#BUGS. EVERYWHERE. THERE WAS A ROACH IN MY HOUSE LAST NIGHT

[teruthecreator]

i hate summer btw sorry to all you summer freaks but i would make this fall if i could

[ohgodmyeyes]

It’s A Trap!

Anakin gets rid of the cockroaches in your apartment.

...

Anakin x gender-neutral Reader

1k words

Modern AU

...

They were tiny, they were disgusting, and they were everywhere.

They popped up in the bathroom at all hours of the night and day, crawled across the kitchen countertop with abandon, and ruined any food you left out if you dared to turn your back from it for even a minute. You hated them, and they were making you miserable.

“Fuck, Anakin! I hate this place!” You were standing in the kitchen, feeling distinctly fed up.

“What? What’s the problem?” He sat down at the table, lit a cigarette, and looked at you as though you were crazy.

“It’s the goddamn cockroaches! They’re all over the fucking place!”

“Huh? They’re just little bugs.” Anakin had been relatively nonchalant about the problem since its commencement; you, however, wanted the little intruders purged from your life.

“They’re awful, and they need to die!” You spotted one crawling across the floor right then; stomped on it. “I’m going out to buy poison.”

“Aw, babe, you know I don’t like that shit,” protested Anakin, with a long and very ironic drag off his smoke.

“What the fuck do you want me to do, then? These little assholes are ruining my life!” They were. You hadn’t made a sandwich without fear in weeks. You’d found, in fact, that both you and the roaches shared an affinity for sliced, raw onions.

“‘Ruining your life’? They’re just trying to live their lives, you know.” He blew a few hazy rings into the air, and waved his hand at you dismissively.

“Fucking hell Ani, I don’t care what they’re trying to do! They don’t pay rent here, and they’re not going to ‘live their lives’ at my expense!” You threw your own arms up in the air. “If you can’t come up with a better idea by the end of the day, I’m going to the hardware store and coming back with enough toxic shit to turn this place into a fucking gas chamber!”

You didn’t wait for him to answer; you simply stormed out, prepared to pull out your credit card later on that evening for the express purpose of filling your home with a vile concoction of deadly chemicals.

...

Did you take care of it, or do I need to make a stop on my way home?

You texted Anakin this from your car, in anticipation of having to stop for poison. You were quite confident that there was nothing he could have done in the past few hours to even begin to rid your home of those cockroaches.

Come right back, my love— they’re nearly all gone.

You were highly skeptical, but you did trust Anakin. He’d scarcely ever let you down before, in fact. After eyeing your phone indecisively for a few moments, you opted to put your wallet away, and drive on home. You were just about always willing to give Ani a chance.

When you opened the front door, the apartment was relatively quiet... and you detected the distinct odour of raw onions permeating the air. Anakin must have known what they liked best; had he designed some sort of trap? He’d always been good at building things, after all.

“Ani?” You looked around the living room; peered down the hallway in the direction of the bathroom, too. All of the lights were on, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Anakin!” Had the roaches eaten him, and all of your onions?

You walked into the kitchen last, positive that you would find him there.

“Anakin, wh—”

From behind the very end of the counter, a hand shot up to silence you— it was his. All you could see of him was the arm he’d raised; whatever he was doing, he was doing it very quietly.

You went quiet for him, too, but continued on into the room. As you approached the end of the surface on which you prepared all of your meals, you realized that Ani had, in fact, set a trap... however, this was no ordinary trap.

It was so out-of-the-ordinary that you found yourself unable to maintain your silence, except to clamp both of your hands tightly over your mouth. You wanted to scream.

On the floor at the very end of the kitchen, Anakin was kneeling. His mouth, exactly level with the countertop, was wide open. There was a little pile of chopped onions sitting atop his tongue... and a long, winding line of cockroaches eagerly marching right toward it.

Some of the bugs were still on the counter, but the inside of his mouth was almost entirely black with them. They crawled atop the onions, around his teeth, and over each other. His beautiful blue eyes were fixed sharply on those of them which had not yet entered his ‘trap’; you could tell that he was waiting patiently for them to join their brethren in vying for a taste of those irresistibly tangy veggies he’d laid out just for their pleasure.

You watched in abject horror until the last of the sickening little insects had been lured into Anakin’s mouth; once he was sure they were all gone from the counter, he stood up, and pursed his lips.

Perhaps the only thing worse than watching him trap them was listening to the sound they made between his teeth as he began to chew.

Finally, you weren’t afraid to scare them off; shouted, “What the fuck, Anakin?!”

He swallowed; held up his hand once more to indicate that you should wait while he went to the refrigerator, retrieved a carton of orange juice, and took a huge gulp of it straight from the spout.

You would remember to throw that container into the trash later.

Finally— incredulously— he asked you much the same as he had in the morning, ”What?”

You could hardly string two words together. “You— you just— did you— is this what you’ve been doing all day, Anakin?” You should never have left him alone in the house; you suspected you might never leave him unmonitored again.

Not after this.

He merely shrugged, and lit one of his cigarettes— presumably to remove from his mouth the taste of the cockroach purée he’d just generated with his teeth. You usually didn’t appreciate his smoking, but this time?

This time, you truly couldn’t blame him.

“Fucking hell, Ani, I thought you said they were just trying to live their lives!”

“They were— but you said they were bothering you. So, I found a way to get rid of them naturally.” With a grin and a drag of his smoke, “I’d feel like a piece of shit for poisoning them, but this way, they at least get put to use.”

“‘To use’?”

“Sure— do you have any idea how many of them there were? I’ll barely need to eat dinner tonight. Those little guys are fuel, now!” He looked quite proud of himself; perhaps he didn’t recognize the persistent look of disgust on your face.

He must not have.

“Anakin,” you started, but he didn’t let you finish— instead, he stepped forward and wrapped you up in his arms; thrust his tongue into your gaping mouth as he kissed you deeply. He tasted like smoke and orange juice; coupled with an earthy, metallic note unlike anything you’d ever experienced before.

When he pulled away, the look in his eyes was one of utmost love and affection— he really had done this just for you. He was beautiful, and you knew that you were lucky to have such a well-intentioned partner with whom to share your life.

In spite of this, you turned immediately away from him. With tears stinging the corners of your eyes, you leaned over the sink and vomited; let loose the entire contents of your stomach directly down the drain.

You hoped that Anakin, in his infinite kindness, would understand.

[ladykailolu]

Ok! So based upon some convos with my uncles, I've got a couple of stories for the Zeppeli cousins lol

Firstly, the Zeppeli family is a big Italian family. Well, as far as Italian standards go, they're a typical size, but non-Italians may say that it's quite large. I mean, Caesar, Gyro, and Mela each have four little siblings, and their parents amd grandparents had several siblings and so on going back generations. Caesar, Gyro, and Mela are all cousins here who hace grown up pretty close as kids, and Mela is the eldest of the three and Caesar is the youngest. For reference, there's 8 years between them, and Gyro is right in the middle with 4 years from each of them.

Anyway, so one summer, they stay over a great-grandparent's house, and one stinking hot night, Gyro goes to sleep on his cot, he pulls back the covers when all of a sudden about 100 black roaches of all sizes scurry out EVERYWHERE! For every night since then, he's slept in his full day clothes, a flashlight that was always lit, and a broom.

Another time in the morning, Caesar fixes himself cereal and milk for breakfast when he notices the cereal start moving. A few seconds later, and a water bug crawls out of the bowl. Without missing a beat, he pushes the bowl aside and says, "I'll take some toast," to an aunt.

The neighborhood was sometimes visited by some rowdy boys of 16-18 years in age, and these boys would always wanna start trouble with the kids, so Gyro, Caesar, and Mela would all grab wooden bats and shovels with a bunch of other neighborhood kids they knew and chase those troublemakers out of the neighborhood. If they caught one, they would beat the shit out of him while the others drove off. And while walking by, Mela, who usually doesn't get into many fights, kicks him while the asshole's down for good measure.

Another time, sometimes Mela would get into an argument with an aunt or grandmother, etc, and as a result, she and the person she argued with wouldn't be at the dinner table for the day. Less work for Gyro and Caesar who have to wash the dishes! "Let's go eat, Caesar," Gyro would say with a grin, "We have to go clean up anyway."

They have this cousin they see sometimes who was notorious for taking drugs and smoking weed and whatnot. Well, he was slowly losing his mind and approached Gyro, insisting, "I can see through walls and saw what you did in the other room!"

"What? Ok."

"Don't turn on the television! They're listening in to us!!!"

"😬"

They knew that this cousin was crazy, but they thought his antics were funny nonetheless.

They also have an uncle who married like 3 times. When he was 38 years old, he came home married to his 21 year old wife, and Gyro and Caesar, who were teens at the time, were left like "😳 Daaaaaaaaamnnnn!!!!" They wpuld then make comments on how hot this uncle's wife was, sparking rebukes from their fathers.

"Don't talk about it like that! Leave it alone!" Gregorio and Mario would say. Still, Gyro and Caesar fondly remember that this uncle would come home with a different young girl, each one hotter than the last, since the passing of his first wife.

[mysideblogofsurveys]

Survey 16.

Favorite beverage: Well, Water I guess.  I like drinking Mt. Dew or Coffee but I’ve cut back on all that stuff (but I will have a cup of coffee every morning)

When was the last time you had ketchup? On Saturday.  We made Sweet Potato Fries but they don’t really good with ketchup

What is the most recent gift you've been given? My co-workers gave me a GrubHub gift card for all the help (they’re working from home but I still go into the office so they e-mail what they need to do to me so I can do it for them - I actually hate doing it but..we don’t really have a choice).  Anyway, they wanted to give me something as “Thanks for all the help” and I told them a simple “Thank You” is all I want but people don’t listen. (Not to be ungrateful but I don’t like receiving gifts from anyone other than family and NO ONE listens and gives me things anyway).

Did you leave the house today? Not yet, I’ll be leaving about 8:10 to go to work

Are there bumper stickers on your car? Yes :) a “Straw Hat” pirate one from the anime One Piece and an EXO sticker for the kpop group.

Are you watching tv right now? Kind of.  “Dark” on Netflix.  I paused it briefly though to read these questions - its in German so I need to read the subtitles.

