Realized today that I don't seem to have blogged about our little friends here in the apartment yet: waterbugs. Waterbugs actually doesn't do them justice - they are much more disgusting than the word sounds. They are a sub type of cockroaches and can get huge - almost the size of a hand.
Let me start at the beginning - so a few weeks ago when we saw the first one I still thought this was a one-off. I mean, yes, they made me sign a waiver acknowledging that there had been bedbugs in this building before when I signed the lease but so what. Even the Waldorf Astoria has had bedbugs in this city, right? But no, there would never bee coackroaches in an expensive building like this. Oh, how wrong I was - ANY building in this city can have a problem like this and especially if you are close to the water, this may well happen. After having seen a couple, screaming badly at first and then getting more and more used to chasing and eventually killing them I realized this was more structural so we needed to do something about it. I called the building and after a couple of useless phone calls actually got an exterminator (yes, it's a recognized profession - find one here: http://www.exterminator.com/) to come to our apartment. Luckily I happened to be there when he came because I quickly understood that the people in the building were giving out completely wrong information - they actually do not spray but rather try to find out where the freaking things come from. In our case the pipes are just not well enough connected to the walls and there were spaces that bugs could come through. So they needed to put steelwool around those openings. Sounded pretty reasonable to me and I was already telling everyone that we had finally fixed the problem when... this morning - there was another one in my room!!! Welcome to New York I guess... am back to calling the exterminator ;-)
yep, that's what they look like: DISGUSTING
Let me start at the beginning - so a few weeks ago when we saw the first one I still thought this was a one-off. I mean, yes, they made me sign a waiver acknowledging that there had been bedbugs in this building before when I signed the lease but so what. Even the Waldorf Astoria has had bedbugs in this city, right? But no, there would never bee coackroaches in an expensive building like this. Oh, how wrong I was - ANY building in this city can have a problem like this and especially if you are close to the water, this may well happen. After having seen a couple, screaming badly at first and then getting more and more used to chasing and eventually killing them I realized this was more structural so we needed to do something about it. I called the building and after a couple of useless phone calls actually got an exterminator (yes, it's a recognized profession - find one here: http://www.exterminator.com/) to come to our apartment. Luckily I happened to be there when he came because I quickly understood that the people in the building were giving out completely wrong information - they actually do not spray but rather try to find out where the freaking things come from. In our case the pipes are just not well enough connected to the walls and there were spaces that bugs could come through. So they needed to put steelwool around those openings. Sounded pretty reasonable to me and I was already telling everyone that we had finally fixed the problem when... this morning - there was another one in my room!!! Welcome to New York I guess... am back to calling the exterminator ;-)
yep, that's what they look like: DISGUSTING
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