I'm still living with cockroaches.

They wait until I think I'm safe, and then BAM! Another cockroach shows up. This time it was (dead) in my reusable grocery bag that hangs RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED.

This one is scarier than the last few because now I can't get the image of roaches crawling on me in my sleep out of my head. I'm also faced with a serious dilemma about what to do with the bag. My instinct is to just throw it away with the cockroach in it, but this is my Sainsbury's Olympic sponsor bag from London. It's also huge and can always fit all my groceries. It's mine and the cockroach can't have it!!!

I moved the bag into the kitchen to hang on a closet door that is not right next to my bed. I dumped the dead roach out into the trash, and, it took me a few days but, I finally washed out the bag and it is ready to hold the food I will consume.

LATEST UPDATE: The bug people came back a few days after the sighting to spray and leave their poisonous bug traps, and I haven't seen any roaches since.

I'm living with cockroaches.

I thought that moving into the city and up to the 21st floor of a building would get me away from the bugs. I was wrong.

It was the end of July when I saw the first one. I was getting ready to leave for work, making breakfast in my kitchen when I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look over and see this HUGE thing twitching on my floor. It took about .5 seconds to register it was a cockroach. The most important thing in this situation was to remain calm. I needed to get out the door as to not be late, the cockroach could not be left alive, and there was no one else around to save me.

Lucky for me, the cockroach was upside down so it couldn't run away. I grabbed my can of Raid (for spiders and scorpions, but it worked just fine) and sprayed it. It twitched and tried to run away, but since it was upside down, it just ended up sliding around the floor. I captured it under a bowl and left.

I told the desk attendant at my complex that there was a cockroach in my apartment, and asked if they could get rid of it. I think he felt really bad for me, and asked some guy who looked like a custodian if he could take care of it. He said yes, and later that day when I got home from work there was no cockroach and my bowl was back on my counter.

Five days later, I almost got into my bathtub with another one. A not-so-gentle reminder to always, always, always check the tub for monsters before stepping in. This one wasn't quite as big as the first one, but still pretty big and disgusting. I washed it down the drain.

I googled it later, which was a huge mistake, because I ran into a bunch of pest control websites that said if you see one cockroach in your home there's probably a million more living in your walls and that one just got pushed out because there were too many. Cue the panic. I also found out that cockroaches have trouble balancing on slick surfaces, like kitchen tile, and can flip over easily on them. I'm assuming that was how the first one ended up on its back.

Then I did what any person living in fear would do. I armed myself with a dangerous weapon.

I also told my apartment complex and they called the bug people to come spray. The bug people came just a few days later and I went for about two weeks without seeing another one.

Then, just as I thought I was safe, they struck again. I was scanning the shower for monsters before stepping in one morning when I noticed a tiny little black thing. Upon closer inspection, I saw it had little legs and giant antennas. It was a little baby cockroach.

That means there was a cockroach nest somewhere in my walls.

They were having babies.

They are creating an army.

The cockroaches are after me.

I quickly washed it down the drain, but when I came home from work that afternoon there were MORE and one of them was in my LOOFA. A cockroach! In my loofa! So I drenched my shower in Raid and now I throughly spray my entire apartment every morning. I also replaced my loofa.

It's currently been about a week and a half since the last cockroach sighting. But they are probably hiding out in my walls, just waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking. If I mysteriously go missing one day, it was probably the roaches.

Windex kills worms.

My apartment has a serious bug problem and this is not the same place where I was attacked and nearly killed by a spider, which is just proof that the creepy crawlies are after me. The bugs like to come in through the basement door, which happens to be extremely close to my bedroom, as shown in the picture below.

The door with the stuff on it is my bedroom.

The bugs are the worst in the summer and even more terrible after it rains because they all either get washed inside or come inside to hide from the rain. Unfortunately I don't have a picture, but that whole hallway by the back door gets filled with nasty bugs. It's pretty gross.

One terrible summer evening, after an especially bad rainstorm, I was on my way downstairs to my room when I saw two large squiggly lines on the floor amongst all the other nasty dead bugs. Worms. TWO worms. TWO WORMS, INSIDE. 

I was out of Raid, we didn't have a very good vacuum at this time so I couldn't just suck them up, and I wasn't about to get close enough to sweep them up. My roommate was home at the time but she stayed upstairs and refused to even get close to the steps. After several minutes of us freaking out, we put on our thinking caps. It was getting late and I wasn't sleeping in my room next to live worms.

My roommate suggested spraying Windex on them. I was skeptical at first, but her boyfriend is Greek and apparently Windex is what they use to fix everything. I venture down the stairs, armed with Windex and I spray it all over the worms so they are left sitting in a puddle of Windex on the floor. And it worked! They died!!

After several days they dried up and remained shriveled up on the floor for quite some time, until I inherited a powerful vacuum from my parents on a trip home, brought it back to my apartment and sucked up the worms and all the other dead bugs in the hallway.

There is a technique to killing flies.

I went on this midwest road trip extravaganza with my parents, and compared to my travels around Europe (staying in cheap hostels, on a tight budget), it was like an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation.

View Midwest Road Trip Extravaganza in a larger map

The trip started in Austin, through Oklahoma (with dinner in Muskogee) and we stopped for the night in Joplin. Day two went through Columbia where I dropped off my car and continued on to Champaign, Illinois. On day three we drove the short distance to Lafayette, Indiana to visit my uncle and aunt. Day four brought us to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit my grandpa. Day five was the end of the trip and we drove through Kentucky back to Columbia, Missouri, completing the midwest loop circle and bringing me back to school.

Anyway, there was a fly in the hotel we stayed at in Champaign, Illinois. No one wants to sleep in a room that has a fly flying around in it, so we had no choice but to kill it. Flies are really hard to kill because they have such good reflexes and it's even harder when you don't have a fly swatter. But it is possible with this technique from my dad.


You have to flick the fly with your finger. You have to wait for the fly to land somewhere and sneak up on it really slowly so it doesn't fly away. You can't aim directly for the fly, because it'll sense your movement and fly away before you hit it. So, you have to aim for right in front of the fly or right behind the fly. That way, when it senses your movement and flies away, you will hit right where the fly is on its way away from you. You just have to become one with the fly and anticipate whether it will fly forward or backward.

Refer to the following diagram and live your life fly-free:

Spiders are too sneaky.

I was being a responsible student and peacefully studying for my upcoming test in the living room the other night. I was sitting on the floor leaning against the couch and using the coffee table to study on, like I normally do. My roommate was in the kitchen trying to make a snack. It was a very peaceful and normal night. Then, I see something out of the corner of my eye and turn my head to look at my arm and there is this huge spider on me.

There are few things in this world that are scarier than spiders. Like giant squids, or getting trapped in the middle of the ocean. Each of which would probably cause death and you'd have to be in the middle of the ocean to encounter them, but spiders can also cause death and they can be anywhere at anytime.