Bug
I have a problem with cockroaches at the moment. I blame a friend of mine for this catastrophe; when I was at his house the other evening, he warned me to be careful about opening the bin because he usually finds a few cockroaches skittering about in there. He then confided that he often gets up in the night with a canister of Doom, to try and catch them on the hop. They come out at night, he says, while he is asleep, to breed, and swell, and eat things, and to dance a dance of roachy triumph around his sleeping body. Getting up in the night with Doom is futile of course, as everyone knows that Cockroaches Cannot Die.
Anyway, I expressed surprise at this, because not once in the last year or so have I seen a cockroach in my house. I admit that I had a revolting maggot infestation in my sofa, and I did find a number of gnarled spider corpses behind my squash racquet yesterday, but cockroaches to date have left me alone.
The very next day I spotted a cockroach crawling out of the plughole in my kitchen sink. There is something about watching a cockroach crawl out of a plughole that is deeply disturbing – as if it is scrabbling out of a mouth, or another human orifice. It made its depraved, scuttling journey across my plates, and then disappeared when I ran to get the Doom. Ran like a girl, I might add, while going “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew†in a voice that only dogs can hear.
Then I went to spring clean the house on Sunday, and realized that there were cockroaches living under my sofa. Every time I moved the chair, they would blink in shock at the daylight, grab the kids, and scurry for comfortable gloom.
What is going on? I am a living embodiment of fucking sod’s law. I say ‘ha haaa! No cockroaches on me mate!â€, and the next thing you know they are establishing a thriving community, with schools and a public transport system, under my sofa. And while I’m at it, what is it with my sofa? What am I going to find in it next?
I am upset.Â
November 20th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
I feel for you. Man I do.
Do they fly? In Cameroon, we had these big huge cockroaches that looked like the fabled huge-mongous atomic bomb had already gone off, and they flew.
Bastards.
November 20th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Hi Anne - thankfully no. They are quite tiny actually, in comparison to some of the monsters I’ve seen in various places, and they don’t fly. But they are still gross, especially when they crawl out from under your sofa, or out of your plughole. *shudder*
November 21st, 2006 at 10:52 am
Rule one: cover up all plugs in basins, shower outlets etc. We too have a cockroach problem - but they live in the septic tank and this stops them. (Your seeing one come out the plughole seems significant.) Good luck. The bloody things give me the heeby-jeebies so I feel for you.
November 21st, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Oh Rachael, please. I don’t mean to sound too unsympathetic, but really - I’m trying to eat my lunch!
November 21st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
i found this whilst wondering if i’d dreamt my anecdote about being offered pif paf in a hotel in beijing. god i really hate the scuttling bastards, they always always come back..
http://www.firshman.co.uk/st-peters-church/review/2004/03/pif.htm
November 21st, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Granny P, I think I will have to. But what to do about the sofa?
Dom, my apologies! I hope I didn’t make you imagine a cockroach crawling out of your sandwich…
Mel, they are foul. I never heard of pif paf though. Here there is only DOOM. and in Malaysia, we made do with a shoe.
November 22nd, 2006 at 7:55 am
I too sympathise with you sister of mine. The caravan my bloke and I currently live in gets too hot in the early evening to have the door shut but having the door open means that all the cockroaches and mozzies decide to come and say hi. It’s really very sociable of them but I do wish that they wouldn’t! We’re going through one hell of a lot of mozzie coils at the moment set up by the door, it’s the only thing that keeps most of them out.
x
November 24th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Hmm.
You know, you should try to use this power you have for good. Try saying, “ha haaa! No (Jude Law)s on me mate!â€, or “ha haaa! No (huge bags of chocolate)s on me mate!†or “ha haaa! No (big sacks of lime)s on me mate!â€.
Let me know what happens, m’kay?
November 24th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Zenta - you are a miracle. I currently have Jude Law, at my slavering all over me. I wish I had remembered that I think Jude Law is a slimy, arrogant philanderer, as he will not go away. Now I will try it with George Clooney.
November 25th, 2006 at 5:02 am
Something worse than cockroaches. Nuts. Well, if DOOM doesn’t work on the Jude Laws you now have scuttling around the house and using your phone to call other women while riflng through your unmentinables drawer, just leave a trail of blonde nannies that leads out the front door. That should do it.
George Clooney, hey? As long as you leave Liam Neeson and John Corbett alone. I myself will be saying a special incantation later this evening…
November 30th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Chip (of Ed’s World) tells the story of a Californian friend who kept getting unexplained rashes and feeling ill. Eventually someone ralised these rashes were from black Widdow spider bites, and an exterminator located a nest of the things inside his mattress. Apprently the only reason he survived that number of bites was that it was the babies biting him.
Sorry, but you did ask what might be next for your sofa…..
November 30th, 2006 at 9:52 am
[...] There have been a lot of flying ants making merry in my house recently. They buzz around my bed at night, and drop onto my face in the dark. A while back I heard a revolting story from a friend, who woke up one night to see a spider crawling out of her boyfriend’s nose, so I’ve been sleeping with a mosquito coil burning not quite near enough to my head to set my hair on fire. It seems to have done the trick, but I am fed up with ants, and other kinds of bugs, invading my house. I’m sorry to go on, but really… when will it end? [...]