Are you wearing anything blue? No

Do you have a job? Yes..but I’ve been thinking about quitting so I can move back to the city I loved.  Life is too short to live in a place you don’t like and I’ve seen other jobs I can apply for so I’m not worried.

Is your car messy? No, I like to keep it clean.

When did you last have whipped cream? This morning..I like using heavy whipping cream in my coffee (as opposed to the other creamers that are all sugar).  My husband uses the canned/aerosol whipped cream in his coffee though.

How far away is the closest house? Literally down 2 flights of stairs.  I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment.

What street do you live on? On one that has a cool name

Are you dating anyone? I’m married.

What color is you computer? Both my laptop and desktop are black

Do you own an iPod? What color is it? I do!  I won an iPod at my high school graduation celebration (my class had a “lock in” at the school - basically they “lock” you in the school (from like 6pm to 6am) where you can play games, nap if you want, eat all sorts of junk food or just hang out and have a party for everyone graduating, it was a lot of fun.  They had a raffle before everyone went home the next morning and I won an iPod (this was in 2006 so a long time ago lol) But it was just the standard black one.

What is the most recent picture on your phone/camera of: UGH OMG so I forgot I took a picture of this DISGUSTING roach that I found in our apt on Friday night.  They’re not the tiny/infestation ones, they’re large “Palmetto Bug” roaches that tend to wander into houses that have cracks and our vents.  Since I live in an apartment, theres not much I can do about it. I can’t wait to move!!!

Have you ever shot a gun? Oh definitely, we like to go to the gun range with my father-in-law.  Its a great way for us to bond and I hope to God I’ll never ever have to actually use one but I like the idea of not being completely defenseless if someone breaks into my house (as I’m small and could easily get overpowered)

What temperature is it? Maybe 70 in the apt but probably 80s outside? Do you know anyone with a third nipple? Uh..no.

What do your parents do for a living? My Mom is a dental hygienist and my Dad is an Electrician.

Have you ever had a pet that had babies? No :/ I always thought that would have been fun though

Which grocery store is closest to you? Publix

Do you have a hamper in your room? Yes

Do you know anyone that's a nurse? Yes but I haven’t talked to him in years.

Do you know someone with the name Alaina? No

What color is the blanket on your bed? Ahh, black blankets, blue blankets, purple blanket..we have like 4 or 5 blankets on our bed.

What are your parent's middle names? Well, one starts with an “S” the other starts with an “E”

Have you ever broken a bone? Yes, kind of

Do you wear braces or glasses? I wear glasses and had braces growing up.

What color are they? I’m assuming my glasses?  They’re black and have tiny stars in the corner. 

Are you currently reading a book? Yes, I’m reading “Legends of the Alfar” by Markus Heitz

When did you last get your blood drawn? Its been quite a few years

Have you ever done hard drugs? No, I’ve smoked weed before but didn’t like it.

How many contacts are in your phone? A lot but thats because I haven’t deleted them.  If I deleted everyone I don’t talk to, there wouldn’t be many.

Does your toilet have a seat cover? No.

What's currently on your grocery list? I have a whole list.  We haven’t been to the grocery store in a few days but we need to go when I get off work.

What things do you take with you everywhere? Wallet, phone, car keys..and my Zune (yes, the MP3 player from like 2000 lol)

Do you know someone that is/was over 100 years old? No but my Great-Grandpa is still living and he’s 96

Was your HS principal a girl or a boy? Woman I think..I actually don’t remember

Have you ever eaten a raw egg? No

Do you own any rings? Yes

Have you eaten fruit today? Not yet.  I’ve peeled 2 clementines for my breakfast when I get to work though

What about milk? Nope, not for a couple weeks.

What letter does your state start with? F

Could you list all 50 states? Easily.

What about their capitals? No, I used to be able to though

What internet browser do you use? Firefox.

Do you know anyone that lives in Wyoming? No, but my Husband and I joke about just leaving everything and moving there sometimes (to just get away from all the idiocy we see in this city).  I can’t believe there are only 500,000 people living in the entire state!

Do you smoke cigarettes? No

Which person you know has the most unique name? A few I suppose

Do you know someone that's missing a limb? No

Do you have facial hair? I don’t but my husband does Are you a bad person? I’m not and I hope no one thinks I am

What was the last swear you said? Bullshit (referring to my state closing beaches for Independence Day - yes I realize this was over a week ago but it still annoys me)

Have you ever called the police on someone? No

What is the most amount of pets you've had at one time? Two - a cat and dog

When did you last check your email? Yesterday.

Have you ever had a 3rd degree burn? No

Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Yes, I fainted at work on time and they brought me to the hospital to find out what was wrong - thankfully it was nothing major

How long is your hair? About the middle of my back

Do you lock your doors at night? Oh yeah, they’re always locked even when we’re home.

Does your bedroom have a lock? Our bedroom doors do not

What do you have at your bedside? I have a table with old mail, a clock and sometimes my book (I want to read more before bed instead of looking at my phone)

How big is your bed? King

Do you know someone that was murdered? No

Do you know someone who's pregnant? No.  My friend was pregnant recently but she miscarried :(

Do you wear a watch? No, but I want to start wearing one!

What was your first pet? A cat

How much jewelry do you own? Not too much.  I don’t really wear jewelry.

What is the closest purple thing? My EXO pencil bag - it has their logo in a galaxy themed colors (purple, blue and green)

Green? Same thing as above

What time is it? 7:44am

What is your ideal profession? I wish I knew!! I have no idea :(

How tall are you? Like 5′0

Have you ever gotten x-rays? Yes

Do you wear gloves in the winter? I would but its never Winter in FL.

Do you consider yourself smart? Eh, so so.  I’m not stupid but I”m also not a genius.  I’m just average.

What color eyes are the prettiest? Gray-Blue eyes or Dark brown

Are your teeth straight? Yes

Do you like chocolate milk? I do but I don’t drink it because of all the sugar

Do you own a bike? No, I haven’t in years.  I want to buy one though but theres not really a place to bike where I live right now.

Are you taller than your mom? No, she’s like 5′1 lol so she’s just barely taller than me

Have you ever been engaged? Yes :)

What, in your opinion, is the ugliest name? I dont’ know, I don’t particularly like the old style names though

[lunaflvms]

CRYING spiders are the worst pls and you live in Australia right? 😭 I'm praying for you those things be as big as my face down there ☠️ EW NOT THE ROACHES TOO OML 🧟 this is the reason i have bugspray with me all day everyday those things NASTY and when they fly 😵 lord take me away 😵 summer is fr the worst huh <///3 istg i got bitten by like 60 mosquitos last night, i ain't even safe in my own house 💔💔💔 winter>>>>>

Lmao my name is somewhere on my blog but you can call me Olivia!! Olive, Livie, Liv anything you like beffie <333

STOP IT LICH RALLY BYE THE COCKROACH THAT I SAW FLIED PAST MY FACE I LITERALLY THREW MY PHONE ACROSS THE KITCHEN TABLE i am going through flashbacks it was so traumatising 🙁👆 BYE AND YEAH IM FROM AUS 😓 luckily the spiders here in brisbane arent too big theyre just regular sized 💀💀 still they scare the living shit outta me like get out of my house⁉️⁉️⁉️ bye i ran out of bug spray cuz i sprayed it everywhere 😭 no cuz literally summer is overrated booo 😒👎👎👎 everyones like omg i can go tanning and all that and the beaches 🙁 but winter literally is sm better and the clothes u can wear in winter too is wayyy better u dont have to worry about sweating and bye⁉️ i fr hate mosquitos like they contribute to nothing in this world 😒 im allergic to them so whenever i get bitten they swell up into blisters 😭 but i hope urs are okay 😓 anyways ill probably call you liv 😋 it sounds nice 😍

[princeofgod-2021]

LIGHT OF LIFE 77

John 1:4

KEEP MOVING...DON’T STOP! 4 – STAYING ALERT!

Exo 13:21-22 During the day the LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud to show them the way, and during the night he went in front of them in A PILLAR OF FIRE TO GIVE THEM LIGHT, SO THAT THEY COULD TRAVEL NIGHT AND DAY. The pillar of cloud was always in front of the people during the day, and the pillar of fire at night. GNB

I’ve noted that most pests (Roaches, rats, mosquitoes bed bugs etc.) move in on you or occupy your space as soon as they sense you are in the dark, asleep and quiet.

Is that true?

If your enemy hated you so much but knows he is incapacitated in power, when measured with yours, he can only hope to catch you NAPPING.

Mat 24:43 If the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, you can be sure that he would stay awake and not let the thief break into his house. GNB

Activities of Night Marauders are limited and kept at bay as long as we are awake and moving.

But now, let’s us look again at I Th 5. Let’s continue from where we stopped last time.

1Th 5:4 My dear friends, you don't live in darkness, and so that day won't surprise you like a thief. CEV

The Alertness in the Dark is not only about watching out against evil but mainly because it is the nature of our Creator not to sleep and He doesn’t expect His children to love sleep either.

That is why it says: “you don’t live in darkness”; we are just passing through it.

Psa 139:11-12 Suppose I wanted to hide from you and said, "Surely the darkness will hide me. The day will change to night and cover me." Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are the same. ERV

Pro 20:13 Do not be a lover of sleep, or you will become poor: keep your eyes open, and you will have bread enough. BBEE

Our reward in heaven gets greater as we exercise our relevance by shinning as light right in the midst of Darkness.

That was how Jesus did it, and we cannot hope to do lesser.

Php 2:15 so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky, GNB

Joh 1:5 The light shines in the dark, and the dark has never extinguished it. GW

We are created to rule all creation, both in the dark or Light (Gen 1:16), so how can we explain sleeping in the dark or only waking just to run, hide or safeguard ourselves?

Remember God calls us “watchmen”, not “security guards”.

Isa 62:6-7 Jerusalem, I put GUARDS on your walls. They will not be silent. They will keep praying day and night. Guards, keep praying to the LORD. Remind him of his promise. Don't ever stop praying. Don't give him any rest until he rebuilds Jerusalem and makes it a place that everyone on earth will praise. ERV

I deliberately quoted a version that used Guards in place of watchmen. Now tell me: how do security guards become prayer warriors for issues of righteousness of the Nation?

They are watchmen to behold the activities of the night, assess the souls that are in torment or bondage in the dark, and decree their release and salvation.

This is how God works.

