This is getting ridiculous.

Ok, call me naive. I had no idea NYC and roaches were synonymous. This is probably the worst place I have ever lived, but having said that, it's still liveable - except for the F_IN ROACHES! Oh, we've laughed, we've cried about them but now i'm starting to get really irritated. 

So my hospital provides housing, which is great - a dorm style building (individual rooms are only 9' x 13' though) that's right across the hospital, and the location itself is convenient to the subway station and bus lines. Laundry machines on each floor, NO BILLS (except internet / cable which is contracted out) which is very useful for those of us keeping the AC and lights on 24/7 trying to deter the roaches, and hospital police for the front-doormen. Gym downstairs too, although it's very bare. We're hoping to build it up. And, "rent" is only like 300 a month, which is subsidized by my program / hospital. 

However, the roaches. It's an old building and believe it or not, some people either through laziness, tolerance or religious opposition, DON'T KILL THEM! SO then they infest other people's rooms, they're in the walls, when I walk into the communal "kitchen" sometimes there's like 5-6 scurrying away from me and sometimes when I open the communal microwave, they scuttle out too!! I mean, GROSS! 

I have become completely roach-obsessed. I spent all of today cleaning every single item I own, taking out the drawers and spraying, buying two tubes of caulk and caulking every crack I can find, I have roach bait everywhere. And I thought I was getting control of them until I saw one pregnant one yesterday and one large pregnant one today. The little ones I don't mind. The big ones I really do mind. My neighbor must not be killing them. 

It's becoming a serious problem, I can't study cuz I look up, see one then spend 1 second killing it and 9 minutes cleaning the area. I can't sleep cuz I keep imagining them crawling on me when I sleep (although that has never happened, they actually don't go near my bed but one of my friends said he woke up to find 3 of them staring at him and he subsequently screamed like a girl). You can actually hear people screaming in the hallway if they find a particularly gross looking one.  

I wish the administration would exterminate the whole building, but as far as I know, they only spray individual rooms. I hope all these fumes and stuff build up my immune system and not weaken it. I've already gotten 2 bad colds in the last two months.

I was getting so mad the other day because in my spoiled mindset, I was like "I paid for 9 years of high quality education, I worked damn hard to become a doctor, so why am I now living in a shithole that is the smallest hole I have ever lived in?" I was considering moving out...until I realized that unless you rent those really expensive apts in manhattan, it's a problem everywhere in the city. And some apts get like dead rats and crap too. 

Sigh. I was considering staying here after residency. Maybe if I could afford one of those luxury apts, I will. Who knows. sheesh. I'm bombing / fogging my room tomorrow. I hope to god it works.