La Cucaracha

I s'pose we should have been a bit more concerned when every time we'd come to look at the house, or do something in the house before we moved in there would be five or six dead roaches.  I mean, it DID concern me, it was gross.  But apparently we should have been MORE concerned.  Upon further reflection, we shoulda asked for a few grand off the price simply for the problem that we had no idea was gonna be SUCH a problem.

Before I continue...please let me make this disclaimer....I am a VERY clean person, as is my home.  I do not live in such a manner that I attract roaches.  The little bastards lived here before we did.  Also, just know that in spite of what you read, all have died on the floor.  None on counters, or near food.  Just sayin.

We moved in and the roaches seemed to mostly disappear.  There would be one now and then, but not so bad.  Doable, if you will.  Though in all my life I've never lived in a house where roaches were a regular occurence.  Well, unless you count that ONE apartment on my mission that was literally owned by roaches.  Shudder....that was horrifying.  They were everywhere and soooo gross.

Anyway, they started to appear a little more often, and while shiver inducing and gross, still doable.  While we were gone to Greer Julie started a roach count on the white board.  In the week we were gone she had seen/killed 7.  And it's clearly not an issue of us being dirty or having a dirty house.  'Cause lets be straight here...I am nothing if not obsessively neat and clean.  So, we kept the count going.  In a months time we had 28.  It was time for our pest control guy (hey Chad, you're the best) to come.  He came, he sprayed, he left.  In the next week we had 29, in one week.  The most unacceptable being....I was standing at the sink doing dishes, Jere was standing next to me and drying.  He set the towell down for a moment to put away dishes.  When he picked the towell back up, a huge roach came charging at him from under the towell.  They're creepy and magic I tell you.

This is exactly what they look like too.

Making me sick just looking at them.

So, I called Chad and said "Yo, it's roachapalooza around here, please come back."  He agreed to come back the next day.  Then he texted and said it would be one more day.  I responded "what's one more day in roach paradise?"  So, on Friday morning at 11:30 Chadwick appeared.  He was determined to find the source of the hideous buggers.  I told him I was pretty sure they were coming from behind the dishwasher.  Basically there is just open space between the cupboards and the outside wall, open to all manner of ugliness.

He walked out to his truck and returned with a giant bucket o' roach death.  Some kind of powder/acid.  Down he got on his knees and pumped and pumped the powder all around the dishwasher, under the sink, in the cupboards and drawers and around the fridge.  "Alright, we'll see how this goes.  If we get to the source there will be a lot of them for the next day or so."  He turned and walked out the door.  I kid you not...4 seconds after he left there were three roaches tets up on the kitchen floor.  Then, within another few minutes, 4 more.  At that point Maggie was sitting on the island and Max was on his little inch worm trike thing.  Suddenly one came running out straight at Max.  The screaming, the fear.  I stomped it and then put Max up on the island.  Every time I turned around there was another one.  Maggie would scream as one would fall out from above the dishwasher.  It was a gosh dang killing field.  Either they were staggering out covered in powder and flailing briefly before death, or they were running for it and I had to smoosh them.  Then, a giant, and I do mean GIANT scorpion came sauntering out from under the dishwasher.  I was frozen.  It traipsed through the powder up next to the fridge, came back down and then went under the fridge never to be seen again.  UGH!  At this point we were up to nearly 20.  I certainly couldn't stay in there, or cook in there so I scooped up the kids and off we went for a LONG nap.

Upon waking up from the nap there were 10 more dead ones in the kitchen, and it just kept happening.

Yesterday morning when there were only 4 dead ones from overnight I thought we were on the downslide.  I decided I needed to mop the floor, as it was covered in the "chalk" outlines of many a dead roachy.  My killing field needed to be cleaned.  So, I swept, vacuumed and mopped and mopped.  And i kid you not...within 10 minutes of the mopping TWENTY more appeared and died.  I had to keep remopping areas where we had to smoosh their black gutts out.  Now i was pissed.

We finally got ready and just went to the mall for a few hours, just so we didn't have to be around roach carnage.  When we came home, only 2 dead.  Again, perhaps we were done.  Nope, there were plenty more through the remainder of the evening.  Little bastards.

In just over one 24 hour span we have had 80 PLUS roaches come out and die on the kitchen floor.  It's seriously sooo freaking gross.  I'm in a living hell.

The only upside (if there is such a thing as an upside) is that we clearly found the source and hopefully we are able to get rid of them once and for all.  The sucky thing is, we're gonna have to do this a couple more times to really kill them off.  I'm not looking forward to THAT at all.  But I am looking forward to life without the fear of opening a drawer and finding  a roach in it.

Yeah....hindsight...it's 20/20.  Shoulda just kept on walking when we noticed all the dead roaches in the first place.  They were trying to warn us of what was in our future.

Death to roaches one and all,

Allyson

Post Script:  As of last night our total was up around 90.  As of this morning, NO new roaches to count.  Halleluia.  Just a kitchen floor covered in random black "spots" where roaches once lay.  I also found a scorpion on the kitchen wall by the laundry room.  And this morning Jere found a scorpion on our bedroom curtain.  THIS SUCKS!  Hoping for a week of peace before we have to bomb again. 

Please don't think less of us, or be afraid to come over.  We'll keep the roaches away from you, I promise.