Psa 121:4 Look! The one who is guarding Israel never sleeps and does not take naps. ISV

Christians must stop living as though they are the ones that are vulnerable whenever night or evil; comes around.

It is rather the Night that is terrified of us because of what we carry.

We are to be in the nature and character of our Father, and being Kings and Priests unto Him (Rev 1:18), should [in His name and strength] watch over and take care of His creation.

Proverb 20: 8 A righteous King sits on his judgement seat. He scatters evil away from his kingdom by his wise discernment. TPT

A Landlord is supposed to walk around his property every night and ascertain that all is well.

I hope we all know that our individual kingdom is made up of both the dark and Lighted places?

Act 10:38 You know about Jesus from Nazareth. God made him the Messiah by giving him the Holy Spirit and power. Jesus went EVERYWHERE doing good for people. He healed those who were ruled by the devil, showing that God was with him. ERV

“…he went everywhere” means both in the Dark and Light, He was watching, walking and working, snatching the oppressed right from the jaws of the devil, because He is The King!

Lastly, I Th 5:4 says you shouldn’t be caught napping. It simply implies that you should be prepared for any surprises the devil springs on you. It’s no big deal if you don’t know that day.

The sound of Marching of the Israelites alone during the night is enough to scare even the wildest animals away, and should any of them be attacked, the rest will finish such predator off.

May your victory be sure every hour in Jesus name, Amen.

Be back on Friday for more on this thought-provoking subtopic.

Keep Shinning!

Brother Prince

Wednesday, August 4, 2021.

08055125517; 08023904307

[magicpony45]

I live in Florida, and there are many things that are very common in Florida. Gators, for example, there are two living in the lake behind my house. Snakes, extremely poisonous, also in that lake. Pools, because we can't swim in the lakes, what with all the gators and snakes, I've lived in a million different places across the state, even apartment complexes have pools. Spiders, all over my back porch. Cockroaches, also all over my back porch. Those last two make swimming in the pool very difficult for one as cowardly as myself, so I don't tend to swim much, despite how unbearably hot it is absolutely everywhere

My mom tells me she brought in an exterminator to deal with the roaches and spiders, they even sprayed on the porch

"Wow," I think, "this is great, I can finally go out on the porch again. I think I'll go swimming tonight, now that there's no bugs out there"

I get my swimsuit on, I tie my hair back, I do all the things I need to do to go for a late night swim by the glow of the pretty little lamps in the sides of the pool

I walk outside, and immediately through a spider web

[shootingstarmemories]

get to know me

I was tagged by the lovely @smol-syub​ ilyyyy <333

Rules: Tag ten people you would like to get to know

Age: 25 aka old af

Birthplace: manhattan

Current time: 22:50

Drink you last had: green tea, which I think is the same drink as last time I was tagge

Favorite song: I’ve got many I love, lol. Daesung’s Wings and Shut Up are two I always go back to though~ and BIGBANG’s Flower Road has been stuck in my head lately

Grossest memory: okay, I said a different memory last time but this one was also pretty traumatic. like, I’m terrified of roaches and water bugs, so when I was ten or so I played mini golf one steamy summer night and there were water bugs everywhere. they were literally crawling on everything and I was wearing shorts and flip flops and all the people around me were shrieking as well but we paid for it so we were damn well gunna play. I go to putt the ball and there was half a fuckin’ water bug waving it’s nasty little giant legs at me on my putter and I fucking screamed and beat it to death because ew also it was suffering. so then I go to pick my ball up and the other half the water bug is on there twitching and i just. Fuckin. Grabbed. It.

Horror, yes or no: never ever ever

In love: nope

Jealous of people: all the time over everything, lmao.

Love at first sight or I walk by again: more like I need to walk by ten times, but yeah

Middle name: demarest

Siblings: a brother

One wish: mmm, I wanna look better. like, I want a better body and face and skin, ahaha. I’m not in the mood for self-love rn

Song I last sang: BIGBANG’s Sunset Glow

Time I woke up: at, like, half eleven

Vacation destination: everywhere?? I mean I’m taking off friday for a three day weekend so I’ve got time to scream about BTS/at their concert before I gotta go back to work and fake normal, so there’s that, ahaha

Worst habit: slow spirals in to a bitter pit of despair? or being so fucking lazy

Favorite food: peking duck from peking duck house in nyc, or the molten lava cake at kona cafe in disney world 

Zodiac: aries

I think I tagged almost everyone the other times I did this, or they were tagged already, ahaha;;; but!! I would like to get to know all of you more ^^ especially @minsuga-dt

[loquaciousquark]

Very brief house/bug update for those who have asked:

Entire roof has been replaced (out of pocket, ugh). Soffit on west wall has been entirely rebuilt and the wasp’s nest I didn’t know was there has been taken care of. New gutter and two new downspouts have been installed and painted to match house, which should deal with the last of the major drainage issues on that side.

Tomorrow they come to begin the interior work. I expect the entire west interior wall to be taken down :(. They’ll remove the water damaged drywall and ceiling, take out all insulation, dry out all wet wood and treat any mold, and then reinstall new insulation, drywall, ceiling, and paint.

There’s also one strip on the front of the house that needs to be repainted after the roof installation. Not sure when that will happen, but they say it will be done at some point. They also expect the whole interior repair to take anywhere from a week to three weeks depending on how much water remains in the wall and how extensive the interior damage is. This is the last thing before all critical repairs of the house are done--which is when I’m sure the AC will blow or the floor collapse or something. :/

As far as the roaches go, I bought a bunch of highly rated liquid bait from Amazon and put ‘em out everywhere. I hadn’t seen any for three or four days and then I moved the toaster and one skittered up into the crack between my stove hood and the cabinet, and not twenty minutes later another darted under the washing machine when I opened the back door, so they’re definitely not dead yet. The bait in the kitchen is also surrounded by roach poop, so IDK if it’s just killing all the roaches or not killing any of them and just feeding them because they’re too big to get into it. Either way, if they’re not gone by the end of October, I’m just going to call a pest service. Ain’t got no time nor patience for this kinda thing, y’all.

The worst part is that this is a week of twelve hour workdays thanks to a major practical for the second years, and I can’t take off any time to be home with Hamlet. Mom’s coming in tomorrow to make sure everything’s okay with day one of destruction, and Jasper may be able to take him from tomorrow evening until Thursday night, but I have no idea what I’m going to do with him next week. He may have to stay with the vet or in his kennel for a few days in the worst case scenario. :( He just can’t be in the house loose while they’re working, and he will  h o w l  if I leave him in the kennel upstairs while they’re destroying things downstairs.

...I wonder...if I move his kennel downstairs where he can see, would he tolerate that better? I might try that before the vet next week. We’ll have to see.

Anyway, I have to be up in four hours for work so I’m gonna...gonna leave it here. Had to move all the furniture and the gaming desktop tonight after she texted me at 9:30 asking if they could start tomorrow. Sigh.

[victakestaipei]

WEEK 1 RECAP: drip drying, pot stickers, and hand-sized snails

I’ve realized that during the weeks here, I’m going to be pretty busy. I am trying to keep a schedule (routine) so that I can have some sort of stability/consistency in this still-unfamiliar place. As a result, I will probably stick to blogging on the weekends, because my “me time” isn’t in excess like I’d hoped. So, with that…

Let’s start with Monday/Tuesday:

As you all know from my previous post, I had a bit of a stressful first day. But things definitely started looking up as the week trucked by…

I started taking the bus to class after the first day. As it turns out, the bus is way more convenient than the MRT. It’s less walking (to get to the bus stop) and it arrives to school in like 7min, and drops me off right across the street from the building that all of my classes are in. The bus is also cheaper than the MRT too! It’s just better in all aspects. One thing to note though is that the bus starts and stops pretty abruptly, so if aren’t holding on to something before the doors close, you will definitely lose balance and find yourself stumbling into the poor old asian woman standing next to you, minding her own business, umbrella and shopping bags in hand.

In terms of my class, that’s a long story so I’ll condense it a bit for ya’ll. My teacher’s name is Cheng, or “Cheng Lao Shi” (meaning Teacher Cheng). And it’s interesting to note the different dynamic of the Asian classroom. First off, there are 7 of us in the class.. three Americans, three Indonesians, and one Swiss guy. Our teacher is friendly and charismatic, like I said in my previous post. But now that the week has ended, I can tell she has this sort of dark humor.. and her facial expressions tell you everything you need to know about what she thinks of your horrible Chinese grammar. I try not to be sensitive because I know it’s not personal, but it’s hard when you already feel insecure about speaking Chinese to begin with. She also, like other Asian teachers, is keen on comparing the students… She says how one student in my class has horrible handwriting, and says that she should practice more so that she can write characters beautifully like I do. (which is a nice compliment I must admit, but she really ain’t had to say all that ya feel?) She even asked me (in front of the entire class) if I would help said student write better… It’s just awkward for me ya know? We all sort of joked/laughed about it but I know that if it was me I would have wanted to pop off.

We also have daily quizzes and homework which keeps me busy at night after I have my daily nap (yes you heard that right, daily nap)… And on my second writing quiz I got a 93%!! Hooray for progress!!

