House Keeping Phobia--Cockroaches

This hub is a continuation of why I have such a housekeeping phobia.

When I was first married my mother-in-law had a cockroach problem at her house. Well, not being a very tactful person at the time, I had to ask her how in the world she tolerated such disgusting things, especially in her kitchen?

She was that day and to the day she died, one very gracious lady. I think back on that rude question, not that I still don’t think cockroaches are disgusting, but I would have been so embarrassed if someone pointed something like that out to me.

My gracious mother-in-law began to tell me the tale of how she had become roach infested, instead of being embarrassed or reproachful.

“We had only lived here a few weeks,” mom starts her story, “I happened to look out the kitchen window and noticed the ground between our house and the neighbor’s house was moving. I could not believe all the bugs that were moving toward my house. I didn’t know what to do about them though, I waited for dad to come home and by then it was too late they had already invaded us.”

She had to pay for a pest control to come out and exterminate the house. It slowed the little critters down but didn’t totally get rid of them. I tried to envision this mass of roaches crossing the driveway from the neighbors house, but really thought it was an exaggeration. Instead I was reminded the time my family moved to a house when I was about ten.

My mother was cleaning and wiping the cupboards and drawers down in the kitchen before moving the kitchen paraphernalia in.

“Oh, NO!” I heard her exclaim. In a state of agitation she turned to my dad who had just walked in with a box of dishes, “there is not enough room in this house for me and one of them cockroaches!” My dad looked into the drawer that had my mom so upset and then began to smirk.

“Sweetheart, that bug is dead,” reported my dad.

“I don’t care how dead that bug is,” my mom retorted, “where there is a dead one, I’m sure there are live ones around somewhere.”

My mom was having fits over one dead cockroach and my mother-in-law was having to live with live ones. She would put out baking soda, borax and anything else someone would tell her would get rid of the nasty things. She was never able to get rid of them.

My husband and I moved to Wyoming with our two oldest children after we had been married about four years. We would go to Kansas and visit but upon returning home we would leave the clothes and blanket we had taken with us to visit his mom and dad in the car. Everything had to be shaken out before we would bring it in the house and then it immediately went into the washer. Each load of laundry would be examined before we put it away to make sure we didn’t unknowingly have extra baggage we couldn’t tolerate.

This worked out pretty well until we had new neighbors from Texas move in next door. I was pretty impressed with these new neighbors to begin with. We were invited over for coffee. After entering the front door and sitting down, the lady of the house, brought out her broom and proceeded to sweep the carpet free of our footprints. I have to say that was a new one on me, but still pretty impressive. I even tried that particular cleaning effort out for about one day. By this time we had our oldest child in kindergarten, a three year old running around and a one year old learning to walk. Trying to keep up with three children wearing out the carpet was one thing. Trying to preserve the carpet by sweeping the nap back into place was another thing. This feat still wears me out thinking about it.

The neighbors proceeded to build a greenhouse affair onto the back side of their house. I was really lost on this one since the backside of their house didn’t get much sun, but I thought maybe they would install grow lights or something. Nope this became a storage facility.

One day after they had returned from Texas, bringing more belongings to Wyoming and putting those belongings in the storage facility, (which I could now identify it as such), I looked out the dining room window and my mother-in-law’s story became reality.

That was one of those moments when the words went through my mind and out my mouth, “Oh, Lord please forgive me my unbelief!” Of course I had no idea I had spoken until my husband came up behind me and asked, “What in the world are you talking about.”

Now my husband had grown up with cockroaches and even he could not believe what he was seeing, nor did he want to have to deal with what he was seeing.

“Oh, dear, you better do something and do it quick!” I exclaimed, “there is not enough room for me and one of those critters in this house!” He had a little different comeback than my dad. This was en-mass and moving…Not dead.

“I grew up with them things, there is no way I’m going to live with them now!” Yep, you got it, the hunt was on! It wasn’t long before I looked out the window and discovered Big Nam in confrontation mode visiting the neighbor. I never did find out what Big Nam had to say to the neighbor. Darkness had set in by this time and I just cringed at the thought of them roaches getting into our house.

The next morning as I was teaching my daughter Gabby, how to use the toaster, sure enough, as the toaster began heating up, little critters began running out from under it.

“Oh, no momma, our house is going to be just like grandma’s!” Gabby exclaimed, dropping the knife she was holding to butter the toast.

The house cleaning spree began. You would have thought we were moving the way everything from the house went out into the front yard. Big Nam hired an exterminator to come forty miles to get rid of those critters. He had to go to work that evening and the kids and I went to stay with some friends. Luckily the weather was decent so we didn’t have to worry about what we had left outside.

At the time that one year old had turned three, we made another visit to Big Nam’s folks. His mom had the basement finished so the kids would have a place to play when the siblings and families came home. As Beaner began going downstairs, she happened to look up and a cockroach landed on her forehead. I don’t know how she kept from falling down the stairs but the scream we heard was not to be ignored.

“Momma! A bug just hit me in the head!” she cried as I picked her up. Now this time my mother-in-law was embarrassed and angry. Once again they had the pest control come and exterminate their house before doing the remodeling. Here she was with a houseful of company and so proud of the downstairs being able to be used for her grandchildren to have a place to play and still she was fighting cockroach infestation. To this day Beaner can’t stand cockroaches and if she sees one you will hear the words, “there is not enough room….”