So, summer of 2013, me and the girls got on a plane: a 3 week old TT and a not-quite 3 year old H. I rode in a wheelchair at the airport, worried that all the walking would exhaust me unduly. In fact, we got lots of special attention with the airline: newborn baby, me in the wheelchair, and H with her peanut dust allergy pass. Fun times. My blessed, long-suffering parents met us at the airport (mind you, they had left our house two weeks ago after coming to help while we HAD TT). We stayed with them for a week while E's dad went out to help him clean, close up our rental, and supervise the packing and loading of our earthly possesions. God bless them all, I don't think it's a week anyone involved would want to relive, but there were no outstanding incidents, so we'll call it a win.
Once E reunited with us, we stayed with his parents for all of- I think- a day and a half until we got the call that our belongings would be arriving in the Slight South ahead of schedule. Overall, this was great news, but we realized we needed to hightail it down there to be ready at 7am the morning the truck might arrive. We came down a day early and got the key, set up a bank account, and got new cell phones and service. (With a newborn. Did I mention that? TT turned 5 weeks the day our belongings arrived at our new house). Also, the morning our belongings arrived, I got the call that my Grandma had died in the night. It wasn't too unexpected, but it was sad- especially because I didn't really have time to grieve at the time. I remember the morning in our new place answering the door crying. It was the mail lady with a question about who was living there now. She asked if I was OK, and I told her my grandma had just died. Even though it was the truth, I wonder if she thought I was a battered wife making excuses.
E's family came down the day after us and stayed in a hotel for a few nights to help us get unpacked and settled. (More blessings on them. They have helped us move every time- 4 times in 7 years.) They left, and then shortly after TT and I flew back home to attend the funeral. E and H put up curtains and visited campus to get E's ID card and find his classes.
But I skipped the part in which our apartment was populated. The day we moved in, E saw a 3-inch long roach crawl out of the dishwasher space toward the pizza box, and then back under the counter. We got a can of raid, and that evening there were about 6 live, dead, or dying roaches to be dealt with- all giant, and one with babies. We were back at the landlords office the next morning, livid and/or in tears. (I'll leave you to guess who was who.) They assured us these were "waterbugs"- American Cockroaches- not the German Cockroaches one finds in restaurants, slums, and NY apartments. They are endemic to the south and sneak in houses, but don't generally eat food. In our case, it seems they had taken up residence around our dishwasher- or more likely in the crawl space just outside it- while our apartment had been unoccupied. They had a pest company come out and spray outside (I guess it took a few days- I was back from the funeral by the time they came). We stopped seeing live roaches, though we would come across a dead one about once a day (the company said that was normal), but I was finding the poop everywhere, more and more and more in the living room and kitchen. We had sprays, powders, all our food in containers, natural deterrents- all of which had to be bought during the day with a newborn and toddler, and then applied at 10:30 when TT finally fell asleep, because I wanted them to have a little contact with the chemicals as possible. I was about to actually loose my mind- thinking about breaking our lease and moving again sounded impossible, and I just didn't know what to do. The day I found "roach" poop in TT's car seat was the worst- I called my mom crying (again) and she asked if I was sure it wasn't a mouse. I said of course of I was sure, hung up, cried some more, and then thought.... huh. Maybe it is a mouse. (How closely do you really look at poops number 20-200?) What do you know.... we had a mouse!
I'm pretty sure I had actually trapped the mouse in our house as I was sealing up holes- that last day I would turn around and find more poop, though we never actually saw the mouse running around. I schlepped the girls back to the ACE to buy every kind of mouse trap they had. I think I set out about 17 that night- and I left the car seat on top of the table when we went to bed. One dead mouse and two days of cleaning later, our home was vermin-free. I felt 20 million times better.
yay long posts! keep em coming! :)
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