After class my friend Jeannie and I headed out to scout out the on-campus gym. Come to find out, since I am an exchange student and technically a student of NTNU, I get free membership! It is a small facility in terms of the weight lifting area, but the building as a whole is huge, and three or four floors. The weight lifting area has some pretty old/dusty machines, but they keep the AC blasting (thank God) and it has all the necessities I need. On Wednesday after class I headed to the gym with Jeannie and did leg day/abs, and then on Thursday I did back day/abs, and Friday I did chest/shoulders/abs. The locker rooms in the gym are also super duper nice. But I always forget that there’s no toilet paper in the bathroom… By Friday I finally got it through my thick skull that I need to bring my own toilet paper to the gym and into the bathroom itself. Drip drying has to be the most uncomfortable thing on Earth… but ya do what ya gotta do I suppose. 

walking around NTNU after learning about my free gym membership^

Wednesday:

On Wednesday I got up a bit later than I wanted to, so I headed straight to the grocery store after leaving the house in the AM so that I could grab some fruit for breakfast and head to the bus stop. I got a bit turned around when trying to find the bus stop, so I was a little stressed about the possiblity of being late to class. I hopped on the bus around 10am, and I still made it to campus by 10:10, giving me 10 minutes to cross the street and head up the elevator to my classroom. Class dragged on, and I found myself looking forward to those little 10minute breaks we get after every 1-hour of class. After class I hit the gym, and then after the gym Jeannie and I were craving smoothies. We found a cheap spot on the street market with fresh mango smoothies for 60NT! ($2 US). That smoothie had to be one of the best smoothies I’ve had. The mangoes here are so sweet and fresh and just bomb. I ended up getting another smoothie the following day (hehe). After the smoothies we hit up this other food stand where we got some really good fried squid and french fries (not your typical post-gym meal, but it was delicious). I definitely can see myself eating tons of calamari while I’m here because they offer it everywhere, so it’s good that I’m working out because all of this fried food can’t be good for my “summer body” lol.

the mango smoothie place ^ and the fried squid/french fries   v

Today was also the deadline to pay my dorm payment, which was 8800NT (around $295 US [for the entire summer]). Not too shabby right?? After lunch I hopped on the bus and headed home. On my way in, I stopped at the nearby 7/11 to use the ATM and make the payment. Here in Taipei you can go to the 7/11 for just about anything:  printing, copy machine, fax, ATM, food, drinks, buying train tickets, making payments, etc). And there’s a 7/11 on just about every street corner, making it all the more handy. However, I had alot of trouble at the ATM, and it was pretty frustrating. I have a Chase bank account that I never really use (not in the past 4 years at least). I definitely prefer to use my Wells Fargo account, but since my mom uses Chase, it’s easier for me to use that card because my mom can just send me money directly from her account and it’s instant. But, with my Chase account, I didn’t tell them about my travel plans so when I was trying to use the ATM (for my second withdrawal of the day), I was flagged and they put a protective block/hold on my account. After inserting my debit card about 5 more times, I finally gave up and went home. I was able to pay my dorm fee because I already had some cash on hand, and also my first withdrawal was a succcess. I called on Thursday and got everything settled, but it still bugged the hell out of me that I stood there at the ATM like a dumbass. 

After I got home my roommate Bunny told me that she bought her ticket for the Phillipines (which we have been talking about/planning for a few days now). I also had trouble purchasing my ticket online at first, so Bunny paid for my flight (which was about $95 roundtrip) and I ended up venmo-ing her the money after getting off the phone with Chase International Customer Service. We leave for our Phillipines trip in two weeks! I’m PUMPED!!! We leave on Friday early AM (like 1:30 AM) and return Monday early AM (between 1-2 AM). Then I have class on the following Monday at 10am, so I’m sure Monday’s class will drag on even more so than this week had.

Bunny and I ordered pizza for dinner after finishing our homework, and the pizza actually wasn’t awful (to my surprise). I ate the whole thing too fast (because I was starving and it was personal-sized), and crawled into my bunk bed to lay on my stomach. I knocked out shortly after that. 

Thursday/Friday:

The end of the week flew by.. Bunny ended up joining our intensive class because her class level was a bit too easy for her, and we had an open seat available (most classes are 8 students). So now Nick, Bunny, Jeannie, and I are all on the same class schedule (10:15am-1:15pm), and Nick/Bunny/I all have the same exact class. It’s definitely a bit more fun now, and Bunny and I sit next to each other so we always share quick glances when the teacher starts to verge on saying inappropriate things (and quite frankly, wildin’ out on our classmates, and us (occasionally)). On Friday I was super sore at the gym from the previous two days, and decided to do a quick chest/shoulder day. Now that it’s Saturday I regret that decision, because now literally every part of my body hurts… from my thighs to my butt, to my back and my chest/arms. I’m a mess. Crawling in and out of my bunk bed is 10x harder and I can’t help but moan in pain everytime I get up. 

For dinner on Thursday, Bunny and I found this hole-in-the-wall potsticker place right by our campus. 

As it turns out, this potsticker place is open from 8pm-3/4am, and they only serve potstickers, soup, and fried chicken. (the fried potstickers and fried chicken are pictured above ^) 

I have to give them a pat on the back though because they have a great location (right next to campus) and their hours of operation are superb. While walking to the potsticker spot, we ran into a couple quite large creatures. Some of them being large flying cockroaches (like thumb sized roaches with wINGS!!!!!) But the one I really want to note is this snail. We found a snail making it’s way across the sidewalk but it was about the length/size from the tip of my pinky to the bottom of my palm (where my palm and wrist connect). It was HUGE. and TERRIFYING!!!  

We had a test on Friday in class, so Bunny and I reviewed a bit before hitting the hay on Thursday… The test proved to be quite easy actually so I feel really good about it (though I don’t have the grade yet.) Friday’s class flew by and after the gym I headed home to shower and lay down. It’s finally the weekend and I can finally relax knowing I have absolutely nothing to do until Monday. Lord knows I won’t do my assigned homework until Sunday night anyway, so I figured I would just enjoy this small break while it lasts. I would’ve blogged yesterday (Friday), but I elected to binge watch Netflix instead and I have no regrets. Last night (Friday night) we headed out around 9:30 to go to the movies! Bunny really wanted to watch the new Spiderman movie and it actually wasn’t bad. Yes the movie was in English (with Chinese subtitles) and the tickets were only 240NT (around $8 US), and for an extra 60NT ($2), we could have gotten popcorn and a drink!! Crazy how cheap everything is… but I decided to just buy the movie ticket because I wasn’t hungry after dinner and I had my hydro with me. Spiderman was definitely a good end to the week, although I wish Zendaya would have been the love interest instead of whoever the hell that other black girl was.

[friendlyneighborhood-fangirl]

Dear Tumblr Diary,

Ok so I moved out on my own in July of last year, and I had 4 other roommates. One was my boyfriend Devin, another was named Dylan and the other two where a couple named McKenna and Chad. Things where crazy but imma catch y’all up cause I feel like I need to tell someone this before I go crazy and nobody I know can find my tumblr.

So we are set to move into this trailer owned by a family friend on July 1st, but the people living there before us left the place trashed and my landlord RiRi had to fix the place up before we moved in. Me being the inpatient woman I am offered to help clean and fix the place up. So my best friends Grace and Pasty (who happen to be sisters) waltz are happy little butts up there to clean this place up.

Y’all. They where not kidding when they said this place was trashed. We spent TWO DAYS cleaning this place. One day to get all the crap out and the next to scrub it down and sanitize everything like out life depended on it. We where having fun with it tho. Everything was good we where just finishing up sanitizing the kitchen and everybody started moving their stuff in on the 2nd.

But then it happened. We where in a trailer built in the 70s in southern Louisiana. Roaches. Roaches everywhere. We moved the stove and the flooded out from the depths of hell. So we left and came back later with bombs. Like the recommended bug bomb size was like three or four cans for a whole big ass house but we went all out. We got 12 for this tiny little trailer and smoked those motherfuckers out. And then didn’t come back till the fourth. We ended up needing to Bomb again in august but it was not Nearly as bad so it’s all good. Anyways we got everything cleaned and resanitized and had ourselves a 4th if hult house warming party that night.😁

[ecotone99]

[OT] Old school party

playlist

Where does this story belong? Instagram (not on that). Twitter (seems too long, and I don't tweet). Blogger (who blogs these days?). Snapchat? (please, i'm not 13). Whatsapp (I don't even know what that is). Facebook? (no good pictures and too long)... a story i wrote 25 years ago, and updated in 2007. Does this short story stand the test of time? I'll let you decide. But I did snap the playlist that was saved from the Saturday morning cleanup... and somehow I saved it for the last 30 years in my nostalgia bin. good times. "I wish there was a way to know you're in the 'good old days' before you've actually left them" - Andy Bernard. Excuse any typos. I don't feel like correcting any of them at this late moment.

308 stanton last updated: 20-jul-07

so it was decided. we would indeed throw a party at our house. we’d kicked the idea around for months prior, but nobody championed the idea, so it never came together. this time, we still didn’t have a champion for the effort, but we all kind of came to a zen-like calmness about the decision to go thru w/ it. while waiting in some incredibly long beer lines (really, more like beer circles, with the keg at the center of the concentric circles of folks waving their plastic beer cups) at the Green House, only 5 short blocks away from our house, we finally told each other enough times that we were sick of waiting in other people’s houses, while the beer-gods up front w/ the taps decide who drinks right away (young, good looking women who are friendly, and whoever lives there), and who waits (all males who aren’t actually living at the house or from the house guys’ hometowns).

there were a few party houses that had developed nicknames and that didn’t need directions or street names to go along w/ them. kind of like the ‘cher’, ‘prince’ and ‘madonna’s of the iowa state university campustown houses. we had the ‘gamma Gs’ (a fake frat / party house on lincoln ave). we had the green house (a mint green party house on knapp). we had the ‘pink house’. and we had ‘230 campus’ (a collection of apartments w/ loose keg policies, and plenty of opportunities for crashing parties). we had others, too, but they already have slipped away from my mind forever. the real question was: could we compete w/ the old established houses and get anyone to come to this new location? (‘old, established’ is relative, of course. in real years, their reputations were about 3 years old. but in ‘college time’, tho, it was like 2 generations, like 40-college-years. an eternity. legendary) what if we threw a party and nobody came? we had egos to protect. and our pocketbooks (stupid name... let’s just call em wallets) and we had so many unknowns that could ruin the event (a blizzard, a potentially mega-huge competing party, possible ‘barn dances’ the same night [but that’s another whole story there, the infamous isu ‘barn dances’. pay your $5, get on an old yellow school bus, get driven 15 miles out to the boonies to some guys barn, drink your guts in, puke your guts out, make the rounds and hit on all the women (who make up a HUGE 15% of the party, jump on a bus that leaves every 15 minutes back to campus, stagger home… yack in the bushes a few times if need be. well, i guess that doesn’t require a whole new story, just thick brackets] ).

