I open the door and stealthfully step under the door frame. I reach over and flip on the light switch and my eyes are already scanning the room for my prey. They're searching for any motion, any bit of reddish-brown that doesn't belong on the beige carpet or white walls. On average, I'll find one roach somewhere in my bedroom or bathroom as I enter the rooms to prepare for bed. On the nights that I find none, I am highly suspicious (until I fall asleep), and now on nights that I find two I'm not surprised (although the first night I found two I was caught completely off my guard).
Until a couple of weeks ago the hunt was actually challenging. That was before I had gone and bought a second can of roach spray for the house (we usually keep one can handy near the kitchen or living room). Back then I might have had to actually resort to primitive roach-killing tools such as our plunger (very inefficient for obvious reasons), hair spray (not as immobilizing as one might think), or Lysol. Back then it was a true battle of wits in which the roach actually had a chance to survive if only he/she scurried in just the right way. One roach tested my mettle by hiding under the lip of the sink in such a way that I'd have to risk spraying my toothbrush with potentially toxic roach spray in order to get him. He failed, and my toothbrush remained as clean as it was before the incident. Most other roaches are not nearly as clever/lucky and used to be able to rely on their superior agility and maneuverability to evade whatever other crude instrument I might be throwing at them that night. Now they hardly have a chance. Now I have a fully loaded can of Raid at the ready somewhere in my room. It doesn't have a highly collimating nozzle for pinpoint accuracy, but it gets the job done. The best the poor creatures can do is scurry away to die in peace under a sock or behind some furniture.
This next paragraph would be dedicated to discussing how the nightly roach hunt is actually symbolic of episodes that we all go through in life, but that would just be painfully obvious and is therefore unnecessary. One thing I've noticed is that the hunt gives me peace of mind, which is nice to have right before going to bed.
Posted by tdupuy at April 4, 2006 5:50 AMThere are mice in my walls, and some nights I dream of pulling a gun and blindly shooting through the plaster in the hopes of nailing just one of them. The cats help out of course, but it still is hard to drift off when you hear them scraping the lathes.
Posted by: Ari at April 5, 2006 12:52 PMThis post is taking me back to my days in El Barrio. I remember the night I came home to a giant roach in my sink. After screaming for about a minute, I boiled/drowned it to death. Only about 30 minutes later did I have the courage to pick up the dead thing and throw it away.
I also remember when our egg timer became a den for them and I ran it under boiling water. That scent of burning roaches will be forever in my brain.
Uh....
Posted by: Lara at April 5, 2006 3:09 PMI'm proud to call you my brother.
Posted by: jenay olivia at April 6, 2006 4:26 PMMy advice is to invest in a professional and get a cat! We used to have a robust and diverse roach population in our house, from little cute ones to giant scary flying ones. We got a cat and a few months later every last one of them was gone. A human hunting for roaches is kind of silly and ineffective, and a cat is just the opposite. Whatever you decide, good luck!
Posted by: samia at April 17, 2006 9:41 PM