DON’T LET IT BUG YOU

Living Dangerously

The places I’ve lived that nearly killed me

Just one of the funghis I lived with. Photo by on

I’ve lived in places with so many variations of infestation I could have been an entomologist.

I’ve lived in a place with ear wax smeared on the walls. How did I know it was ear wax? Well, that’s another story.

I’ve lived in a hole, crawling over with so many biting bugs that my flatmate and I were covered with enormous, bright red, itchy hives. Me around my wrists and ankles, him all over and I mean all over. He’s ginger though, and they always react worse.

Alarmed, distressed, clawing at our skin we went to see our landlord, Michael. His yellowing talons like some kind of horrific landlordy emperor.

A bird of prey? Or our landlord’s hands? Photo by on

My flatmate, feral, foaming at the mouth, demanded new mattresses. The words that came out of James when Michael tried to ooze his way out of paying for them, cannot be repeated here. Suffice it to say we got the new mattresses. Pretty damn quick actually. You don’t mess with James when he’s angry.

This was the same place that was overrun with a small rodent family, the matriarch of which…