I’ve been texting our landlord ever since I heard the noises. At night, when we’re almost asleep, we can just barely catch the scuttling sound as they hurry across the hardwood floor, disgusting little bodies clicking and clacking like dry bones in the darkness.

My text messages started politely enough – “Hey Jack, I think we might have a bug problem, could you look into that for us?” – but when he didn’t respond I’ve had to grow more aggressive.

“Jack, we’re infested. We need an exterminator and that’s YOUR responsibility as a landlord. Can you PLEASE get one hired and sent over SOON? Thanks.”

I hope the capitalized words and that stony thanks-with-a-period-at-the-end will be enough to convince him but all I’ve heard so far is “Yeah sure looking into them now”.

Yeah. Sure.

Marnie says the roaches are getting louder every night but sometimes Marnie exaggerates for effect. I love her but she can be a total pill.

“Last night I woke up and there was one on my pillow,” she says this morning. “I screamed and swatted it away but I don’t think I killed it. Those things are fucking impossible to kill, you know, I watched a National Geographic video on YouTube about it.”

I dump the used coffee pod into the trash and brace myself for more. With Marnie, there’s always more.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says enthusiastically around a mouthful of granola bar. “They can survive a nuclear blast—“ She says ‘nucular’, not nuclear. “—they’ve been around for like three million years longer than humans, and when they mate the male excretes this sticky stuff—“

My appetite is in serious danger of being ruined. I change the subject.