Life In Oz = Beasties

Life in Australia means beasties. Creepie crawlies. Insects. Flies. Mosquitos. Spiders. Snakes. Lizards. The list goes on and on.

I have mentioned my experiences of the "neighbours" I live alongside. Today, however, marks a new era in my life. I am MAN! Hear me ROAR!!

We found a cockroach last night. It was already on it's back, with legs flailing in the air, dying. Perhaps my cats had got to it. Perhaps it had crawled through an area I had sprayed with special insecticide. Perhaps it was simply it's time to pass on to the great beyond. Who knows?!

All I know is, that was the last straw. This is now war. War on cockroaches, spiders and all those unwelcome critters I find occasionally.

It is clear that the patrols I do with Prudence, when monster hunting, isn't enough. I need the big guns.

So today I went to the local supermarket and purchased sprays, bait traps, powders...you name it - it's in my arsenal. I am now a one man army, declaring and waging true warfare upon the beasties of Australia.

I have placed ant baits around the outside of my house. My gardens, patio and driveway are covered in ants. I find it unusual that they are about the only creatures I haven't found in my house yet. I'm happy for it to stay that way. I am not offended if they do not wish to pay a personal visit, call me or send me flowers. The baits have poison, that the ants are supposed to pick up and take back to their queen in their nest. Fingers crossed.

I also purchased baits for cockroaches, in case the one we found last night was not a lonely wanderer. His fate, if you wondered, was to be crushed and flushed, down my lavatory. Crushed and flushed. Goodbye Mr Cockroach.

I put these baits around the inside of the house, in the garage, under sinks. These disgusting agents of disease and horror like the dark and the damp. If you have faulty plumbing, get the leaks sorted. Try not to leave water out over night. Cockroaches can eat and live on anything, even medicine and the adhesive on stamps. But, they need water. It is water that will probably be what attracts and keeps a cockroach resident in your home.

I have sprayed industrial strength insecticides around my house's perimeter as a barrier and covered my gardens in a cloud of ant dust.

I mean business. I will win the battle and the war. Death to all insects and arachnids. Death!