Cockroaches, Mice, Giant Spiders & Rats, Oh my!

Hello everyone!

Last week Abigail was awoken in the middle of the night (when the power was off) to the noise of a mouse scurrying around her room, squeaking and chewing on a bag on the floor.  She called me and we both looked in her room for the mouse but didn’t find it.  The next evening, we saw something scurrying across her floor and I tried to step on it 4 times to no avail.  At first we thought it was a mouse but as I was trying to squish it, we realized it was a large cockroach.  It ran under her bed, so we got the flash light and looked for it, as I put my head down to the floor to peak under her bed, I heard a “Hisssssssss!” noise in my ear coming from under the couch, 2 inches away from my head.  I sprung up and shouted “That giant cockroach just hissed in my ear!” So we flipped up the couch in search of it, but instead of finding a cockroach, we found 4 holes chewed into the couch by mice, or cockroaches or whatever else decided to make the couch it’s home.  We then saw the cockroach hanging off of the side of the couch so I whacked it with a shoe, it fell to the ground and Abigail yelled, “Kill it again!” So I whacked it again, we duct taped the holes on the couch shut and called it a night.

 

The next day, I was walking through the side room next to the kitchen and I saw something scurry across the floor and under one of the arm chairs.  I flipped up the chair and found the hole that the mouse had scurried into.  I called Abigail and Lisa in the room and together we carried the chair outside and cut the bottom of the chair out so no more mice would live it.  As we cut the chair open, a dead, dried mouse body fell out with it’s head missing.  We brought the chair back inside and after much debate, we decided to check all of the other chairs and couches in the room.  We flipped up the other arm chair, no holes.  We flipped up the big couch, no holes.  In the corner of the room sat a piece of furniture with 4 small mattresses stacked on top of it.  We reluctantly removed them to reveal a small, old, dark and dirty couch that was sitting underneath them.  We knew something had to living in it.  Abigail, broom in hand, awaited whatever monstrosity would fall out from under it as Lisa and I quickly flipped the couch on it’s side.  Out from under it fell a big, nasty brown rat.  The girls screamed and jumped up on the coffee table when they saw it as the panicked rat jumped 2 feet up the corner of the wall trying to escape.  It turned, ran towards me, I jumped up on to the now sideways couch as the rat ran underneath me and out the door (At least we think it ran out the door).  We then moved the nasty hole filled couch outside on the patio and forgot about it.

The next evening, Abigail and I were playing video games as Lisa went to the kitchen to look for something.  5 minutes later Lisa comes bursting into the room, out of breath “Didn’t you guys hear me screaming?” she asked in between breaths.  “We didn’t hear anything” we replied.  "I was looking for something in the cupboards, then I saw a big cockroach and tried to kill it, but it ran into the next cupboard, so I followed it and another big cockroach was there, then they both ran into another cupboard, so I followed them into that cupboard and there was a giant spider in there and now I’m here.  Can you come and help me kill them?”  So off we went to the kitchen brooms in hand to kill some bugs.  We looked in the cupboards and the cockroaches were no where to be found, but we found the spider, and it was big and harry.  Besides tarantulas, it was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life and it was in our kitchen! I tried to poke it with the broom but this ninja spider side stepped the broom 3 times!  Then it ran up a loose board in the cupboard and the board fell over from the weight of the spider!  So we called Christian to come and save us.  He brought rat poison and Raid with him and sprayed the raid all inside the kitchen cupboards and laid rat poison in the corners of some rooms.  We thanked him profusely and he left.

In the morning we found the 2 cockroaches almost dead so we finished them off and threw them outside.  Christian then told us that we might notice some bad smells in the house as the rats eat the poison, die, and start rotting.  We haven’t smelled anything bad yet, but when we do, we’ll have to go on a dead rat & mouse hunt.

T.I.A.

Here’s some more photos.

Read the caption on the left side of the of the truck.

 

We visited the motherless baby home that Lisa visited the last time she was in Nigeria.
 

We also visited the National War Museum

A little mouse we found in the backyard. Probably one of the mice that’s been in the house.

Lisa and I had to wait for a ride from the Library.  Lisa got out her book and i got out the camera.

A Mercedes Benz dealership that we drove by.

Some giant snails that are in the backyard that we are apparently going to eat one day soon.

Lisa and Abigail helping out with dinner.