In most of pest control work the thrill of the hunt is one of the most satisfying aspects. Finding clues that no one else can see and tracing down your prey to kill it is most gratifying. Through that archway I was sure there’d be no thrill on this day. If you just clicked into my site and found this story please follow this link to read part one. If you’ve checked in to see what it is that set me off into a torrent of pest control fury, buckle your laptop down and get ready for an extreme battle of epic proportions.
Over the years I know I’ve gotten a lot less patient. It’s not that a person disinterest’s me with what they’re saying but in my mind I’ve already put their clues and keywords together and at times I’ve got their problem solved long before they finish. Being a rookie back then the clues were slow in mounting up and for a lady who had no sight I was baffled at the terrible situation she described that she had never witnessed in the traditional way. The roaches on the couch were still scurrying about and I wondered about how many she had pinned down and crushed when she all but collapsed on the cushion. She was in mid sentence when her head jerked toward the arch way and she stopped talking. Her eyes made the movements as if she could see but they were obviously lifeless and told her nothing.
“C’mon baby”, she said in a loving and caring tone. “C’mon out and meet Mr. Jerry darling.”
I’m a sucker for kids and pets and once in awhile an adult will impress me too. From around the corner of the kitchen door way the sound of tiny wheels half rolling and half scraping across the linoleum floor got louder and I guess that’s what my lady heard. Out into the arch way came a beautiful baby girl in a walker, the kind with a tray and a seat so little ones could learn to walk and still enjoy a snack.
“Help her onto the carpet Mr. Jerry” she said and I marveled how just by sound she knew exactly where the little one was.
It was that moment when I leaned over to this cute smiling baby that horror reached up and grabbed my throat with a fist so tight I almost
dropped to my knees. The baby of course had Cheerio’s strewn about her tray and she also was eating some bread with peanut butter which was smeared all over her and her walker. What horrified me was there had to be at least 100 roaches climbing all over this defenseless little girl cashing in on this meal on wheels. She had roaches on her hands, in her hair, crawling all over the tray and even roaches on the floor trying to catch up to the moving bounty so they could join in on the feast.
Mortified I quickly brushed all of the roaches away and stomped and slapped them as they fell from the baby. The little one was surprised I’m sure by my sudden frantic outburst and began to cry but my sightless client didn’t say a word as if she knew I had come to a final realization of what she had been saying all along. I rolled the baby to her mother, grabbed my tool box and sprayer and headed inside this roach job from hell.
The kitchen was surprisingly bright with white walls and appliances. The counter top was a porcelain material like an old wash machine complete with the blue specks. The kitchen was free from clutter and not messy at all. There were roaches scattered about but I had seen much worse. (or so I thought) Big Megatron Pest Control for whom I worked was a stickler for numbers but not really advanced on all the latest tools. Armed only with a B&G sprayer, duster filled with Drione and a couple of aerosol cans I began the fight.
It didn’t take long to start flushing the roaches as their hiding spots were well marked with fecal matter that packed their cracks and lined the backs of every picture, appliance and anything that stayed in one place for any length of time. Pulling out the refrigerator unleashed a stampede of german roaches that scattered in every direction and as if some loud alarm went off through the population the frantic roaches were running all over the kitchen trying to find a place to hide. Dusting is a fine art form I know but I blew the max amount in every void, crack and crevice and was amazed at the ghost like roaches that careened out of their hiding spots covered in white and now blind by the dust just like this lady that they had been torturing. German roaches in every stage of life were crawling up my legs and even scouring my equipment I set down for any untreated place to hide.
“Sounds like it’s raining in there Mr. Jerry,” I heard from the living room that seemed like a whole world away.
I hadn’t been aware of the time that had past but I had been in the den of the lion for over an hour and her words snapped me back to the present tense. She was right I realized as I paused from my work and stood back in the archway of the door and just gazed at this horrific sight. There was not one square inch that didn’t have a roach in it twitching and writhing or running in circles. They were still falling off the ceiling hitting the 1960’s amenities and indeed the small taps of each one hitting x the 1000’s all at the same time sounded like rain.
“I’m sorry for the mess hon, you’ll have some cleaning to do” I said when I realized I couldn’t do another thing in this 12 x 15 sized room. “That’s perfectly fine with me Mr. Jerry,” she told me with her now cute and happy baby on her lap, “I’ll gladly send them to their final resting place–outside for the trash man to take away but it sounds like he’s gonna need a bigger truck.” We both shared a laugh as I told her “she had good hearing and it’s a good thing they’re all dying cause I didn’t have a drop of anything left.”
Not finished yet with this roach infestation straight from Hades and knowing I had thousands more to kill, I went out to my truck for more supplies, came back inside to finish the rest of this nightmare-reloaded.
Part one and Part three
