Orkin: Here to Save the Day or Not

So I called Orkin. I was afraid of a lot of things when I called. I was afraid he was going to come and say that we had the worst problem he had ever seen. I was afraid he was going to say he couldn't help us. There was a lot of anxiety before he came. He showed up and he looked like he was Nico's age. What is worse is that every time I said something, he would answer with, "Oh, my mom says the same thing." I would tell him what I was doing and he'd say, "That's the same thing my mom does." I felt ancient. I think I appreciated the old guy who told me about how his son was being carted off to jail for drug possession that fixed our washing machine more than the super young guy who kept referencing his mom.

Jimmy, the Orkin guy, set 10 glue traps (boxes where they get stuck in them and die) and said we have to empty out that room so he can check behind the insulation to see if that is where they are coming in the house. This made me really mad because I don't even want the baby clothes or Nico's old clothes for Tommy anymore. I just want the stuff out of there but Leo is a saver to a fault and thinks we are going to save a ton of money by keeping the clothes. The funny thing was he kept saying, "We'll have to go through the stuff" and I guess he didn't get the memo that I am never going down there again. Jimmy closed up two holes on the outside, told us to fill the holes in the bottom of our porch with sand or rocks (I think that is where they are coming in) and cut down all the weeds in our horror scene of a dog run. He checked and said the problem isn't that bad and that they are only in the basement (Thank God) and there is no sign of them in any of the usual places he sees them. He sprayed his magic stuff that keeps everything away and I was feeling pretty good.

Then, that night Nico and about six other boys were down in the basement. A mouse came out, looked at them, walked around the glue trap and walked back into the storage room. What the Hell??? Right after I told Nico and his friends not to touch anything, one of the boys stuck a Guitar Hero guitar in one of the traps and got it stuck. Another one got it out but got the glue on his hands. It's not good. It's hard to be at war with the mice when you have teenagers sabotaging you at every corner. One of Nico's friends who obviously doesn't know me very well kept yelling, "I saw a mouse!" when he didn't.

It was a huge step for me to even call someone to take care of the problem and I really had to talk Leo into being okay with spending the money on it. I keep thinking that this had better work and right now...I'm not so sure. If it doesn't get better when Leo has to go out of town for work, I might consider the unnecessary spending of staying in the neighborhood Howard Johnson's.