Roach Hunt

Anyone who’s read my post Invasion knows how I feel about cockroaches. I can take the living far away from family, the hot weather and the no chance of snow skiing (a sport I loved doing with my family growing up). I can even tolerate the perpetual sunburns and swarms of mosquitoes. I just wish these creepy critters would stay out of my house.

Instead, since I wrote that post, the number of intruders has drastically increased. We’ve been in this house for three years and we have never had so many.

Granted it doesn’t compare to Krysti’s evil fountain, but it has definitely gotten out of hand for me. In less than twenty-four hours we had eight separate incidences. My sister-in-law has come to visit and had never seen one before in her life. The first night she was here, we had three or four killings right in front of her.

One turned up in the girls’ room. That hunt lasted two hours and involved stripping the bunkbed of bedding and both mattresses. We were still cleaning up at 11 pm, with all the kids still up.

So I called in the cavalry.

My sister-in-law has four boys. The oldest is nine. All it took was, “Two dollars to anyone who kills the cockroach and cleans it up!”

Now each time one turns up the kids practically climb over each other to participate in the smashing and toilet-flushing funeral. The younger ones break down in to fits if they don’t get to help.

Today they found one who had tucked itself at the top of the two-story vaulted ceiling. You should have seen the rush to find shoes and brooms and cups. They grabbed pillows and booster seats, anything to help them scale the wall and reach the critter.

I vetoed the idea of throwing things at it, since that wall has glass picture frames and a computer nestled in each corner.

They still spent nearly an hour fixated by it. “Everyone be quiet so it’ll come down.” “Well the last one came out with music playing, so let’s play music.” “What if we turned off all the lights?” “Let’s all yell and scare it down.”

Half hour past midnight and that thing is still holed up in that corner. It writhes and turns in circles but hasn’t ventured more than three inches from that spot.

I almost feel sorry for the sorely outnumbered thing.

Almost…

Too bad they’re nocturnal. Most sightings are after their bedtime.

Meanwhile, the highly sought coins passed out for bounties?

They’re soon strewn across the house, ownership disputed or forgotten altogether, left behind for my carpet creeping seven month old to hunt.