Nellessen-Lara: Pretty name can't disguise cockroaches

Lisa Nellessen-Lara
News Journal Executive Editor
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No one told me about the monster bugs when they asked me to transfer to Florida from the Midwest.

Palmetto bugs may be our Southern neighbors, but they don't make for welcome houseguests.

Beautiful beaches, exciting downtown, friendly people — that's the picture they painted — and they didn't lie, except by omission. A big, huge, disgusting omission.

I will never, ever forget that moment I was sitting at the dining room table, exhausted after a long day of moving into our new home, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a flurry of activity.

Something skittered past my vision so fast I was sure I imagined it. Minutes later, I see it again and nearly threw up. At the very least, I screamed, and I am not a girly girl. There was no way that what I was seeing was accurate — a three-inch long red bug with freakishly long antennas flitting across my floor at the speed of light.

My fiancé pretended he didn't see it, as if denial would make them go away. I immediately texted my friend, co-worker and Southern belle, Katie King, to talk me off a cliff.

Katie: How long was it?

Me (expecting her to argue): Three inches, I swear to God.

Katie: Three inches? Was it red? With antennas?

Me: YES, how did you know that? Are these common?

Katie: No worries, it's just a Palmetto bug, we get them all over. They're harmless.

A Palmetto bug, that doesn't sound so bad. I could breathe again, maybe put my feet back down on the floor. I felt comfortable enough to pull out my phone and do a Google search.

Google doesn't lie, unlike Katie King. That monster was a cockroach, a big, massive, gleaming, scurrying, disgusting ball of grossness that apparently is ALL OVER FLORIDA. They're especially all over wooded areas, where I just happened to move.

Give these monsters a pretty name and call them what you will, but a cockroach is a cockroach and I was moving out.

While Steve is attempting to calm me down, Katie sends me photos. Do they look like these?

Oh my God, a picture made it even worse. There was no denying the absolute grossness with their scaly little backs and feathery tail-thingies. She just kept sending photos, one after the other, after the other.

I get it, my new house in paradise is surrounded by the devil and I can't stay there another minute.

Listen, I know ticks and ants and mosquitoes and I've got no problem with those little, itty-bitty creatures just trying to survive. Give me a reason for a cockroach to exist? Never mind, don't bother, I'll hate them anyway.

At the height of my hysteria another friend tells me about Terminix. Less than $100 a quarter and some saintly man comes and sprays your houses and garage and yard and you'll never have to think about those beasts again. I booked an appointment that night and they swore they would be there in the morning.

Blurry eyed after staying up all night alert to every noise in the house, a wonderful man arrived and spent an hour in the house, pointing out every nook and cranny in which the bugs enter. (I didn't go into my closet for a week, just in case). As he's leaving, he tells me to expect to see even more in the next few days while they try to escape the poison. It's OK, he said, they'll be slow and near death.

Awesome. I went to a hotel. I came back two days later and found a half dozen or so throughout the house. It was money well spent.

Now that I'm sleeping through the night again, reporter Troy Moon tells me it's bug season. What does that mean, bug season? Are there more creatures out there I haven't yet discovered? Good thing I've got Terminix on speed dial.

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