Spiders

I live in my parents basement.  I live with my boyfriend and we have a good amount of privacy.  And we live there for very cheap, so I try not to complain too much.  But there is much left to be desired.

            We are legally not allowed to have a few things in the basement, because my town only allows one family homes, so you can’t have another living space in the house (or so my mother says).  Therefore, we cannot have a sink in the kitchen.  We cannot have a closet in the “office space” which I call my bedroom (legally a bedroom must have a closet…or so my mother says).  Living in a basement can also greatly deprive one of their natural source of Vitamin D—that’s the stuff you get from the sun.  We have a few windows throughout the space that you might be able to stick a cat or a baby through… though I don’t know why you would.

            But of all the things I love about my “home,” my all time favorite has to be the spiders.  Spiders are attracted to cold, dark spaces… sound familiar?  I have never really had a problem with bugs, never been one of those girls that sees a bug and starts to scream.  And even spiders have never really bothered me.  They are the good bugs; they kill the other bugs, mosquitos and ants and flies and such.  But sometimes enough is enough. Lately our wonderful roommates have been growing in numbers and size. 

About a week ago I woke up in the middle of the night to something crawling on my arm.  Jim (the boyfriend) said it was probably nothing and I dreamt it, but I knew what I felt.  And my dreams are never that vivid.

The next afternoon, we returned from somewhere and sitting on our bed was the beautiful (yet big) Wolf spider.  And that’s when I decided we needed to do something.  But we were both busy that day… so we didn’t.

The next day, there was a black spider on my washcloth in the shower and, later that night, Jim found another Wolf Spider in the Bathroom.  I was avoiding the basement at all costs.  One actual good thing about living with my parents is that I can go visit them above ground whenever I want, use their TV, their oven, their Dishwasher, etc. So I had been spending a lot of time up there, but I couldn’t avoid my bedroom forever.

I picked up all the clothes on the floor and annoyed Jim until he left his videogame and picked up some of his things.  The broom and vacuum became my best friend for the next hour or so and then I annoyed Jim again to help me move the bed.  We put medical tape (Jim has a plethora as an EMT and we couldn’t find any duct-tape…we found it the next day in my car) up where the floor meets the wall and I felt a little safer.

Since then, things have been better.  Today we saw one ant and, a while later, one spider.  I trapped the ant under a bottle cap and let it suffer for a few hours (then a few more because I forgot about it) then I killed it.  I know, I’m a sadistic person.  I tried the same thing with the spider and when I checked under the bottle cap a while later, it was gone.

So, they’re not completely eradicated.  But hopefully there wont be a Spiders 2 movie… I mean Blog post.