Yesterday we awoke from a poor night’s sleep, one troubled by the sensation of things crawling on us, but not troubled enough to wake up fully.\u00a0 When we looked in the daylight, we saw thousands of tiny winged ant like creatures on the floor beside the bed,\u00a0 on the walls, and yes, some in the bed.\u00a0 We saw tiny nests that looked like anthills in the cracks of the concrete.\u00a0 We might identify these as termites, except we live in a concrete building.\u00a0 I had on hand some “natural, non toxic” spray called “Avenger” specifically for travelers, for bedbugs.\u00a0 I used that at first, and I must say it is remarkably effective.\u00a0 But, it is a small bottle.<\/p>\n
We called the person in charge of our “daily life” issues and she said it was common at this time of year and we should go to the market and buy bug spray.\u00a0 She didn’t grasp the magnitude.\u00a0 When we explained more fully, she said she would send the maintenance man to fill in the cracks in the concrete.\u00a0 As homeowners ourselves, we are concerned about the little guys destroying the building, since they are obviously using the mortar to build nests.\u00a0 However, this is not a concern for the University.<\/p>\n
We took photos.\u00a0 We went to the market.\u00a0 We bought the “big gun” bug spray.\u00a0 I imagine it is DDT, which was still in use in China last I checked.\u00a0 We took the bed apart in order to move it from the wall.\u00a0 We shook out the bedding and stacked it in the front room.\u00a0 The bugs were limited to the bedroom and the bathroom, none in the kitchen as far as we know.\u00a0 We swept and sprayed.\u00a0 I mopped up the dead bugs.<\/p>\n
Dear Husband went off to class and I waited.\u00a0 I haven’t mentioned that the electricity was off all day.\u00a0 No internet, no lights, no washing machine.\u00a0 The day started off sunny and warm, but a cool wind was blowing, so I knew a storm was brewing.\u00a0 I waited.\u00a0 I graded some papers. I sat outside for a while.\u00a0 I swept the balcony and sprayed around the window and the ceiling.\u00a0 I waited some more.\u00a0 I graded some more papers.\u00a0 I waited.\u00a0 I read a little bit.\u00a0 The storm broke and it was quite dark for a while.\u00a0 I kept on waiting for the maintenance man.\u00a0 Our colleague stopped by and said, “It looks like moving day.”<\/p>\n
Just before five o’clock, I called our official and reported that the man had not come, and would he still be coming?\u00a0 She was surprised and said to give her ten minutes.\u00a0 Then she called back to say they were very busy and they forgot, but they would still come. Just as I was reaching my limit of patience, the power came back on.\u00a0 As is the custom, a man came first to look at the situation.\u00a0 Then he came back with his solution which was a bucket of mortar.\u00a0 He filled in the cracks around the base of the floor.\u00a0 Then he cleaned up his mess!\u00a0 This is a new guy.\u00a0 Then he made known to me that he would help me put the bed back together, and we did that.<\/p>\n
Then the student assistant came by to see things again, and told us, “Tomorrow the water will be shut off during the day.”\u00a0 I did some laundry late into the night–some of that bedding, and the towels.\u00a0 I got a headache during the night, I can’t imagine why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday we awoke from a poor night’s sleep, one troubled by the sensation of things crawling on us, but not troubled enough to wake up fully.\u00a0 When we looked in the daylight, we saw thousands of tiny winged ant like creatures on the floor beside the bed,\u00a0 on the walls, and yes, some in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}