so, we picked a friday 2 weeks out. it was the dead of winter, early on in the new semester, w/ only a cyclone basketball game as the only known conflict. 308 stanton avenue, ames, ia, 50012 had keggers before, but outside ones, in the summer, where the house can be locked down. this would need to be an entirely inside party (feb in iowa). and this would be a ‘blow-out’ party. or at least we planned for that. not just one (or maybe 2) kegs and an invite list of close friends and neighbors (no lockdown needed. no duct taping cupboards, couches in front of bedroom doors, turnaround the tv, hide the remotes and CDs, tape the fridge shut, etc. this would be a take no prisoners (unless they pony up the $3) kind. totally open to whoever moseyed by. we had connections to a ‘band’ (i knew a band member from honors program, who lived in the ‘pink house’ (cory S). roach (my roommate), knew another band member from same band from his hometown. yup, need quotes around that ‘band’ word. 4 guys who all had instruments. and different instruments! that’s all you need to be called a band. erik, corey, zit, and ?. they agreed to play for our party. that was a good thing. i either forget their band name, or they didn’t have one (yet). nirvana or some such. i’m sure they didn’t amount to anything. but who knows? this was unique enough that strangers would be tempted to go to a house party w/ an actual live band playing. at least we hoped. we reached a point of no return when we reserved the kegs on the monday before. how many to buy? and how many to put on reserve? we settled on getting 3 up front, and 3 on reserve. had to put down some ‘serious’ money for them, and for the tap deposit, and the keg deposit. we had to scrape the money together, tapping out atm cards and bringing back cans/bottles for nickel apiece, etc (pry about $150 which of course now doesn’t seem as much as back then, when we were all about 2-4 years into paying out w/out ever receiving anything back yet).

so, we all worked our contacts all week. we stopped by our old dorm floors to tell everyone to come, and have them announce it at their weekly floor meetings. we even (or at least i did, can’t speak for my roommates) put up signs in the bathrooms and hallway and den on the old floor, to make sure the message got out. told all my classmates in every class (even the ones who normally don’t party hop, which was most of them. chemical engineers just don’t party. even at college. at least most of em). on the engineers side of campus (the ugly, male-dominated side. all the good looking co-eds in education stayed on the opposite side of campus, safely away from us), after 3 years, its amazing how many people you recognize by just walking around between buildings, even at a huge school of 25,000. we were like jehovas witnesses or magazine sellers, we would tell everybody we knew (either by their names, or maybe just their faces) about friday’s party. by the end of the week (thursday), most people i told about the party would say, “i know, i know, i heard about it like 20 times now”. that was a good sign. but i took that to mean that my roommates and me had just told them about it 5 times each.

we over prepared for it, that’s for sure. i blew off friday afternoon classes (but i made it to my 8:00 AM p-chem) we cleaned the house up. big time. in the old forgotten corners, we found and cleaned out magazines and unopened mail that were 10 years old. we put away everything valuable or breakable. we duct taped our kitchen cabinets shut, which included our very valuable raman noodles and assorted tupperware for storing leftover pizza, as well as glass-glasses. we duct-taped the fridge. we decided to barricade the bedroom doors w/ couches. (our house had one big, open room, full of old couches, and bedrooms shooting off of it, so it wasn’t difficult to do it. of course, we kept finding reasons to need to go into the bedrooms, so we constantly kept ‘sealing’ and ‘unsealing’ all the bedroom doors all afternoon. we totally cleaned out the bathroom of everything but one lil roll of toilet paper. moved all CDs, tvs, remotes, anything we could move, we moved, to bedrooms. we picked up the 3 kegs, putting 2 in the basement, and tapped one for upstairs. that was just for convenience and until folks (hopefully) started showing up. then we’d move that to the basement, too. the basement was the darkest, stinkiest, mustiest, mildewy-est, centipede over-ran hole in the ground (literally) i’ve ever seen. perfect for the dispensing of beer. we actually had someone voluntarily live down there. doug, who was only charged $50/month (we all paid $112) for some unknown reason, agreed to those living conditions. he laid down industrial strength plastic over the cracked, crumbling, dirty cement / cement dirt, put in some clothes lines for hanging all the clothes he owned, and put a mattress directly on the floor. he would always be bringing up to show us the biggest, most disgusting bugs/millipedes/centipedes/roaches that he found in his sheets. and he always smelled ‘musty’ when he first put on a new shirt and came up from down the dungeon. but the smell eventually wore off, or at least we got used to it. how HE got used to it is beyond me.

by 4:00, we were ‘ready’. the house looked so different.. so… clean. it put us in a goofy mood. a nervous mood. we had put the tv away, so the only thing we could do is listen to the stereo, play some darts, and wait. and drink. and wait. we were sitting on 3 full, cold kegs, slowly warming up. but we all just kinda sipped. it was gonna be a long night. even roach sipped. didn’t think that was possible for him to do. gotta pace ourselves. the band showed up, w/ their stuff. that was cool. it was one of their first ‘official’ gigs. they were playing for free, which was worked out beforehand. they were just glad to get top-(and only)-billing. and they told all of THEIR friends and ‘groupies’ to come, too, i assumed, or at least hoped. they found the most sturdy part of our floor to set up (which was a challenge. the floor was mushy, uneven, and spongy to the step almost everywhere. their amps and speakers were damn heavy, and they didn’t care about damaging our floor, they just didn’t want their expensive (rented?) things getting hurt as they fell thru the floor and landing on doug’s bed, or at least tipping over.

earlier in the week, we had recruited what we called (and in our defense, what everyone else in our world at ISU called), the ‘beer wench’. pry the most important person at the party. the pivot person. the go-to woman. except for any cops that may show up. the beer wench doled out the glasses, acted as a ‘bouncer’ to keep out high-school lookin kids, made sure nobody brought in their own glasses, but most importantly, collected the money. 3 for guys, 2 bucks for women. NO EXCEPTIONS. we knew if we had tried to collect the money ourselves, a few things would happen. we’d lose interest, we wouldn’t get beer in a timely manner ourselves, we’d get sweet-talked by our girl – friends (not just girlfriends, but … oh, i’m sure you understand) to not have to pay, and we wouldn’t be able to ‘mingle’. i can’t believe i forgot her name already… it’s only been 10 short years. cherry? lampy? i’ll come back to the name.. i’m sure i’ll wake up tonite at 3:00 AM shouting “April! April!” good thing the wife is in tampa. the B.W. was tough as nails, actually enjoyed being a *itch. and loved being in charge. getting her to help was the key, in hindsight, to a good party.

i remember the 5 of us (burk, woody, roach, doug, and me (aka homie – a name carried over from the dorm floor days of tone loc, when everybody was “me and my homies”) {scrappy and rebar minus doug would be the next generation to live there w/ us, but weren’t quite yet} standing in our empty house, nervously asking each other if we thought anyone will show up. we had no idea. oh, sure, we hoped, and we estimated, but what if only 17 folks showed up. hope they’re thirsty. and rich. we were a jangle of nerves, even tho we all tried hiding it.

luckily, at around 6, some folks started trickling in. some old dorm friends, duke and shu, came waaaay too early. i was the one who named duke, duke, back in the dorm days, cuz his name was john wayne H. that name stuck; John Wayne, The Duke. nobody knew him as john, and even as i write this, john sounds goofy… he was duke. wonder if that name stuck to him after college? pry not. folks like fuzzy from the roommates’ hometowns, and girlfriends, and some more stragglers started arriving, who we told to come early to drink before it got too crowded. and then, at about 7:30, the floodgates opened! this wasn’t new york city, where you went out at a stylish 11:00. here, you ate, then put on and up your party hair (for the flock of seagulls-type women), got together and started the night ASAP. in fact, you pry started right after classes on friday (F.A.C. Friday After Class drink specials. did any other campus have FAC bar parties?) like dime-a-tap-beer specials, the kind the city cops were always complaining about.

a crush of people started showing up, flowing in like a river. we moved the 3rd keg to the basement. the money started flowing in, and the beer flowing out. the volume picked up. we had achieved CPM. (critical party mass). the only thing that could extinguish CPM was running out of beer, or a visit from one of ames’ finest. plenty of beer was available, and the police stayed away all night. it was a sweet feeling being the giver of one of these, finally. barging to the front of the beer line (circle), and commandeering the tap. being able to fill up the young, nubile women’s glasses ahead of the obnoxious guys who i didn’t know. it was taken for granted that one must yield the power of the tapper to the owner of the house or his designated delegate upon request. all that power in one guys thumb. it was intoxicating. (or maybe it was just the beer. ok, it was definitely just the beer). the Beast. Milwaukee’s Best. cheapest stuff available. the basement, for the first time ever, actually was getting hot in the dead of winter. usually, our house stayed at about 65 degrees during day, and pry 50 or 55 at night (some mornings, and i don’t think i’m remembering this wrong, i could actually see my breath <insert bad breath jokes here>) doug had barricaded his ‘room’ off w/ his mattress and rope. it was still holding.

the band wanted to start warming up. the public enemy on the stereo was killed. it wasn’t like the opening of a U2 concert, let me tell ya. it just kind of ramped up… slowly.. so slowly.. guitarist tuning and playing some licks that were maybe recognizable. mic checks. random drumming. then, no friendly banter from the lead singer erik, welcoming us, or saying it was great to be at 308 stanton, ames. just the start of their first song of their first set of their first gig ever. and maybe it was just the beer (ok, most likely), but they sounded okay. i recognized their songs. they had the place rockin. people were actually dancing to them, and everyone was facing them. it was cool. i’m sure the band was into it, jammed into our corner, the throng pressing in on them.

during their first break, roach convinced me to help him w/ a ‘beer-ee-oaky’ song. put loud public enemy back on the stereo, and we would help chuck D belt out the verses using the band’s sound system. trust me, it sounds better when i type it than it sounded. i think we were unceremoniously escorted away from the mics by erik, to much applause.

