Creepy-crawly

Dear Reader:

It has come to my attention, with some certainty, that my home has pests. I have lived in New York before, and know that large buildings in crowded areas, particularly buildings that are warm and provide plentiful food options, are quite the draw for creatures of all sorts. Thus, this should not, and I would like to say is not a surprise, despite the regularity with which an exterminator comes to my building; however, when I was awake at 3 a.m., I soon realized that I had been awoken.

And I shuddered the shudder of a tiny, grossed out little girl.

Offender #1:
Meeses. I thought it was a single mouse.* Actually, to be more accurate, I saw a fuzzy hindquarter and a tail shimmy into a baseboard beneath my cabinet, but because it was dark and an unreasonable 8 feet away, I tried to convince myself it was a trick of the light.

Last night I discovered that it was no trick.  Luckily, there were no sweet, velveteen little monsters in my own space. Instead, they had decided to throw a rager in my ceiling.  Mouse after mouse was traipsing about, carousing and dancing and (gasp) courting.

Little bastards can't hold their liquor.
(photocredit rimskacesta.org)

Eventually the party wound down, and I thanked the heavens above for well-made ceilings, because the day a hole opens up and a cascade of meeses crashes upon my head is the day I drop everything I own and move to someplace warm with hammocks and monkeys, with no consideration of future or planning.

Offender #2:
Who has up to 30 thumbs and was in my apartment last night? This guy:

Insert pun about shoes here.

Legs McGee here is a House Centipede.  I first discovered his ilk in October of 2002, up in Bronxville, where I was visiting my BFF, Az. The ones in Bronxville are large (like 2 inches long). The fellow tap-dancing across my floor was either a baby, or had become a runt by virtue of growing up in the city.¹ 

Now, House Centipedes are actually a boon: insectivores, they decimate the other creepy-crawlies that tend to infest urban dwellings--including cockroaches, which are infinitely more disgusting. However, there are things that make me really, really not want them around.

Things about multi-legged arthropods called scutigera that gross me out:

1. They scoot (hence the name? no, wait, Latin doesn't work like that). They can move 1.3 feet per second, which is frighteningly close to an entire mile in one hour. They will not use that speed to run far from the abode, though. Just around it. 
2. They are venomous. Now, the internet tells me that their little forcibles are too weak to penetrate my sturdy human epidermis, but I don't want to take that chance. No sir.
3. They can live up to seven years, molting and growing and getting more of those awful little legs.  This is not a normal bug life-span (even roaches, according to my sources, live a maximum of 2), and I hate to think that I've moved into an apartment that already has had tenants for several years.
4. LOOK AT THEM.

Now, I don't in general have a desire to line the walls of this place with pesticides or mousetraps, because the former are potentially unsafe and the latter, well, I don't like them on ethical grounds.² But, I've flinched and squealed twice already this morning when my own hair brushed against my shoulder, so perhaps some steps ought to be taken.

Until Next Time,
Ali, your neighborhood bipedal pest.



Notes:
* First, I recognize the egregious liberty I have just taken, and I would like to tell you to stuff it, because "mice" is a stupid plural. Thank you. Second, I also recognize that I should have immediately known that one mouse = many meeses, but I was living in a dream world where the city mouse is a friendly loner, wandering about meeting many strange and exciting characters along the way. In this setup, the city mouse is often wearing a top hat, because he's fancy.
¹ Don't believe in this phenomenon? Check out the ultimate New Yorker.
² This isn't for a "all life is sacred" sort of reason, though that may be the case. It's because I'm at the top of the food chain (at least when I'm not around bears and cats with claws as big as my face--I'll cede the title to them should I ever find myself in trouble), and that means that I should eat the things below me if I'm going to kill me. It's an ecological responsibility. And there ain't no way I'm making city-mouse gumbo.