Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Bomb Da Bugs

Yesterday morning I got home from swimming and these guys were waiting outside my condo.

Tropical islands are great places to live, though one thing we don't talk about a lot is that they are typically full of bugs. Sometimes these bugs set up house in your house and feast on the wood that holds your house together. This is bad, for obvious reasons. These bugs are hard to kill. But if you hire some professionals they'll put a massive tent over your house and then fill it with poison chemicals which will kill anything living inside.

Again, for obvious reasons, it's important to go away from your home while this process occurs. So we packed up all our food, our plants, our animal, our baby, and anything we needed for a few days, and moved out.

Um, what a pain.

Neither Scott nor I felt happy about the fact that our home was being poisoned, but it's a necessary thing here if you don't want your house to be eaten by termites. Or if you ever want to sell the house- inspectors are always checking for termite damage and if they find any, you can count on the fact that you will not be able to sell your house. Ever. So we packed up and moved out and let the guys bomb our house.

It was actually even more complicated than normal because we live in a town-home complex where multiple families live under the same roof, so it had to be organized so everyone moved out at the same time so the entire building could be tented. This was no small feat. Our neighbors have been trying to organize this for almost a year and a half and it just now happened.

Anyway, we went to the neighboring town and stayed with some friends in their house. Not a bad deal, really. It was really gracious of them to let us stay there. Moana was a superchamp, of course... such an adaptable little person. She didn't protest a bit taking a nap or going to bed in this strange place... In fact, it appears that she was highly intrigued by the new environment. She got to pet a cat (she said 'meow' for the first time when she saw it- apparently she does listen to me when I read to her and make all those animal noises).

I had a hard time relaxing with her in the backyard though because of the deathtrap out there. Unfortunately the water was too cold to swim in so we didn't get to enjoy the pool at all... it was more like Mommy couldn't let go of Moana's hand while she ran around back there and finally we just had to stay inside so Mommy didn't have a heart attack.
So Moana and I spent a lot of time out and about the last few days. Playground, beach, park, grocery store, etc. I would have been happy to just come home tonight and finally just relax and chill out on the couch while watching the Olympics, except that we had to move all of our food and medicines and stuff back in... and since the refrigerator/freezer was completely empty for the first time in forever, I seized the opportunity to clean (I mean, really clean) the shelves and drawers... this was the kind of cleaning that hasn't taken place since I went through my 'nesting instinct' right before I gave birth to Moana.

One thing that shocked me though was that there were no cockroaches on the floor when we came back in. I was fully expecting the floor to be covered in dead bugs. (Nice, I know) There were some of the little roaches dead on the floor (those don't bother me like the big ones) but not.a.single.big.dead.roach anywhere. What's up with that? I know they live here. I've seen them. Yes. Occasionally In our silverware drawer. I know how bad that sounds. I swear I keep my kitchen clean. But they live here. It's unavoidable. Why, then, did they not come out and die when the whole place was fumigated?? Don't tell me those things saw the big orange tent and decided to temporarily move out as well? Because they're not invited back.

12 comments:

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Wow thats just crazy, I never seen that, heard of it, but never seen it, having the house covered like that.

GetBackJoJo said...

Haven't they determined that if we all die from nuclear disaster or whatever that it will be the roaches that survive? I remember reading that somewhere...
Okay. So there is ONE good thing about living here. We have bugs--but we don't need to tent and poison our houses! :)

Katie A. said...

We had to do the same thing when we started the process of trying to sell our house and I felt so creapy going back in. But you're right, aside from a few dead spiders, when I CLEANED everything there wasn't a big bug in sight. Very interesting - I actually was wondering if they had even sprayed the death spray! LOL!
Glad you survived!

cherelli said...

Blergh, bugs and spiders, yuk. I understand the reluctance of poisoning everything in the building though to get rid of them! Glad it worked out ok, if disruptive. Finally checked out your new website - it looks great, well done!

Clare said...

i no longer envy your life in hawaii.

Angela and David said...

Ahhh bugs. I remember them from growing up in Florida. I would take big cockroaches over this stupid midwest weather any day.

H said...

Euuuuuuughhhh, I feel all itchy. Blast the bugs...good job :-) x

Rebecca DeWire said...

Bugs don't freak me out, but the bug poison in the house totally would! I often question why I am living in PA and not Hawaii and so far I have 2 things on my list 1) skin cancer and now #2) bombing for bugs.

Running and living said...

Oh, man, that outta be hard!

Regina said...

Cockroaches are part of the scenery here. You can't live anywhere in NYC without sharing some space with them now and again. I'm glad you didn't have to come home to them though.

I find it hard to believe it was so cold you couldn't go in the pool. How does green look on me?

Charisa said...

I have a lot of cockroach memories from my visits to Hawaii - funny :)

RunningMama said...

Do you have to clean your house after? I'd be worried about poisen all over everything. Ha ha re: the death trap pool.