With the weather starting to turn and the realization that snow is soon going to be upon us, we have made our appointments to put on the winter tires and decided to drive up to the Kibbutz of the North to take a look at the ski equipment. These girls grow like weeds and we certainly need to replace everything, again.
We don't come up in the summer. We enjoy the pool in the backyard too much, so the country house lays dormant for many months. We did come up a little while ago and I spent the entire weekend cleaning. Yesterday, I picked up the girls for school and we headed right out, just the three of us. The plan was to tidy up and dust before Mortimer's Dad and the dogs joined us a hour or so later. We needed both cars to move some furniture back and forth.
Because I had cleaned a few months ago, I was expecting a medium-size job. When we walked in, I was surprised to see how tidy and clean the basement looked. No giant spider-webs, I couldn't write my name on the furniture. Great. As I turned the corner to go up the stairs, I did notice a couple of dead flies in the stairs. OK, not bad. When I got to the main floor, I couldn't really tell what was wrong with the floor, but it seemed speckled. They are fairly dark wood floors, and without the lights on, it looked like hundreds of little black dots all over the place, but mostly on the side where the windows are. I put down the suitcase, put on the lights and figured it out: dead flies. ALL OVER THE FLOOR. WTF?!?!??! It was sooooooo gross. I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and started to get rid of them pronto. I wouldn't let the girls come upstairs until I was done. I couldn't figure it out. There was no food left anywhere, the windows had been closed tight, it was just puzzling. But they were all dead and the cyclonic vacuum we bought last year was doing quick work of making them disappear. So I let the girls bypass the main floor and go up to their rooms to play while I dusted and made sure everything else was fine.
After a few minutes upstairs, Dumpling asked me to come up because there were "Bugs everywhere Mommy!" I was expecting more dead flies, but when I went up the steps, I didn't see any. I peaked into Dumpling's room and did spot one dead fly on her window ledge, but otherwise, it was fine. I went into BB's new room (which was formerly the mezzanine) and didn't see anything at all. But then Dumpling said "In YOUR room Mommy!".
So I went into our room. Where I was met by hundreds of flies. Flying. Live freaking flies. Covering the window. I shut the door, ushered the girls downstairs and called my husband, who was at loss as to what to do. So I called an exterminator, who asked me if they were all on the sunny side of the house (they were) and reassured me it was nothing we had done or left behind, that it had been a particular year where the flies stayed late into the summer and found ways inside when it got cold. he told me he's be there in 30 min. Which he was. And he sprayed. A few hours later my new friends were lying dead all over our room (so gross) and I went at it again with the vacuum. He did tell me he'll come back this week to do it one more time and take a look in the attic. I don't even want to think what's in the attic.....
After putting the girls to bed, I was spent. We had a stressful week of wrestling with a huge decision and I haven't been sleeping, so the flies were the last straw for me. I decided to make a nice fire and relax for a bit. I opened the fireplace, and found a dead rodent. Maybe a squirrel or chipmunk, I didn't look long enough to identify it. The instant I saw it, the bile rose in my throat and I ran to the fridge to look for wine! then I looked at Mortimer's Dad and said "I am NOT dealing with that. YOU deal with that"
I draw the line at dead animals. I'll do hundreds and hundreds of dead flies, but I don't do dead animals.