i took a break to go across the street to 307 stanton. (aside: while co-op-ing (interning) at quantum chemical in lil old clinton/camanche, iowa, i looked for some off-campus housing for my return to State, i hooked up w/ roach, et. al who had found the house available at 308 stanton ave. unbeknownst to me, the future wife to be, B, had also been house hunting w/ some of her grrrrls. when she told me she found a house at 307 stanton, i thought she was pulling my leg (or pulling something). but nope. either she did some great detective work to find out where i was gonna live, and made sure she was close enough to be able to harass me, or it was serendipity. of the 25,000 student living quarters in ames, she picked the one 100 ft away. anyway, that led to “us” directly. 307 vs. 308. goofy how life works out. had she picked 230 campus ave who knows? i may be w/ one of becky’s roommates (hopefully not the goth i hate men patchouli wearin’ black dressin’ greasy hair unwashin’ coppin’ attitude liberal, pasty, pierced scary one w/ the 2 cats). anyway, becky (nee rebecca) was planning on being fashionably late to our party, and she was putting the finishing touches on her ‘party hair’ / peacock / bend over, hair spray your bangs, stand up. repeat, along w/ her friends/roommates maria and kelly. while at her house, at the upstairs windows, it was the perfect vantage point to take it all in over at 308. folks streaming up the sidewalks in waves, nay, armadas, from all directions, some carrying glasses (hope the BW confiscated em) and every time our front door opened, a huge plume of steam/smoke just poured out into the february night. really billowed out, like there was a fire inside. most of it was just hot, sweaty, humid air hitting the feb. cold, cuz there wasn’t many smokers there. it was somethin. wasn’t many cars out front, just a smattering (everyone lived walking distance to everything. one block off main campus street, in between everything, was 308). i loved that scene. was anxious to get back in the middle of it.

the peacock finally ready. getting back to the party, fighting our way thru the folks milling or waiting or getting cooled off or yacking or relieving or whatever, katie (kate! katie! the bw’s name! too lazy to correct it up there in the story, tho) was at the door, doing the her job better than anyone in the business. in fact, when i came back in, she was in distress. she looked relieved to see me. she immediately moved a couch and pulled me into the barricaded room (witte’s room) right by the door. i wondered why. here’s why: she then started pulling money out from every pocket and fold and sock and who knows where else. it was unbelievable. mostly crumpled ones, but a few fives and tens. damn! and she said that roach and burk had already cleaned her out a few times already. wow, a bed full of money... several inches high. i rolled it all up like the big shots do in the casino movies. ended up as a thick can-sized wad. and stashed it in witte’s backpack. never to be seen again. (nah, we all pooled all the money together in the ‘morning after’). thanked kate for her services, but told her it was only 10:00 and people still want glasses. went to the basement to freshen up the glass. some folks were relieving themselves in the way back corner. i started yelling at them, until i realized doug was back there, too, and it’s his room, so who was i to stop em? “hey! doug SLEEPS there! oh, hi, doug... nevermind. carry on”

near the beer, along w/ the countless plastic cups being held up, this one guy was actually holding up a sandwich tupperware, jockeying for position towards the tap. he had been drinking out of THAT. after working my way over to him, and trying to make him feel as stupid as he looked, i kindly suggested that he go buy a cup from kate and put back our favorite tuna sandwich tupperware. he was trying to tell me that that’s what they gave him at the door. i don’t think so. however, everybody’s attention quickly turned to the old 2 X 8 wood planks without railings that made up our stairs. roach was bounding down them, backwards, loudly, w/ a full keg tumbling right behind him. he was trying to hoist it down gently, but lost his footing. the keg landed on his left leg at the bottom of the steps, snapping his bone right at the upper ankle. ouch. first, he thought he’d drink thru the pain, and sat upstairs having folks beer him, sitting like a mafia don w/ his captains. finally, the wuss went to the hospital, got it set and casted, and actually made it back before the party was over. now THAT’s dedication. true anecdote.... actually, everything here is true... at least through the beer fogs of time. was too passé to have anyone sign the cast, but just put his casted leg up on a table, and folks kept his glass full.

upstairs, the band was working through their set list for the second (third?) time, but nobody cared. the game was to try to figure out the song first. sometimes, it took a few seconds (or minutes). burk then brought out his snake, Monty, the python. a big ball python about 7 feet long. coiled it around his neck, chomping on a big stogy ala schwartenagger. big guy was burke. played football as a freshman, i think. gave it up (or it gave him up) chicks dug the snake. and he passed it around to em. the snake loved squeezing necks. it was a huge, heavy thing, but always very sedate and nice. the heat inside the house was intense. crammed shoulder to shoulder absolutely everywhere. must’ve been 300 folks there. more kegs needed. someone already had picked up the 3 reserves, but we needed more. i enlisted duke and shu, along w/ becky (‘rebecca’ wouldn’t be born for another 5 yrs). <sermon time. yes, i realized i shouldn’t’ve been driving, but of the bunch, i was in the best condition. sorry as i was>. also, luckily, it wasn’t too far away. about a mile on slow city roads, w/ stop signs or lights every block. so, w/ 2 kegs in the trunk, and a few more in back seat, and w/ them sitting on em, and the back end almost riding on the tires, it was a precarious voyage back. had to break off some of the benjamins (oh, wait... i mean jeffersons and lincolns in cold cash, homie!) but we received a hero’s welcome back at 308. well, ‘we’ didn’t, i guess, but the beer did. hundreds of dry coeds and guys, having only drunk 1.50 worth, or 0.0 worth, or 5.0 worth, but still! a dry house! oh, the horrors. we had borrowed a second tap from someone earlier in the night, so the beer was disappearing quick. almost too quick.

a gaggle of chemE’s even showed up, and were off in a corner, in a tight group, looking shell-shocked, sipping their beers. maybe this shouldn’t have been the first party to invite them to, because everything was to the extreme. not for the timid. we (roommates/me) worked the crowd w/ pitchers of beer, whenever we got the chance or felt altruistic. i always started in that chemE corner w/ a pitcher and worked out from there, so they wouldn’t have to fight their way downstairs into the most aggressive beer circle i’d ever seen. tempers usually didn’t flare up, tho, even tho folks got spilled on, pushed, crushed, stepped on, because it was just par for the course. expected. and most everyone knew everyone else, or at least knew somebody who knew somebody else. no beer-rage here.

finally, the band wrapped things up (no encores, thankfully). they did an impressive job, and certainly didn’t embarrass themselves or our fine house’s reputation. back to the stereo, back to public enemy and other old school hiphop (and for roach: milli vanilli, who still liked that damnable trashy cd even after they were discredited as pop-induced lip synchers). and his milli vanilli posters and milli vanilli do-rags and ripped t-shirts and autographed 8x10 glossies? oh, c’mon! well, not really. he was more into new kids on the block. some young lil freshman-like girls thought nothing could be better than some garth brooks and some ac/dc, and that new rap *hit had to go. they kept trying to break into roach’s room to change the music. bad idea. they were escorted out. really annoying. “no! we want garth! not this rap sh**!”

after cleaning out katie (the BW) one more time, i made an executive decision. (actually, i think i ran it by whoever roommates i could find, just to make sure they agreed) i gave the band some playing money. 20 bucks apiece. of course, they weren’t insulted by the paltry sum. rather, they were thrilled at the unexpected windfall, which looked bigger than it actually was, via the delivery method of handing them crumpled, uneven, mismatched fists of cash. this was their first paying gig. they stuck around to see if any ‘groupies’ appeared, but nope, just the same friends they always party with. the band was always high on my pitcher refill list, too, right behind the circle of cowering chemEs.

people started filing out after 11-12ish. not a mad rush, but the direction was certainly out, not in. some pizzas should have been ordered w/ part of the windfall, but nobody got around to it. katie gave up the glasses job. we insisted that she take 20, or 40, or whatever a handful of wet, badly folded, mismatched bills was worth, because w/out her diligence, we would have not cleared half of what we did.

i didn’t have the energy or incentive to un-barricade my room, and chose instead the quiet, warm, dry, smoke-free puke-free, noise-free environs of 307 to crash for the night. i guess the fact that becky-the-big-party-haired-woman was there may have had something to do w/ that decision, too, tho, in retrospect, but actually not too much. even if sister ezekiel (a short, warted, mean nun in full nun-wearables) from my from 2nd grade teacher/nun had been in 307 instead of becky, i STILL would have went there.

the next morning was a bit surreal. walking back over to 308 mid-morning, still in a groggy/drunk mode, i couldn’t help but notice a few things. someone had written a big “NO BEER” with lipstick, on our house siding, right by the front door. kind of like a scarlet letter, scaring away would-be late partiers who heard about a great party too late. or maybe someone from inside kept getting woken up by folks wanting to ‘party’, and thought that sign would keep them from knocking. the front and side yard (and i’ll try not to be too graphic here) was a mixture of melted snow, and plenty of once-ran-through beer remains, as well as ample evidence of mass-indigestion. the bottoms of our house and nearby cars had all the salt and mud washed off them, many times over, in nice little ‘golden arches’. mcdonalds would be proud.

that was just a inkling of what the inside of the house had in store. in fact, it was worse than outside. the green matted shag carpet was barely visible under the broken plastic cups, cigarette and cigar butts, ripped up posters, overturned couches and cushions, some random bottles folks had brought in to tie (tide?) them over until the keg glasses could be filled, some wet rugs and pillows, muddied papers / newspapers and whatever else we didn’t lock up. the rug (that was visible) was soaked w/ melted snow, mud and spilled beer. witte was sleeping on a chair – apparently, he didn’t feel up to breaking thru his bedroom-barricade, either. as he was still waking up, tho, he was worried, and was mumbling about monty. the last thing he knew or remembered from last night, he had the snake, monty. and now, he no longer had the snake, and the snake wasn’t in its cage, and nobody has seen it after witte. so, ever so gently, we started digging for Monty. the snake needed to be found. somewhere. thankfully, he finally turned up in a couch, underneath the cushions, and no worse for wear (at least that we could see). we unwound him from the “C” wire cushion bottoms and returned him to his safe, warm glass cage. he needed to see a snake-therapist for months after this episode.

someone had tried running through a wall by the front door. they made it about half way through. if only i had the tools and know-how of sheetrocking then that i have now, i coulda done magic on that wall. however, a big, free poster for Bud (the bud girls.. remember them, in their ‘bud’ bathing suits written across 3 buxom babes and their underlying bud towel?) hid the hole just at good, and was a lot quicker, too. also, we had no running water. also, someone smashed the natural gas meters in the basement (why, we still wonder). also, the toilet was clogged and broken. the sink was clogged. the hot water heater wouldn’t re-light (someone must have saw it as a convenient ‘watering hole’ and of course every self-respecting guy needs to have a target in mind or have a watering post to help the flow). the main table we used for whatever (newspapers, phone messages, backpacks, groceries) was missing a leg.

