Over the years I have had to live with some uninvited guests.  They are rude, destructive and filthy.  There has been Monsieur Mouse, Senor Cockroach, and Herr Packrat.  Wait, let me go check the guestbook....  Yep, here they are!  We've also had Mr. Scorpion, Miss Centipede, and Mrs. Black, she's a widow. 

How am I supposed to keep my family healthy with all these vile creatures taking up residence in my home?  Just tonight we discovered that a mouse had taken up residence under the kitchen sink.  Dear Man left him a lovely little note that basically will let that mouse know this is not a dual family dwelling, and all violaters will be prosectued to the full extent of the law.  DEATH! 

Several years ago, while living in Hawaii, I opened up a drawer in the kitchen that contained my tea towels.  I lifted the top one off only to discover that it had been covering a mousie labour ward.  All my tea towels save the top had been shredded to bits to make soft bedding.  There was stinky excrement all over the place, and I was nearly sick.  I now keep my tea towels in a rubbermaid container.

Same house, another day; I open yet another kitchen drawer and pick up my basting brush.  On closer examination I discover I am only holding the handle.  Looking down into the drawer I found the bristles, all knawed off but otherwise intact. 

Dear Man set out glue traps.  I thought this would be an easy way to trap the mouse with less mess.  Our last trap the mouse bled everywhere.  Next day I went down and looked into the cupboard that the glue trap had been placed.  There in the glue was a mousie paw.  Not a paw print, but an actual honest to goodness mousie PAW!  Great!  Somewhere in my home was a three footed mouse. 

While living in Hawaii I also had to deal with cockroaches,scorpions, centipedes, geckos and cane spiders!  Ugh!  In the four years we lived there no one was bitten.  It was only a miracle.  The cockroaches are so thick there that at night the yard looks like it's moving.  Any centipede that had the misfortune to run into me wound up in a giant pickle jar with bleach in the bottom.  I would snag those ugly critters with a pair of tongs, have a child open the jar, and drop 'em in!  I had no mercy. 

One night a cane spider ran across my living room floor.  Those things are as huge as your hand!  They aren't hairy like tarantulas though.  I leapt up from my seat and found something to trap the spider in.  It leaped at me!  I had to do something, there was no way I was going to sleep with that running around in my house.  I finally trapped it and left it in there to die. 

My mom once gave Boy 1 a bug condo.  A nifty little item that holds bugs so that you can examine them and feed them.  When Grammy came to visit Boy 1 proudly showed her his pet spider.  She smiled at him and told him it was a beautiful specimen.  She calmly got up, came over to me and quietly said, "Have you looked in that bug condo at his spider?  He has a black widow in there!"  Have you ever had to tell your child that they can't have a pet because it might kill them?

Packrats have been our latest opponents.  They stink like skunks.  One lived in our dryer hose for awhile before we found it.  We would use the dryer and when we would go open it up at the end of the cycle we would be hit by a waft of warm skunk scent.  Blah!

If you still have the guts to come visit us please don't take our greeting personally.  We fumigate everyone.