North Carolina Has Bugs

For the past very many months we have been actively researching the state of North Carolina, having made up our minds that it would be there where we would make our next and permanent move.

Having spent a ton of time there in my younger days at my father's house, North Carolina is near and dear to my heart and it wasn't hard to decide that it would be a great place to settle. 

My father lived in Pilot Mountain, 

on the more western side of the state,

but I need to be near the ocean in order to be sane happy so our research has been focused on the eastern side.

I joined a bunch of online forums related to moving to or living in NC and the people and their posts have been extremely helpful with lots of talk about good/bad neighborhoods, how to register your vehicles (way too complicated compared to NJ, by the way), weather, etc.

But the other morning there was a post about bugs.

Basically the person was saying that they recently had a NC visit to check things out for a potential move there but there were so many BUGS there that they didn't think they could live there.
They were actually very specific about the kind of bugs, too. 

The C word.
Or the R word, if you take off the first syllable.

this is not an actual RockCoach but i am so 
phobic about them that i cannot even look at 
them so i have to make them look like this
even though this bears absolutely 
no resemblance to an actual one

I cannot bring myself to even type the actual word because one of my many phobias is exactly this brand of bug. If you haven't figured it out, here's a hint: it rhymes with RockCoach.

As if that post wasn't bad enough, the comments that followed it were horrifying. 
Or traumatizing if you've got a RockCoach phobia.

Many people responded with their own stories using words like INFESTATION and PALMETTO BUGS - which are just FLYING ROCKCOACHES - and how you have to having PEST CONTROL out to your house so often that you might as well invite the Terminix guy to Thanksgiving dinner since he's at your house so often anyway.

(I was quite aware that certain disgusting bugs were a thing     

RockCoach wintering in NC

in Florida (see below) which is one of the reasons I could 

never live there...but I naively never considered that they'd 

find North Carolina suitable since, while it doesn't get 

freezing there, it can get pretty chilly in the winter.)

My RockCoach phobia more than likely started many years ago when we were wintering in Miami Beach and I had a run-in with a palmetto bug in our hotel suite. Let's just say that it was not small and it was sitting on top of a loaf of bread that I wanted to get to in order to make some toast 

and that when I saw it - and it saw me - I literally took off running.

I ran through the kitchenette...I ran across the beds...I threw open the door and ran down the hallway...I ran through the lobby...and then I ran for several blocks along Collins Avenue.

And thus a phobia was born.

Fast forward to my 20s.
I was living in an apartment in a building that my parents owned in Elizabeth, NJ. My daughter was just a few months old.
I was in the bedroom folding laundry and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something move

on the cord for the television.  
I walked over to look closer.

This time I did not take off running but I did pack a bag (that I thoroughly inspected) very quickly with my clothes and my daughter's things, got in the car and drove an hour to my mother's house at the Jersey shore.
And that was the day I moved back in with my mother.
Yes, that's right...I never lived again in that apartment. No amount of extermination and reassurance could convince me to go back.

Nothing has changed.

My husband knows that God forbid anything disgusting shows up in any house we own, I'm out.
And I do not mean I'll be staying at a hotel until the situation is taken care of.
I mean I no longer live there.

I did wind up asking questions to the people who responded to that bug post about North Carolina.
People said things like "it's the South, they are everywhere, get used to it", to which I was like

One nice man told me that "it's not too bad - you might see a few every month as long as you keep up with pest control - but remember they don't want to be inside your house as much as you don't want them there".

Actually, nice man, that's not really true.  I can guarantee you and them that I exponentially want them there a gazillion times less than them, as they happily munch away on some crumbs we missed on our kitchen floor.

That one post activated phobia mode and made me change my mind and completely switch gears on where our next move is going to be. Thankfully JP agrees.

It still could be North Carolina but it would have to be on the western side where the online forum people recommend for people like me. But that would mean no quick trips to be by the ocean.
Sigh.

Always an adventure.

Stay tuned as it all unfolds...