bedroom cockroaches

I will be haunted forever by cockroaches.

As you know, the bug situation in my home has gotten out of control. It’s many little things, but the main problem is the cockroaches.

I’ve discovered that the shower cockroaches and the bedroom cockroaches are different breeds. It’s more than the habitat. The shower cockroaches are multicolored, both black and gold. They also shed their crunchy external things and are glow-in-the-dark white for a while. They scatter when the light comes on, and therefore leave me alone when I need use of the shower. We have an understanding.

The bedroom cockroaches are straight up black. They are bigger, more rectangular, and they fly. I mean they straight up soar around my room before dive-bombing my mosquito net. I have grown used to hearing their flapping wings, sensing when they land on the mosquito net. I flick them off the net when in bed, because heaven forbid they find a way to enter the mosquito net, giving me a midnight cuddle.

These guys—the bedroom cockroaches—they’re smart. For instance, they know that I don’t want them in my house. They also know that I won’t kill them. When they know I’ve spotted them and they have nowhere to hide, they calmly walk to the door, wait for me to open it, and run outside. They realize this is my coping method—how I convince myself that I’m not in fact letting cockroaches run wild in my bedroom (and therefore kitchen and office and living room). They play the game, and then calmly re-enter my house by way of the slots in the windows. A pretty good deal.

But it was getting ridiculous.

The breaking point was during the cyclone. I had moved my bed, because I wanted to sleep, not swim. The roof got fixed the next day, but I considered waiting until the morning to move the bed. I was hesitant because I seem to be getting bitten by mosquitoes so tiny you can’t actually see them—and in the top ten places you’d rather NOT get bitten, thank you. Especially not when it will leave a welt and an uncontrollable need to scratch.

And then—as I sat there trying to decide if I’d survive a night outside of my mosquito net—I noticed them. Hundreds of miniscule baby cockroaches. Little black flying specks with crunchy shells.

I do not like being taken advantage of. Let me rephrase that. I hate being taken advantage of by cockroaches.

See, they had it all figured out. They toyed with me, letting me think I was dealing with cockroach situation in a humane way. Patronizing me and my silly notion of appeasement. Meanwhile, they were breeding like rabbits, rewriting their wills, I’m sure, in order to leave MY HOME to their crunchy little descendants.

Not okay.

Something had to be done.

I slept on it, waking up with one thought: I have to start killing the cockroaches.

Now, in your pristine American houses, I’m sure this seems an obvious solution. You are probably asking why I did not do this sooner. Maybe even blaming me and my apathy for all the cockroach sex that has taken place under my roof. But you have to understand—I live in a different world here. A world where you don’t kill spiders because they eat mosquitoes. You try your best to live in harmony with whatever creatures come your way, because it’s clear that this world is as much theirs as yours. Honestly, the only thing I think that has died intentionally (ha) in my house was that giant snake—and I didn’t even do that. And mosquitoes don’t count, those malaria-carrying jerks. So to decide to actively kill as many of one species as I can find . . . . I mean that’s the closest thing to genocide that will ever take place in my little cement house. It was a huge decision.

I spent the day wrestling with the decision—knowing it was a decision that had to be made, but thinking I’d somehow escape its application. I mean, I felt bad enough just SAYING what I was going to do. Couldn’t that be enough?

Early this evening, it was as if the cockroaches had never existed—were nothing more than a figment of my imagination. I liked to believe that they somehow understood my decision, and therefore had packed up and headed out of town in search for a new schmuck.

It was as if they’d sent a farewell gift too—I found my house FILLED (you can’t understand just how serious I am when I say that) with these odd new bugs. Little guys with long skinny wings. And the kicker is, they lose the wings and become itty bitty worm things. And then a lizard ate a bunch of them. I went from having swarms of them surrounding every source of light (um . . . two) to having a carpet of those wings on the floor. I don’t want to know where the slugs went. I’m afraid of what the answer might be. It was as if the cockroaches were trying to tell me I was lucky—that there are worse bugs to have as roommates.

But I was not so fortunate. Apparently the cockroaches and I don’t share brainwaves after all. Or at least, if we do, they decided to call my bluff and show up after dinner anyway.

I braced myself. Quick and easy, I thought. I’ll hit 10 of them and then wipe my hands of this relationship.

A couple things.

First, you do not understand the horror of each THWACK, slapping your tiny world atlas against the creature crawling on the wall—seeing the juice on the book afterwards—sweeping the dead body out the door. (Note: the atlas was chosen for its heavy weight and plastic-coated cover—easy to clean afterwards.)

Second, I seriously underestimated the number of cockroaches living in my house.

My friend Andrew and I once hunted cockroaches. What it entailed was this: I would grab the cockroach in my hands and then run for the nearest exit. He would quickly unbolt and open the door while I flung the thing outside. Again, it was a way of pretending I was dealing with the problem.

Actually killing them—that kind of hunt—is so much worse. You wait for the flutter of their crunchy wings. You grab the atlas. You run for the wall, where you see their dark body against the fake blue sky you once painted. You smack the thing then watch the body fall. You sweep it out of the house. And then repeat more times than you can believe. Flutter grab run THWACK slide sweep. Flutter grab run THWACK slide sweep. Flutter grab run THWACK slide sweep. It never ends. You stop counting after 10. You are well aware when you pass 20. After 30 you’re sick of opening the door and decide you’ll sweep them all out in the morning. After another 10 thoroughly thwacked, you sweep them out after all. It’s the last thing you want to step on should you wake up in the middle of the night. And by this point, it’s more a question of how many TIMES you’ll wake up—thinking a cockroach is crawling into any number of orifices.

The worst moment (if you can actually choose one) is when you’re almost certain a cockroach just crawled out of the location where its dead body fell.

Oh no, you think. They come back.

And let’s be honest—the only thing worse than cockroach spirits haunting you would be cockroach spirits haunting you because you KILLED them.

I start to crack. I hear the fluttering everywhere. The thwack makes me jump. I am disgusted by the cockroach juice everywhere. I have to grind the atlas a little to make sure they’re really dead. Grasshoppers are jumping on my face. Seriously, I have bug issues. And while I am reassured when I see more baby cockroaches—yes, I’m doing the right thing, the executions must take place before it’s too late—I am equally appalled by the idea that this evening will repeat itself once these babies are of age. And I have NO idea when that when that will be. I know nothing about cockroaches that I can’t learn by observing in my shower.

I believe the horror is over for the moment. There are cockroach bodies in hard to reach locations, a couple stuck to the wall with own body goo, and I don’t even want to know how many just outside my door where I swept them in a hurry. Every time I think I’ve killed the last of them, another 2 or 3 flutter in the corner and I grab that trusty atlas.

I will call it a night and deal with everything—the bodies, the goo, the crippling sense of guilt—in the morning. Goodness knows I won’t be getting any sleep tonight. I’ll be dreaming of cockroaches.