When my niece was born my parents each spent a week at my sister's house. My mom went first. She came back telling stories of how truly gross her house was. My mom is a very clean person. She is not OCD. She has one cat and one dog. She is single. She gets to have as clean of a house as she wants. Clutter free. My sister is not clutter free. She is a pack rat -- I think that is the nice way of putting it. My mom spent the week cleaning. Because my sister was in the hospital. Then my father went. He didn't clean much but he came back with the same stories. And this was after my mom had already spent cleaning for a week. Then my step mom spent a week. And she told the same stories.
I have never been to my sister's house. We have a complicated relationship. We have a hard time getting along. But I believed the stories. They described stories of things piled high around the rooms with pathways from one place to the next. A pathway from the bed to the dresser. A pathway from the couch to the door. We have many family conversations about if this was the right environment to raise a child. But in the end, we did nothing. Well, I did nothing. My parents continued to talk to my sister. Encourage her to clean. Purge. Change her ways.
When my niece was about 2 years old my parents took a trip to my sister's house again. This time they refused to stay at her house. They said there were cock roaches all over her house. A few weeks later my mom took a trip to her house. She came back with the same stories. She said that after the first few hours she refused to be in my sister's house. She went to a hotel. She said she saw at least a couple hundred cock roaches. The family conversations started again. My sister listened. She cleaned her house. She fixed her house. She fumigated her house. No more cock roaches. She promised. My mom explained to her the health worries. The general ones and then added that my niece has asthma. So for my niece my sister cleaned up her life.
For this Thanksgiving everyone came to my house. I wasn't worried about the bugs. There was no need. It has been nearly 2 years. There is no way I had anything to worry about. But on the first night, as I moved her suitcase aside to get into my coat closet, I saw 2 teenage cock roaches hop out of her suitcase and scramble into my closet.
No.
No.
NO!
I just got rid of all mine. I worked so hard. I hate bugs. I don't want cock roaches in my house.
Now that she is gone I have located and killed 2 cock roaches. And I am waiting for more to appear. I can not live with cock roaches. I will not live with cock roaches.
Mean Mama
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Ewwwwwwwww bugs
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