In Which I Get Angry at Bugs

So, I moved from West Virginia to Alabama in August 2009.  West Virginia isn't really northern, but it sure isn't southern, either, so there were a few mental changes required.  For example, it's generally about 10 degrees warmer here than in WV.  It rains way more.  Pansies are considered winter flowers instead of summer flowers.

The bugs are also bigger.

They seem to be sneaky and bold as brass, too.

In the first apartment I lived in, we didn't have any bugs aside from the occasional smallish spider.  For whatever reason, I don't mind squishing spiders, so this didn't present much of an opportunity for mental anguish.

Here, though, in this nicer, more expensive, cleaner apartment, we have bugs galore.

They crawl in through the cracks in the windows, under the sliding glass door, through the baseboards, under the stove, and through the air ducts.  Yeah, it's pretty great.

Again, I don't mind the spiders and ants so much.  Those live around the windows, and I could easily get rid of them were it not for the roaches.

Apparently, if you use bug spray around roaches, they scatter - further into your apartment.  I do NOT want that, especially since they're quarantined in the kitchen right now.  So I can't really do much about the spiders and ants.

We also have centipedes.  Those lovely little creatures crawl out of the air vents (which are at the top of the rooms, for whatever reason), get cold, and just... stand on the ceiling.  Typically, anyway.  Two days ago, one crawled at high speed at me from under a cabinet; thankfully, my kitty has developed a taste for them so he ate it right up.  Justin also had a surprise visitor in his shower last week - and again, was saved by Benny.

(Can you believe this little cutie can so vicious eat living creatures?)

Last, but not least, we have wasps living inside our patio railing, and spiders and camel crickets in our outdoor storage area.  I haven't even tried to tackle these yet.

It's the roaches that really make me mad.  I was sitting at the table yesterday with a clear view of the kitchen, and the three or four roaches just paraded around, not caring that I was there, calmly crawling up and down the kitchen cabinets and behind my cookbooks.  They didn't even leave when I made a loud noise and flipped the lights off and on, which used to be a surefire way to scare them off.

But not these roaches.  I guess they really are adaptable because they just don't care who sees them anymore.  (Can you spot him in the picture, sitting on top of the cabinet door?  He stayed there for about 30 minutes, just hanging out!)

For some reason, that made me so mad!  I mean, I knew they were there already, but they could at leave have the decency to try to hide from me!  Instead, here they were, scrabbling around in broad daylight without any fear.

Stupid bugs.  x_x

So I called Justin and he brought home roach traps - eighteen of them - which we set up last night.

Here's the kitchen in its normal state.  It's clean, but cluttered.  I have a lot of kitchen stuff - all the cabinets are full, too.

And here's the kitchen after I got mad at the bugs.

See that stack of dishes on the counter?  I'm slowly putting all of them through the dishwasher again since I saw the roaches' crawling habits

Justin emptied all the cabinets out for me.  Then, I wiped them all down with Windex, sprayed them with Lysol, and put roach bait in there.  Apparently the roaches will come eat the bait, take it back to their nests, and kill all their friends.  =D  (And yes, I do know that I'll have to wipe them all out again once the roaches disappear, but it made me feel better to do it now, too.)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm off to do my part in subduing the earth - at least, the little part of the earth which is currently inhabiting my kitchen.