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Living History

Jennifer Nobile Raymond is currently a direct mail production manager at a major advertising agency in New York City. She attends Brooklyn College on the weekends, and fills her spare time with drawing, painting and finding creative ways to save space in her apartment. Since producing junk mail does not satisfy her creative needs, Jennifer is hoping to develop her writing into a future career.

Of Mice and Garbage Men

by Jennifer Raymond

After living through the life-changing events of graduating high school, going off to college and getting my first real job, it was time for the next step toward my idea of adulthood. I had finally saved up enough money and courage to move out of my parent's house and into my own place.

I broke the news to my heartbroken parents by explaining how much quality time I was losing by commuting ninety minutes each way to work. This was somewhat true, but I had more ambitious goals: an extra hour of sleep in the morning, hosting fabulous dinner parties, and being out until the early hours of the morning, without coming home to a groggy (and impatient) parent waiting for me.

It took about six weeks for me to find a decent apartment that was within my budget. Well, it turned out to be on the outskirts of my budget. I had plans of moving into Brooklyn, thinking that the rents would be cheaper there than in Manhattan. And they are cheaper -- but I'd have to spend the rest of my money on Mace, alarms and a guard dog.

As luck would have it, I found a studio on the Upper West Side that I could afford. It was cute (in other words, it's TINY), and the neighborhood was fantastic, so I went for it. Two weeks later, I hugged my sobbing parents, (okay, they could hardly contain their joy, but I like to think of them as sobbing) and turned to face my compact new home.

I soon found out that every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday was Trash Day. On these days I would reluctantly wake up at 5:30 a.m. to the sounds of cans crashing to the pavement and some guy named Joey or Frank yelling, "Hey, how YOU doin'?" to his buddy across the street. And every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I would make a mental note to never again live in a place where the garbage was right outside my window.

One night, my boyfriend came over for some dinner. He was my first dinner guest, and I went all out: candles on the overturned box I was using as a table, real plates (not paper), napkins, and Dave Matthews playing softly in the background.

"Hey, did you eat something with rye bread today?" he asked as he stood at the kitchen counter.

"Um, no...why?" I was perplexed.

"Well, looks like you might have a roommate." He said with a little smirk on his face.

"Oh God, you don't think it's a mouse, do you?" What a stupid question! That trip towards adulthood just went into high gear.

Later that evening, I thought it would be nice to call my mom, just to say hello. I casually mentioned my new furry friend. After the screaming stopped (my mom has a "thing" about rodents), she advised me to get some traps and set them up in the kitchen. I did not sleep that night -- I could have sworn I heard squeaking. Loud squeaking. The next morning, there were more "rye seeds" all over the stove and counter.

"Boy, for a little thing, you sure poop a lot!" I said out loud. This was not good; I was now talking to the mouse.

A few weeks went by, but I hadn't even seen the little bugger. I tried to entice it by placing peanut butter in the middle of the traps, but apparently he didn't like peanut butter. My parents, my aunt and my uncle came by one day to see how the place was coming along. My mother ran over to my bed and immediately put her feet up, staring constantly at the floor. My uncle had used the Magnetic Poetry from my fridge to spell out "I AM UNDER THE BED" on the front of my stove. My uncle thinks he is very funny.

I took my war on pests up a notch and put out poison to see if that would help. Two weeks later, the poison was still being eaten, but with no results. So now I was cleaning up poop and poison twice a day, in the morning and when I came home from work. Yet things were about to take a turn for the worse.

I was preparing dinner one evening when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked down, expecting to finally see Jerry the Mouse, but instead was greeted by a huge, disgusting water bug about the size of a yam.

I screamed bloody murder and ran over to the couch, jumping onto it and crying hysterically. The mutant roach ran to my closet, and I lost sight of it among my shoes. I creeped towards the closet, grabbing a can of Raid and the broom, still crying. I might also have been saying "Oh my God!" over and over, but I don't really remember.

I was poking around the shoes when I saw movement on the wall next to my head! I jumped back and made that noise that you make when something scares you out of your wits (sounds like "whuoawww!"). I sprayed it with the Raid, and it fell to the floor.

Now apparently, Raid takes a while to work, something I did not know at this point. The giant bug turned, chuckled a little evil laugh (that may have just been in my head, but I could have sworn I heard it) and started heading straight for me again. Didn't it know I was much bigger? Why was it coming after me? I screamed "NO!" and held it back with the broom while I sprayed. I believe it finally died from drowning, not from the chemicals.

I limped over to the phone like a wounded soldier, hiccuping, sobbing and coughing from the insect repellent in the air. I dialed my mom.

"Mom? Mom...you...w-won't...believe...I...j-j-just...killed the...the...biggest bug," I could hardly talk.

"Oh, God. That's terrible, honey. Did you get it? Do you want me to come and get you?" I love my mom.

"N-no, I have to deal with this. This is what happens when you have your own place, right?"

"Well, if you want me to come get you, just call me, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks, Mom."

I swept the dead carcass out into the hallway, and stayed awake all night with every light on.

That weekend my boyfriend became Justin, The Water Bug Slayer. We killed at least four more of the pests within the course of one day. Now we were on a mission. Armed with steel wool and duct tape, we proceeded to patch every hole we could find. (Okay, Justin patched every hole, but I was there the whole time!)

I reached the pinnacle of my pest problem after buying an ultrasonic pest control device that promised to get rid of both mice and water bugs, among other things. I couldn't wait to get home and plug that bad boy in. It fit perfectly in the kitchen, and I went about settling in for the evening.

Within five minutes, I saw something dart out and back under my stove -- it was definitely a mouse! Five minutes later, I saw it again. It seemed to be running laps around the legs of the stove. Then, I saw one under the refrigerator. I had two of them? Well, that would explain all the poop, I thought. I got an idea to throw down the glue traps in their path to see if I could get them. Sure enough, the one under the stove got stuck within minutes. A-ha! Victory!

Now I was faced with the dilemma of picking it up. Every time I moved toward it the poor thing would squeak and struggle. So, I called the Water Bug Slayer, who agreed to come and dispose of the rodent. As I sat there thinking about how great my boyfriend was, another mouse got stuck. I now had two squirming critters on my floor, and I was getting a little nervous.

When I had another one caught I was no longer yelling victory. Exactly how many mice did I have? We carefully disposed of the three wiggling traps into a plastic bag, then sat on the couch only to look up and see yet another mouse stuck on a trap! That's when I broke down and called my Management Company (NO CAPS).

They sent their exterminator, who found a hole under my cabinets, which he stuffed with poison and patched. He also put down poison for the water bugs, and the problems were solved.

My first home has not turned out to be the apartment of my dreams. Even now, I have trouble sleeping sometimes, and my place is too small to have dinner parties. The garbage men continue to make a racket outside my window, but I've gotten used to it and most mornings they don't even wake me up. I still see things moving out of the corner of my eye, but now it's just my mind having fun with my sanity.