but, oh, well, on the positive note, the party was a smashing success. literally. everyone slowly got up, and started putting the house back together. no radio. no tv. no stereo. no loud noises, period. the basement beer mud was thick, and smelly? damn! we all collected the money’s we had squirreled away (pockets, backpacks, hiding spots) and put it into a big pile. a very impressive pile. a foot tall, few feet across. wow. settled up the costs for the extra kegs, and tried to recount how much was given away, and to whom. i forget how much we each cleared, but it was a helleva lot more than we ever thought it would be. about 50 future keggor fees, i think. but we didn’t do it for the money. we did it just for the sake of doing it. with much of the proceeds, we set up a very healthy toilet paper / paper towel endowment fund for the house.. and we were the foundation chairs for this endowment. usually, we just traded in cans/bottles at a nickel a pop when we were way past desperate in the toilet paper arena. but now, we were now rich w/ paper! a whole semesters worth of no-worry bathroom visits.

roach’s leg healed no problem. (altho his car antennae got bent off, too, pry by someone steadying themselves against his car. shoulda got a portapotty out front). the plumber was called. gas company was called. the old pipes were used so much that rust had been shaken free and clogged it all up (or maybe all that bass from the band loosened it. the gas company guy (a young guy not too far out of college himself, or at least college-aged) took pity on us and installed all new natural gas meters for free. becky actually helped clean up, too. i remember that because she pulled the band’s song list out from the garbage and told me i should keep it. it was taped to the floor by the band so they would know the order of the songs, and could segue easier. it was written using a red marks-a-lot smeary, wet, torn, burned, but still barely readable. in fact, i think i’ll dig thru old college notes and memorabilia box under the ol’ steps and try to find that bad boy. too bad that band didn’t make it to the big time, i could auction off that piece of paper on e-bay for a fortune.

i had an interview w/ koch in wichita for that next monday, and had to leave sunday morning for the airport. i still wasn’t quite ‘regular’ and fully over the carnage from friday, but apparently i did okay anyway. i got the koch internship which led me to a full time koch job which then led me to 3m. so i credit that party a decade ago w/ putting me on the road to professional success. i highly recommend a similar career path for every collegiate. but just don’t agree to sleep in any basements, no matter how reasonable the rent. the top-dwellers paid $112 each. doug paid $50 in the basement cave. 4 bedroom + basement. 3 blocks from campus, 1 block from campus-town. house completely trashed when moved in. no security deposit needed. no lease terms. perfect house. we were last ones to live there. it was condemned and tore down the summer after we graduated. rebuilt an apartment complex on our old home. progress? i think not.

we had other parties after that first big blowout, but none were as big, crazy, fun, crowded, or as memorable as that first one was. we realized smaller parties w/ mostly people we all knew had lots fewer headaches than the free-for-all trash-the-house kind. Monty the python finally succumbed to the cold and unfriendly climate of a badly insulated house in the middle of iowa winters, and even though he had a heating lamp and rock, he didn’t survive the year. found him dead and cold and coiled up one morning. we had a snake wake in his honor, tho, where he would come out of his permanent storage location of our freezer, all coiled up, frozen stiff, right between the totino party pizzas, and grace the party goers w/ his presence. that was another good party. the snake-wake party. but all the rest run together. monty slowly degraded in the freezer due to all the handling and shuffling, parts of his skin shedding and peeling off into the freezer. and finally burk had to find a more permanent home for him besides intermingled in the pile of pizzas. (4 totino party pizzas for $3 at value-save-more-hy-vee grocery or whatever it was called)

prologue: about a year after graduating, i stopped by the old house on stanton ave, to see if i knew anybody anymore, and to see what they had done to our place (palace!). everybody was gone, a ‘condemned’ notice on the front door. weeds growing over all the sidewalks and driveway. that made me feel bad. what a waste of a perfectly good party house. they tore it down shortly after, and put up a new building in its place. so it goes. progress. moral of this story? is none. lessons learned? are none. when you’re living thru the middle of a crazy time like college, you take a lot of it for granted, and don’t even realize that it’s out of the ordinary to invite 300 total strangers into your house, have 6 hours worth of fun w/ them, and then they leave, never to see you again. and then the next week, you do the same exact thing at someone else’s house/apartment w/out thinking anything of it. what a time. gone by. gone forever. condemned to the dustbin of memories.

submitted by /u/62302154065198762349 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ReUeMC

[thefrugalistalife]

Listen, New Orleans is my favorite city in the world. I’ve opined so many times on this blog about how different the culture is in the city. I swear every corner has some kind of historical significance and it’s like I’m in a alternate world. The people are so friendly and welcoming it’s like I’ve known them forever. This trip was different than the last. This time, Robert and I went on a road trip with our friends Richard and Delilah. I’d never driven to that part of Florida or even out of the state in that direction. We left early in the morning and it was insane how quickly we got to Louisiana once we were out of Florida. Would I do a road trip to New Orleans again? Yes.

This trip wasn’t the typical “tourist” excursion. We stayed in an Airbnb in the Gentilly area so we were right with the people. The trip may be the most authentic one I’ve been on in a long time. This is how to spend Labor Day weekend in New Orleans:

Where to Go

Studio BE

Located in a warehouse in the Bywater area of town, Studio BE combines visuals of the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements. The first time I heard about it was in a video I watched about Essence Fest a few years ago. The visuals include paintings, murals, and videos. Studio BE is a great way to see another side of New Orleans that isn’t touristy or “fun”. Everything is thought provoking and conjures up emotional responses. While the city has a party-vibe, it’s not exempt from the way many of the Black residents have been treated over the years.

Audubon Butterfly and Insectarium

Bugs are everywhere you look in Florida. Ants, spiders, bees, etc. fly among us. I’m a big kid on the inside and I enjoy museums of any kind so the insectarium is right up my alley. It’s interesting to see all the different bugs of the world in one place. The creepiest ones were definitely the roaches naturally. They had hissing cockroaches and they were so large; I wouldn’t want to be there if they ever got loose. The most fun part was the butterfly garden because they’d fly around in their own little world. The butterflies do land on people but none landed on me *sad face*. I’m not sure how many species were in the garden but they were all so pretty and delicate.

Where to Eat

Cafe Du Monde

Enough said. A trip to New Orleans isn’t an actual trip if you don’t make it here at some point. Who doesn’t like fried dough covered with an entire cloud of powdered sugar. I felt like I let the city down the first time we went because I only ate 2/3 of an order but we all went back the next day. Robert and I just shared an order of beignets that was enough for me to feel like I made up with the people of New Orleans.

Mother’s Restaurant

We literally drove from Tampa straight here. Robert managed to find a parking space right outside the restaurant. The moment we walk in, it’s started to get crowded but we managed to find a seat near their bar area. I ordered Shrimp Creole with cheese grits and it was INSANE. Y’all…those grits were so creamy I wanted to take a whole bowl of it home. Usually etoufee has a crazy kick of spice to it but this one has a subtle kick that I can get used to. NOLA is the only place in the world where the combo of shrimp, veggies, and grits go together perfectly and no one questions it.

Morrow’s

I’d been following this restaurant for a couple years now and with each photo of a new dish or the latest celeb to make an appearance, I couldn’t wait to get there. We took a quick Uber ride there where a line started to grow the moment we pulled up. I’m sure I mentioned a few times it has the same vibes as 7th + Grove in Ybor. The mimosas were flowing and everyone was just having a great time. My sweet potato Pancakes were the fluffiest ones I’ve ever had in life I swear; they’re really like eating clouds. I don’t remember the last time I had sweet potato pancakes but these were insanely impressive. Plus, when is bacon never not a good idea for any meal???

Pizza Delicious

Our Uber driver who took us to Morrow’s recommended this one to us. After walking around all day, we went back to our AirBnb for a bit for a quick recharge before deciding to eat dinner here for the last night we were in town. Fortunately for us, Pizza Delicious was a 15 minute walk from Parleaux. It’s funny how much this place feels like it could be a local pizza joint in Seminole HeightsI had a slice of Peppadew and Arugula with a regular pepperoni.

Tropical Isle

There’s so many locations of Tropical Isle in the French Quarter around Bourbon Street, you’re bound to walk in on one at some point. THE drink to get is, of course, the Grenade (the official unofficial drink of NOLA) but the Horny Gator is a fun drink to taste. It’s mixed with vodka, pomegranate and green tea so you’ll be feeling real good after you’re done drinking it. For me, the drink and the little gator are perfect homages to Florida.

Brieux Carre

I appreciate the play on “Vieux Carre” aka the French Quarter. It’s a small, quaint microbrewery in the Marigny area with a biergarten in the back. There’s a deck with a few games for people to play and just hang out. Beer is becoming an acquired taste of mine; I prefer them sweeter. Robert got a flight of beers while I sipped on a frozen drink. The interesting part of the brewery is seeing the brew process up close. Their fermenters are next to the bar for everyone to see so it feels like a crash-course in brewing.

Parleaux Beer Lab

During our Uber ride here, there were a couple times our driver looked at us crazy because she thought we were going to New Orleans East where stuff pops off. She relaxed when we told her where we were really going. We pulled up around 8pm and it was packed. Robert and I shared their Prosecceaux di Pesca-Tart Peach Ale and it’s right up my alley. It’s supposed to taste similar to a Bellini so I can see myself ordering this as a brunch drink.

NOLA Po’Boys

A fave from the first time Robert and I came, we stopped here during one of our jaunts on Bourbon at night. Of course, we planned on doing some drankin so it’s best we filled our stomachs with food to soak up the liquor. What’s great about their po’ boy sandwiches are they’re large enough to share. The fried foods are all spicy but I know the “spicy” in New Orleans is on another level. The “Yankee”(mild) is right in the middle. As I’m writing this, memories of eating it are flooding back in and now I wish I was there eating it again *heavy sigh*.

  New Orleans Cake Cafe and Bakery

The great thing about NOLA is it’s super walkable. Delilah wanted to go to the bakery so we walked 10 minutes from Morrow’s.  The houses in the area are so unique and historic it’s easy to marvel at them all. Robert and I came here for breakfast our first trip to the city. We wanted to grab a slice of King Cake but they didn’t have any available since it wasn’t Mardi Gras. I settled on a donut with a honey glaze and chocolate ganache. It’s gooey and messy…2 of my favorite things about desserts or baked goodies. Would I order it again…YES. It’s just the right size where it doesn’t feel like an overindulgence.

