Over the last four or five months, the roach situation has rocketed out of control. I know we need to keep the place more free of crumbs and dirty dishes. But even when we are keeping up on such things, the roaches seem to be having a field day. Or several field days.
Essentially, there are a lot of icky roaches. And they seem to be too smart to fall for roach traps. I also laid out some Borax and sugar, but that didn’t seem to entice them.
So, when they scheduled a pest inspection, we were happy. The guy came by, affirmed that we were riddled with the damn roaches, and said the office would set something up. Twelve days later, we get a notice that the pest guys will be coming on Weds, April 27th. That was on Monday, April 25th at 4 p.m.
That gave us approximately 38 hours to:
1. Clear out everything from the kitchen (except what was in the fridge)
2. Clear all cabinets and drawers
3. Pull out all furniture 1 foot from the wall
4. Clear out the bottom of closets
Also, since Tim has such severe skin issues, we bagged all the sheets and all clothes. In other words, we bagged just about everything in our household. As I write this, there are plastic trash bags full of our stuff that are taking up our couch, our bed and our guest bed.
You are also supposed to clear out for at least 3 hours. But, with Tim’s skin/asthma, he refused to come back to the apartment in anything less than 24 hours.
The instructions also recommended keeping out any pets that were birds, reptiles or insects. While it says nothing about cats, I’m paranoid enough that I wanted to keep ours out for two days. But, when I called up PetSmart about boarding, I was informed that Sandy’s shots are out of date. And they have to be done 48 hours before you board. So that wasn’t going to happen.
Instead, I just tacked on an extra day to the cheap hotel Tim is staying at. In the end, it’s about the same cost — $32 to board two cats for two days or $35 for an extra night at the hotel. Also, this means that I have time to air out the apartment and vacuum/Swiffer up any residue before any of those three step in here. Since Patches is something of a wannabe Hoover, it’s kind of important to make sure the floors are roach-fog free.
In other words, the “free” bug service we enjoy at this place cost us $80 plus a ton of energy I would rather have used on something more fun (and strain Tim would rather not have put on his back). But if it cuts down on the bugs, I guess it’s worth it. Now it’s just up to us to try and keep the place a little cleaner so that our place doesn’t scream “All You Can Eat Buffet” to roaches all over the place.
That said, if anyone has any good Borax recipes, I think I’ll still be laying out some to try and keep the bugs from visiting their old haunts.
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