalk and thwacked the roach with a shoe. Victory, Salmonista!
Things That Go Scratch In the Night
When we moved into a rental house last year, we had a lot of roaches at first. I don't think the previous tenants hired a pest control company to spray, and I also think they were kind of hoarder-types. Yeah, it was...gross. And since I was getting up at all hours of the night to pump (breastmilk), the roaches and I had lots of quality time to bond. Here's a particularly memorable incident.
It was, let's say, about 2AM. I was sitting on the couch, hooked up to my pump as usual, trying to stay awake. I heard the tell-tale "scritch scratch" of cockroach feet scurrying somewhere nearby. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a medium-sized bug crawling up the bookcase about 4 feet to my left. As I was a bit, uh, indisposed, I had to just let the bug be. I kept an eye on him as he summited the piece of furniture. He proceeded to patrol the scene by doing laps around a small box that was on top of the shelf. We stared each other down for awhile. When I was done pumping, I grabbed a shoe (my weapon of choice) and went to finish him off, but he was no where to be found. Argh! That's the worst feeling, when you know there's a cockroach in your vicinity but you can't find it. I searched for awhile with no success. I decided to go back to bed.
Lest you think that is the end of the story...
A Cockroach Ate My Baby! (Well, tried to)
The next day, I was sitting on the couch, feeding one of the babies. I had a pillow under my left arm up against the edge of the couch. Suddenly, I saw some movement on the edge of the pillow. It was (I assume) the same vile cockroach, this time getting too close for comfort! How dare he crawl next to my baby's head?! I jumped up off the couch, yanking the bottle out of the baby's mouth in the process shrieking, "cockroach! cockroach!" DF sprang into action but not before the roach managed to scurry down behind the couch cushions. Oh dear. We stripped the couch of all cushions/pillows and got out the vacuum with special cockroach-sucking attachment (or is that the upholstery tube?), but we could not find it. Ewwwwww! We decided to assume that, in all the excitement, the roach got scared and ran away. But we also did not sit on that couch for a few days.
Seriously, The Grossest Part
Well, eventually we needed to have our couch back, so we did a final thorough roach check before reassembling the cushions and tentatively sitting there again. At this point, DF had returned to work, so at night, the babies were sleeping in the living room in their pack and play and I slept on the couch while DF attempted to catch some more solid Zs in the bedroom.
You know where this story is going, right?
I was taking my chances, sleeping on the couch where the roach had previously been sighted. The weather was still pretty warm in Memphis, so I was wearing light pajama pants and a tank top. In the middle of the night, I was dozing on the couch when I felt something tickling my chest. I looked down and THERE WAS THE COCKROACH, RUNNING ACROSS MY BARE SKIN! ACK!!!!! I could not scream, because the babies would wake up, but I certainly could jump around and make scared/grossed out faces, which I did for a good long while.
Of course, in the commotion, the roach once again escaped. I slept on the other couch after that, even though it's not very comfortable.
Husband Saves the Day
The next day, DF was out in the living room when he saw the cockroach (the same one, for sure!) crawl up from the couch cushions and start running around on a ruffly throw pillow. He knew that he had to defend his family from this creepy invader! So he grabbed a shoe, threw the pillow on the floor, and started whacking at it. The roach was stunned enough that he was able to carry the pillow outside, shake out the bug, and kill it some more on the sidewalk. Hooray!
After that, we kept the pillow sealed up in a box for awhile to make sure no one else had taken up residence in the ruffles.
Since being woken up by a cockroach prancing across my chest, I've actually calmed down somewhat about bugs in the house. I mean, yes, they are still gross, but if I just see them on the floor instead of on my person, hey, that's not so bad.
And we also have a pest control company that comes to spray regularly now!
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