A difference of opinion

I really never considered that they'd be such a integral part of my experience here, but lizards really have made themselves a hot topic of conversation between the locals and I. Almost every Aussie I've talked to thinks it's outrageous that anyone would be afraid of lizards. It's almost as if they're regarded as squirrels here...really ugly, scaly, creepy, snake-like squirrels.

As I mentioned earlier, my first run-in with them happened when Jenny and I were on our way to view that dump of an apartment earlier on our second day in town. But even though we found a more inviting place to live, they just keep popping up. Around the university I can here them scurrying about in the bushes and grass. I can't see them, but I know they're there.

It's one thing to catch them in the wild, but just a few days ago Jenny discovered one crawling around in our bathtub. That, combined with the one-too-many cockroaches and spiders we've seen around our house, made it clear what our only viable option was: To call an exterminator, of course!

The lizard in our bathtub really was the last straw. Call me what you will, but nothing remotely reptilian has any place in my bathroom or rest of my house, for that matter (Though I should mention that it was a baby lizard--maybe an inch and a half long at most.).

So the friendly folks at Illawarra Pest Control came over fairly quickly by Australian standards--only an hour later than promised--and sprayed the entire house inside and out for spiders, cockroaches, silverfish and ants. While I was paying, one of the men asked me if I knew that I had Redback spiders in my garage (which is situated conveniently outside my bedroom window). I said no--heck, I honestly didn't even know what a Redback spider was. He informed me that in America they're commonly known as Black Widows.

Holy crap.

After about vomiting in the poor man's face, I asked if he took care of them. He assured me that the chemicals would kill them straightaway. He also told me not too worry too much about them, "Sure, they can kill you," he said. "But they're more likely to cause kidney failure, so no worries."

Oh, just pesky kidney failure. Thankfully I didn't overreact too much.

Though Jenny and I have been getting a lot of grief from Aussies for actually ordering an exterminator (though the phone book offers about 20 pages of pest control services, they're apparently never used by locals, just "paranoid Americans" such as myself), it was the best $165 I've spent in a very long time.