The Exterminator – Part Two
I moved from Spanish Harlem to a fantastic old rent controlled apartment on the west side. It was a bit run down and I was the first tenant in a long time to actually give it a bit of TLC; I spent 3 full days cleaning from top to bottom before it was even sanitary enough to move in. I had it repainted and added a few nice touches here and there.
I’d already had a little encounter with a mouse that liked to hang out in my kitchen. I was pretty disgusted with myself that I did the stereotypical grab-a-broom-and-jump-on-the-nearest-chair thing when I first saw it. I called The Koom who lived in Brooklyn to see if she’d come kill it for me. (The Koom is roughly half my size, but twice my strength, earning her the nickname ‘Thundercat’ – so there was a method behind the madness of me calling her).
I managed to get my act together and lay a couple of traps, but the mouse didn’t want to get with the program.
One morning, as I was watching TV, enjoying a cup of tea, I heard a strange noise in the kitchen. It sounded like water dripping, then, in no time, sounded like water running. I went to investigate and walked straight into my nightmare.
It appeared there was a leak in the kitchen ceiling and it was leaking water…and roaches. Like something from a horror movie, they were literally just pouring from above.
I grabbed the phone in one hand and a can of Raid in the other. I put in a frantic call to the Super. She took forever to answer.
“It’s raining roaches!” I yell, when she finally does.
“Err, what?”
“There’s a leak in the ceiling and there’s water and roaches everywhere,” I say, while spraying Raid every which way.
“OK, don’t panic, I’ll send someone.”
I hate it when people say ‘don’t panic’. I wouldn’t need to if I was in a dry, roach-free apartment as opposed to the insect Mardi Gras I had going on at Casa Bangs.
Five minutes later, she sent up the building handymen. They hated me because the Super was always sending them to help me with the various home improvements I had going on. They looked like they’d worked there since the building was built and were pissed off before I even told them what the problem was.
They followed me into the kitchen and looked at the ceiling.
“That’s pretty gross,” said one.
“Thank you, Verne. I’m aware of that,” I say, still spraying Raid like they’re gonna stop making it.
“You should call an exterminator.”
“Ya think? Well, I’m a little tied up with the spraying of the Raid right now. Do you think you could make a call and get one to haul ass over here?”
Surprisingly, for guys who usually take days to get around to doing anything, they actually did this immediately.
In record time, the exterminator shows up.
He tells me the bozos upstairs had left a tap on and this is just what happens in old buildings.
He climbs a ladder and gets to work. I would have made him a cup of tea or something, but I, understandably, didn’t want to spend any time in the kitchen at this point. I stood in the doorway while he chatted to me as if we were at a bar. It soon became clear he was hitting on me. His ‘so where are you froms’ and ‘what do you dos’ were interspersed with a running commentary about how exactly each of the chemicals he was injecting into my ceiling killed the roaches. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.
It was when he was laying a mouse trap while inviting me to his house in the Dominican Republic that I had to strongly resist the urge to say ‘Dude, you’re the exterminator.’
I don’t really care what a guy does for a living, but there are certain things I just can’t get down with; anyone who works in sanitation/sewage, people who gut fish and exterminators round out my top three.
As he was leaving, he assured me I wouldn’t have any more roach trouble (I stock piled Raid, just in case), gave me his card and invited me out for a drink. I politely declined but thanked him for his service.
Had my Papa been there, he could have taken out all those roaches and the mouse, with his slipper, in three seconds flat.
