Almost paradise

I just finished reading Paul Theroux's Hotel Honolulu. Apparently it is a true story about his time as a manager in a worn-down Waikiki hotel. He tells funny short stories about his employees, guests of the hotel, and locals which made me laugh out loud. Some of the stories end kind of darkly with at least 5 of these forlorn souls committing suicide, and also there was considerable talk of the pests around Hawaii.

Recently, I posted on our mouse problem, which apparently wasn't the last of the pests to enter into our lives. I discovered something that looked like a tick on Gaffney about 2 weeks ago, and I took it to work to look at it under the microscope. This "tick" only had 6 legs, which was strange, since ticks are arachnids, so they should have 8 legs. I asked around and found out that ticks were pretty uncommon in Hawaii, besides Gaffney is on medicine that is supposed to prevent them.

Yesterday, the AP ran a story on bed bugs. Apparently they are making a comeback, especially in hotels in, gasp, Waikiki. I looked at the pictures carefully, and sure enough, that is definitely the insect I found on poor G. Today, K&I got bit for the first time, which led us to completely go crazy washing everything in our bedroom in really hot water and vacuuming the entire house. Hopefully they go away, but they are apparently really hard to kill without professional intervention. Sigh.

Theroux makes light of the pests of Hawaii, so perhaps I should too. As he writes:

In Hawaii there are always rats, and always sharks just offshore, and cockroaches patterned like tortoiseshell, and geckos and moths and ten kinds of ants. These were the certain proof and reminder that Hawaii was paradise.

Aloha, bed bugs...