One thing this apartment has been fairly good about is a lack of bugs, which I appreciate. Sure, during the summer months there’s always one big ol’ waterbug sighted scrambling across the kitchen floor to scurry back outside under the door, and about three or four times a year, after it rains, ants suddenly flow in under same back door and all over the miniature so-called kitchen. An application of chlorine beach on the old concrete outside the back door will stop it. And, yes, we can’t go out back during the summer because of all the mosquitoes (not that you’d want to, because of the urban rats), and we get these great big house spiders that are of a size to pay rent. But otherwise we’ve been pretty good about bugs. In other words, we don’t have german roaches and the one nightly waterbug has always kept itself confined to the kitchen and makes a quick break for it.
So why suddenly this past week are we ridden with bugs? First I noticed a couple of baby German roaches crawling out of the bathroom. Then there was one huge fly, then another, then another. Today we’ve killed 20 of these huge flies, all in the living room. Then last night when I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, a waterbug the size of a small mouse made a frantic run behind the sink and faucet to hide behind the soap dispenser and from there made a clean getaway. Eeeeew.
This morning, I’m asleep and then suddenly I’m kind of awake and there is purpose on my mind as I slap at something on me. The waking me didn’t know what was going on but the sleeping me was perturbed. I came to awareness (kind of) already shooting into a sitting position and my hand grabbed at my chest and found something bizarre and organic at the neck of my shirt and quickly flung it away. Whatever it was removed, I sat for a moment vaguely trying to orient myself. What was going on, I wondered. What had just happened. Marty was already in the shower. I picked up all the covers of the bed and looked around and could find nothing. I looked on the floor in front of the bed, where I thought I’d flung whatever it was. I sat. I thought, “Was it a dream? No, I’m certain something was there.” I picked up the comforter again and looked under it and all over the top of it and shook it out. I flung the sheets around and found nothing. ????? As whatever it was had felt like a big fat prickly pompom, I decided that I must have imagined it as. I went back to sleep.
This afternoon I found the offending creature. A large waterbug was lying dead on the lowest shelf of the bookshelf beside the futon. “Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck!” I yelled, realizing that’s the thing that I’d grabbed off my neck. “Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck,” I yelled some more, hopping around the living room. “Yuck yuck yuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I’m still creepy-crawly.
Will call the landlord tomorrow.
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