The Real Tales of a Housekeeper

6. Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs

Now when working at a hotel finding bugs is usually a common thing.

Most of the time, it's a spider or two. Sometimes, its whole infestations that happened.

A whole swarm of bugs is hard to deal with. Being a housekeeper, usually, you are the one to find the problem, or you are a soldier on the battlefield for cleanup.

Either way, it's not fun.

So from there, let's begin:

ANTS

Now we have seen single ants on the first floor many times. It happens on the ground floor quite often.

But this... was not normal. Far from common. We had an infestation of ants on all four floors.

I was one of the first to find an ant room. I was on third and they were all huddled near the PTAC unit, though some had wandered away and I found and killed them on the desk.

I had a feeling something was going on so I called for maintenance. They just added the room to a growing list, told me to vacuum thoroughly where they were clustered and thanked me for finding them. Nothing special.

I had later heard a story of a girl that found mounds of ants on the fourth floor in a stayovers room.

How the person lived with those ants was far beyond me.

THE CENTIPEDES AND THE SPIDERS

All these creepy crawlies were found during the same day. I personally don't find bugs gross, but I know people who do.

I was on the first floor this day and I was just making my way to the bathroom when I found this large thing crawling across the floor.

I at first thought it was a Caterpillar, but I realized it wasn't when I got closer to it.

It was a stupid centipede! Of course, I killed it and very happily sprayed the area that now reeked of dead bug and kept on my merry cleaning way.

Starting to clean the shower, I nearly ran headlong into a spider. Luckily I wasn't afraid, so I killed it.

I began to think the bugs were gone. I was in another room and things were going well... until I saw a spider running along the wallpaper in the bathroom.

Sighing, I did again what I normally do and killed the spider by smacking it with my hand. I washed it down the drain and continued my day.

Later, I heard a shout of surprise and far coming from the women's staff bathroom. They opened the door and spoke of a bug on the floor near the toilet.

I told them I would kill it and entered the bathroom. The centipede was right where Alana said it was and I killed it with ease.

Now that I was the hero of the day, I got back to work. The whole time I just thought the bugs were out to get me.

PRAYING MANTIS

Now, this was one of the fortunate ones that I saved instead of killed.

I had just finished cleaning a room and had set aside the bag of dirty sheets and towels at the end of my cart and out of the way.

I noticed a flicker of movement to my left from my peripheral. I turned and saw the mantis clinging to the jutting corner of the wall.

It was just by the elevator and I had seen so few of them before that I had decided to save it and bring it outside.

I knew they could pinch me and I didn't want that. I grabbed a small ice bag and scooped up the large insect.