Moth Wars: The Battle of the Ugly Rug

Well, at long last, I packed up my computer and "other" office equipment. It took quite a bit more time than I first expected. Who knew there were so many wires back there? Well, I guess I did. And that's probably why I kept putting it off. Okay, so I kept putting it off because I was so darn tired after a long day of tour guiding. Today, I finally did it though. Boy am I glad I did!

What did I find, aside from a mess of wires and dust? Moth World USA. Yep. I found the campground on which my moth rivals set up land grants. Words cannot do justice to the feelings of disgust I felt when I found them. Nor can I describe how disappointed and grossed out I was to see that they had eaten a huge chunk of my rug. Gross. Totally. Gross.

I went on a murdering spree, killing pupas all over the place, but as I moved the computer equipment, I discovered that this job was going to require much more than I was going to be able to handle armed with nothing more than a random business card (that and the corner of the rug was totally falling apart because they had been feasting on it). Did I mention how nasty it is over there? So. Disgusting.

It's a real shame that my vacuum cleaner caught on fire a few months ago. I sure could use it about now. Luckily for me, I do own a Shark handheld vacuum, so I took some time with that powerful machine. It did a pretty good job, but I still had to touch the pupas when I emptied it. Eww.

This time it was 10,000 times more gross than last time. Last time, I picked them off of a different rug. I found a couple hundred. But this time....there were way more. And they were, in some cases, soft and slimey. Ick!

Now before you start thinking I'm some sort of slovenly blob of nasty, let me explain myself (and please don't drop in on me in the next few days because my house might tell a different story than I will here). Much in the same way that my ankles sprain at the slightest sign of goofiness, I have endured a slew of house pests.

When I moved here, one of my friends was kind enough to give me a potted tulip. Little did she know that tulips were my favorite flower, so it was a very nice gift. Unfortunately, it was harboring unwelcome houseguests. The tulip was hosting white flies, and then my house was infiltrated with them. At first I didn't know where they came from, but when I attempted to transplant the tulip, I was horrified to discover that the soil was very...active. So active that I had to take a closer look and discovered that it wasn't soil, but thousands of white flies! Gross. It took AGES to rid my apartment and plants of those little pests. They killed a few plants. AND, they led to spider mites. Ick.

I finally took care of that problem, and I thought I was in the clear. One day I purchased a peach from Albertsons. The next day, I picked up the peach, just to find that it was rotting because it was a fruit fly love den. What happened? My kitchen was stricken with fruit flies. Blah.

Then there were the mice. Oh the mice! I discovered them because one of them crawled up into my vacuum (pre-fire) and I kept hearing it scratching around in there. Not sure as to what the issue was, I let it sit for a couple days and just watched the vacuum suspiciously. At long last, I determined that the sound must be a mouse, so I picked up the vacuum to move it, when the little f-er came running out. I set up about 15 traps to try and catch it, but I was far from successful. When I woke up one night and saw a mouse run across my bed...where I lay my head...I knew I had to do something. I ended up catching the disgusting creature with a glue trap. I woke up in the morning to find it almost completely detached from the trap, trying to free itself. I re-stuck it and tossed it in the trash, not because I'm an awful human, but because I didn't know what to do. After consulting a few people, I decided to check on it in the trash. When I got there, the only thing on the trap was a penny, leading me to wonder if the mouse turned into a penny, or left me a tip (perhaps it was privy to the advice I was given--run over it with the car).

Once mouseville was shut down, I thought I was in the clear. Then the moths came. I was afflicted with these awful creatures for months. My plan of attack was to fumigate my apartment with moth balls for two weeks while I was in China. At first it didn't work, but then, after airing out my apartment and probably giving myself some terrible respiratory disease by breathing the moth ball air, I noticed that the moths had gone away.

Success!

Well, apparently not, because they are back. Luckily, my moth-killing skills have dramatically improved. For the longest time I would just run around my apartment madly clapping about. Now I actually kill them instead of looking like one of the "special" kids.

So, tonight I found their new home, and I'm going to toss out the rug. That is going to be my solution. It better work. I'm sick of them. It's time for another pest. Bring on the locusts!