Outside Studio BE

Outside Studio BE

Robert and his flight

Mural

Jackson Square/St. Louis Cathedral

Mississippi River

Yankee Shrimp Po’ Boy

In line at Cafe Du Monde

Did a little 9-hour road trip to New Orleans earlier this month for a weekend trip Listen, New Orleans is my favorite city in the world. I've opined so many times on this blog about how different the culture is in the city.

[realestate63141]

Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H

[realtor10036]

Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H

[gillespialfredoe01806ld]

Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations

xxmmxx/iStock

Cities are bursting with life—too much of it, sometimes. Just ask James Vahter, a video producer who set up shop a few years ago in a trendy part of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He got a sweet deal on a spacious, two-bedroom, fifth-floor walk-up, but it didn’t take him long to understand why the rent was so cheap. It happened a few weeks into his stay, when he returned from a business trip in the middle of the night and flipped on the hallway light.

“My walls were crawling,” he recalls. “From the floorboards to the ceiling, cockroaches were everywhere. I ran to the kitchen to grab some Raid—and the counters were crawling too.”

Welcome to the epic battle between city dweller and vermin. In Vahter’s case, he was able to wriggle (sorry) out of his lease and retreat to the suburbs. But not all urbanites are lucky enough to have the option of a happy ending.

From water bug traumas to Pizza Rat videos, pests are a terrifyingly common part of American life. In 2015, about 11% of U.S. households had encounters with rats or mice, and 12% with cockroaches, according to the Census Bureau’s newly released American Housing Survey. And, of course, those numbers increase exponentially in high-density metro areas.

Vermin nation

Some creepy creature populations are very much on the rise. There has been a 7% increase in complaints about rats in New York from 2015 to 2016, and a 16% uptick in Boston. Not squirming yet? A recent report by the pest-control company Orkin found a steep rise in bedbug incidents nationwide, to near-epidemic levels in many cities.

“We have more people affected by bedbugs in the United States now than ever before,” said Ron Harrison, an entomologist and director of technical services at Orkin, in the report. “They were virtually unheard of in the U.S. 10 years ago.”

Antwinette Clurksy, 64, endured living with bedbugs in her one-bedroom Houston apartment for more than three years. They were under the carpets, on the mattress—everywhere.

“I would be sitting on the couch, and I look up, and they’re crawling on me,” Clurksy says. She had red bite marks all over her body. Eventually, she had to sleep on the floor after throwing away her mattress, along with the sofa and dining table, because of the infestation.

Despite this and other horror stories, not all cities are equally affected by the onslaught of pests. In Seattle, for example, less than 1% of homes have a roach problem.

To figure out which cities are most under siege by critters with four or more legs, we used the rat and cockroach data from the American Housing Survey, as well as data about mosquitoes, termites, bedbugs, fleas/ticks—and, hey, scorpions, too—collected from other sources.*

What makes some cities more attractive to pests than others? The Northeast has an infamous rat problem—the chilly winter months drive the multitude of rodents in search of shelter, warmth and food. And the South is plagued by insects. Big insects.

“The warmer climate in the Southern states increases the ability to support insects for longer periods of time,” says Michael Raupp, an entomologist from the University of Maryland. “Insects are usually killed by the coldness, but since it rarely reaches lethal temperatures [freezing point] in the South, cockroaches and bedbugs remain active for a longer time out of the year.”

So where does your city rank on this ignominious list? We doused our data team with copious amounts of Off and turned them loose to find out. Let’s get crawling!

1. Houston, TX

Don’t mess with Texas cockroaches.

BarnabyChambers/iStock; realtor.com

Houston gets a big tentacles- and claws-up from several species of pests, including cockroaches, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs, and termites. It’s the pest capital of the United States! Why? The warm, humid climate and huge human population (people=trash=delicious food!) offer a luxury spa for vermin, according to Steve Durham, president of pest control company EnviroCon in Houston. About two in five households reported seeing cockroaches, making it the second-worst city for the ubiquitous bugs after New Orleans, according to the American Housing Survey.

“In Houston, I have seen multiple times when there were thousands and thousands of roaches,” Durham says. “You can’t believe how some people just don’t clean [their homes]. Roaches multiply very fast—every roach egg has 32 babies, and those 32 babies will each have 32 babies.” Yuck.

2. New York, NY

Rats grow big in New York City.

robertcicchetti/iStock

No one knows how many rats live in New York, but estimates range all the way from 2 million to 28 million—and that high estimate would mean that there are almost four rats for each human in the most populous city in the nation. The city that never sleeps! Traps have been set, poisons brewed, and volunteers have relocated stray cats to rat-infested areas, according to the New York Daily News, but rats seem to be winning this war. How about we just give them Staten Island and call it even?

“In New York, a lot of architecture was designed without pest control in mind,” explains Taylor Falk, environmental analyst from M&M Environmental. The alleyways, dumpsters, and garbage are very close together. … When there is food and areas to move around, there are rats.”

Mice and rats are talented climbers, Falk says, and sometimes even climb high-rises through the utility systems (like hot water pipes).

And just like in the city’s alleys, rats and cockroaches battle for dominance overall. Rats were found in 15% of homes, cockroaches in 16%.

3. Washington, DC

The District of Columbia is ranked the second-worst city for bedbugs by Orkin, while nearby Baltimore took the top spot. Blame the area’s huge influx of international travelers. Diplomats, tourists, and businesspeople (and their baggage) are practically VIP shuttle services for bedbugs, says Raupp, of the University of Maryland. Washington’s mild climate also helps bedbugs survive.

“The problem is that many of the materials we used to treat bedbugs are no longer available, due to EPA regulations. So there has been a large insurgence,” says Dannis Warf from Royal Pest Control. “They aren’t just in homes, but also in movie theaters, public transportation, libraries, even hospitals.” The pests even invaded the DC Department of Health in 2012.

And although Washington is often criticized for its “fat cats,” rats are a major problem. In fact, there’s even a Yelp page dedicated to a well-known park, satirically labeled as “Dupont Circle Rat Sanctuary.” One review reads, “Wonderful place for 100% organic, free-range rats to frolic in a safe environment without predators.”

4. Atlanta, GA

To mosquitoes, you’re as sweet as a Georgia peach.

Henrik_L/iStock

Warm climate? Check. Wet summers? Check. Swamps and forested areas? Check. Perhaps nowhere can mosquitoes find a better breeding ground than Atlanta. There are about 45 kinds of mosquito living in the Southern city, according to Elmer Gray, a professor of entomology at the University of Georgia. And some species can carry West Nile and Zika viruses. Last summer, there were 77 cases of Zika in Georgia, according to Georgia Health News.

5. Philadelphia, PA

A total of 18% of Philly households have seen rats, making Philadelphia the rattiest city in America. The city’s huge swath of old row houses make it easier for the nimble animals to find holes in the walls and move, Habitrail-like, from one family to another.

“Philadelphia also has a very unseasonably warm winter this year, so the rats are growing more than usual,” says Royal Pest Control’s Warf.

6. Miami, FL

We love Miami’s year-around steamy weather. Unfortunately, so do cockroaches, mosquitoes, and termites. Florida has six invasive termite species that swarm alternately throughout the year, feasting on anything made of wood. By 2040, half of the structures in South Florida will be at risk of termite infestation, according to a study by the University of Florida.

“It’s hot, it’s humid, it rains a lot, and we have a lot of wooden-structure homes, as opposed to concrete-structure homes,” says JC Riverol from Spray’em Dead Termite & Pest in Miami.

The average cost to homeowners to repair termite damage is $3,000, but that can vary widely, depending on the extent of the damage, according to Termites.com.

7. Tampa, FL

The good news about Tampa is that it’s practically rodent-free; the bad news is, cockroaches won’t leave you alone. Ever. They are present in an alarming 38% of homes. They flock to Tampa like retirees, and get comfy in the kitchen, under the palm trees, and inside the gazebos.

Pet owners in Tampa also need to keep an eye out for fleas and ticks, which love the warm temperature and year-round humidity. These tiny insects usually don’t mess with humans, but they cling to the skins of dogs and cats, transmitting diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and tapeworms.

8. Nashville, TN

With plenty of old structures to roam through, the Music City offers rats a comfortable habitat. Winter’s low temperatures of 30 degrees send rats scurrying into people’s homes for warmth and food, and the humid summer provides perfect conditions for breeding. Brown rats are the most common in Tennessee. One of the largest rat species, they can grow to an incredible 15 inches or more in length. (Silent scream!) Each year, there are also 50 snakebites reported in Tennessee, according to the Vanderbilt Medical Centers.

9. Phoenix, AZ

Not the good, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” kind of Scorpion

johnaudrey/iStock

Phoenix residents have something scarier than garden-variety roaches to contend with: scorpions. Native to the arid Arizona desert, the bark scorpion is the most venomous scorpion in the United States, and is the culprit in most scorpion bites in the state. Arizona’s two poison-control centers report about 12,000 scorpion stings in the state each year.

Most scorpion stings go away after a few hours, unless you have a serious allergy—in which case you need to head to an ER, pronto. Better bring the American Express, too. In 2012, Marcie Edmonds was stung by a scorpion and billed $83,000 for anti-venom, the local CBS news station reported.

“The valley was the natural habitat for scorpions. Then humans came in and destroyed their habitats, to build concrete walls and buildings. But scorpions like concrete walls,” says Ben Holland of Scorpion Sweepers, a pest control company. “So we destroyed their habitat and built something even better.”

10. Boston, MA

In 1917, the Boston Women’s Municipal League spearheaded a sweeping extermination campaign against the city’s proliferating rats, leading up to the first (and, to date,only) Rat Day, when residents were offered prizes for the largest number of rat carcasses turned in. A century later, the city is still battling rodents. The long, cold winter of New England forces ’em to creep into people’s homes for warmth and food. Last year, the Boston Inspectional Services Department received more than 3,500 rodent complaints.

The city adopted a rather innovative measure: dropping dry ice into rat burrows so that rats will suffocate. The method was proven to be effective, although it was temporarily stopped by the EPA last December because dry ice wasn’t registered as a pesticide, according to a report by the local CBS station.

* Data sources: American Housing Survey, Orkin, Terminix, Eastern Arizona Courier, Hartz

The post Critter Cities: America’s Top 10 Towns for Pest Infestations appeared first on Real Estate News & Advice | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2juC31H