The vermin poll.

[rivka]

[Poll #1243857]

What prompted this poll: we saw a mouse in our kitchen this weekend. Mice in our last house got a bit out of control, so we're being alert and taking immediate measures to try to get rid of this one. But although I know that mice can carry disease, I don't really freak out about them. They seem like a normal fact of household life to me. They're a pain, but they don't revolt me.

Then I remembered a post I saw once on mothering.com, which at the time I labeled one of the most unintentionally revealing posts I'd ever seen. It was someone posing a hypothetical situation in which Child Protective Services might make unfair negative judgments about a family: By the time the caseworker shows up Mom decides to be friendly because, of course, she has nothing to hide -- so she invites the worker in for a cup of tea. She pours the tea and they sit chatting ... a moment later the worker picks up her cup to see a roach floating in it.

Mom says, "I'm so sorry -- we've just treated for roaches, but you know how hard it is to get completely rid of them ..." The worker doesn't understand, she's always lived in newer homes: from her perspective, a roach is a sign of a filthy house ...

My first reaction to that post: My house is 168 years old, so I hardly think I'm biased. Serving someone tea in a cup that has a roach in it? Is, in fact, a sign of a filthy house. And if you think that's normal or understandable, there's something wrong with your housekeeping standards. My second reaction, though: Huh, probably there are people out there who would feel the same way about mouse droppings in the back of a kitchen cupboard, which to me is a sign of whoops-but-no-big-deal.

Your thoughts?

Comments

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

Where I live now the only roaches I have EVER seen are my Giant Burrowing ones (Marcopanethsia sp) which live in a habitat on my dresser. Never had pantry moths down here, and its too cold for mice I suspect. Ants however seem to like my cupboards and I dont like them...so we wage war.
However when I lived in Brisbane we had big roaches on a semi regular basis - Periplantia sp, which are technically outside roaches, so dont make me go ick. GERMAN roaches however (Blattica germanica) make me squirm big time and go into hyper OCD cleaning mode if I see them - dunno why, something about them makes me squirm. And if I seem over knowing on the roach front my honours thesis was on the diversity of oxyurid parasites in cockroaches, so I spent a whole year, dissecting and identifing the little blighters.

In other ppls houses, roaches make me go ICK, if I see a mouse I will freak, but otherwise Eh.