Welcome to the Jungle

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Okay, so really it's more like "Welcome to the Mold Infested Zoo That Is My Apartment Complex," but you can see why I chose to shorten the title.

I'm gonna be quite honest. I don't like nature. Too many things with more legs than I have and too many smells that inhibit my ability to breathe. I always try to give nature a chance. If I didn't have a paralyzing fear of spiders, thunder, and the dark, I probably would've made a great outdoorsy chick who likes to hike and camp and all other manner of things.

Call me crazy, but my personal preferences lie with central heating and running water as opposed to sleeping on top of an anthill in the middle of a thunderstorm.

My current residence on campus is sort of a mixture of both. I have electricity and running water, but I also have poltergeist in the den and a wide variety of unidentifiable fungi living in the ducts. Typically, I think it's charming (especially since Roommate and I have learned to distinguish the antics of our ghost from things one of us did in our sleep), but the fact remains that something resides in our house that keeps me from being able to breathe.

This morning, I was getting ready for classes. As I was sitting in the den putting on my socks, I heard "chirpity chirpity chirp!" and remember thinking "gee, what a loud bird! It sounds like it's in the house!"

Because it was.

There is an ancient wall unit that was supposedly used for heating back when our apartment complex was in its prime in the 1950s. I walked past it and heard "chirpity chirpity chirp!" and thought ohh craaaaap.

Hoping it was a figment of my imagination or that the bird was outside but simply echoing through the vents, I walked into the kitchen.

Nope. Freaking bird was in the vent.

I immediately called maintenance because I just didn't think that a living critter inside my apartment was something that I wanted to wait around for it to resolve itself. I explained to the gentlemen on the phone that I was 99.36482% sure that there was a bird living in our ductwork. He was not pleased with the news, but started asking me questions about the location of Tweety so he could tell the guys from pest control.

Before I hung up, I apologized for the unusual request and assured him that I was not making it up. I ended the conversation by saying "I called as soon as I heard it because there are enough things living in my vents that are keeping me from breathing. I didn't want to add a bird to the mix."

I could see the blank stare on his face from my apartment. In fact, the poor guy is probably still scratching his head.

The upside is that if pest control comes, maybe they'll find the bird, the hole the bird flew into, the asbestos that is making me sick, and the body of the tormented soul haunting our abode. Fingers crossed.