Trapped

In July of 2002 I went on a missions trip to Puerto Rico. I was a youth sponsor at the time and I worked with several of the girls in the youth group at our church. For one week I stayed with the girls in a large, beautiful home in the rain forest. It had one problem - roaches. They were everywhere. I was always the first one to get up in the morning to shower and I recall opening the door EVERY morning only to find numerous roaches scurry away. For some reason they were always found on the shower curtain. I don't think I took a single shower without a roach staring at me during my time in Puerto Rico. Eventually I asked the owner of the home if I could have some bug spray. I went into the bathroom, sprayed everything, shut the door and returned 15 minutes later and found over 20 dead roaches. I did this several times while we were there. Those girls owe me.
On more than one occasion I have walked outside my apartment in Louisville, KY and have had flashbacks of my time in Puerto Rico. Sometimes the air is so thick with humidity I feel like I am back in the rain forest. And our recent struggle with roaches only contributes to those flashbacks and memories.
I don't think our apartment is infested. However, I have personally killed about ten cockroaches since we moved here. They come up through the drains. Ideally, if you keep your drains closed (which we do) you shouldn't have a problem. Nobody else in the building has seen a single roach. I typically only see them in the middle of the night. Perhaps I am the only one in the building who has turned on a light in the middle of the night.
I haven't seen a roach in months, until yesterday.-
I was doing laundry and as I picked up a load of clothes from the laundry room floor, I saw something run. I dropped the clothes, ran out of the room, and grabbed a shoe. When I returned it was gone. I know from experience that those little suckers are fast. At first I thought maybe it was a mouse, but I think that is just because I have been paranoid about mice ever since my friend saw them in her apartment.
I went back into the laundry room and place a sticky cardboard trap on the ground right next to the drain. I kept the room dark so it would come back out and hopefully walk on my trap. Periodically I checked the trap and during one sneak peek, I saw the roach. I went after it and as it ran, it went right across my trap. Oh, the joy and satisfaction I get whenever I kill one of those nasty things!
So for those of you who have kids who are bug-lovers, (Kara and Pam) enjoy the pictures. You can click on it to enlarge and get a better view of his disgusting little legs. While he's a decent size, I've seen bigger. Much bigger.