Expensive pest
November 17, 2009 (Tuesday)
The cold weather arrived today, and people will be cranking up their furnaces. My crank didn’t work when I tried to make sure the heating system was functional. Here in this church-owned house in Houston, the equipment is in the attic, and the repairman had a difficult time working on it because of the cramped space. This one has electronic ignition so it has a circuit board. He discovered that a big ol’ Houston roach had crawled onto the circuit board at the wrong place and the wrong time. The bug was electrocuted, and the board was shorted out. Cost of the repairs will likely be near $400. Not every roach gets to go out in such a blaze of expensive glory. I’ve dispatched several to The Great Beyond with a squirt of insecticide that probably cost five cents or less. In fact, that bottle of stuff has a nice smell, so there is a tender side to my murderous ways.
There are some folks who study roaches and say they are not so bad once you get to know them. But most people kill them on sight, and don’t even like to think about them. A popular science-fiction movie presented a race of dangerous space aliens as giant cockroaches. A great many people refuse to see it a second time for that reason. In fact, I have a DVD of that movie that was given to me by someone who just can’t watch it again.
Coincidentally, the heating system at the Rockport house is also refusing to work this season. Hope it’s cheaper to fix than this one.