Moving into a new house is always weird and when my family and I moved into this old one it was just as you would expect.
Creaky floors, weird new smell we weren’t used to and all the other things that come with an old house.
The first few weeks were fine, the kids enjoyed having their own rooms and my wife and I had a new huge one, it was perfect as far as we could tell.
After a couple more weeks went by everything was going pretty good, I had just gotten home from work and felt like I could eat a horse. I moved to the kitchen and started to rummage around, trying to find something to consume.
I was planning on making a sandwich but couldn’t seem to find any bread.
I eventually found some but there was nothing left but the ends.
I slumped down in the chair defeated. It would be a could day in hell before I actually eat the worst parts of the bread. I eventually gave up and decided that I would just take the family out so that we could get some dinner, when my wife walked in with bags of groceries in hand.
I moved to help her and asked, “Did you get any bread? We’re all out.”
“I just bought some,” she replied.
That’s when I heard shuffling from down the hall. I looked to see that it was my son, he came out of his room and walked up to me, before he could say anything to me I said, “I didn’t even know that you were here.” I looked over to my wife and said, “That’s probably were the bread went.”
“Yeah I got a ride from Chris so that I didn’t have to catch the bus. We were just playing video games, but that’s besides the point there are some flies in my room. Do you know where the fly swatter is?” he asked.
“It’s hanging over there, I bet you guys ate real good,” I asked, my son looked at me somewhat puzzled and went back to his room.
“Let it go,” my wife said we will make something for dinner.
“Nah, I relied once Vanessa gets home. I’m going to take you and the kids out for dinner.”
***
A few days went by and all was well, but as the days went on, I realized that the fly swatter was being used more and more. It was for good reason though. These big black flies would show up sporadically.
My family would then go on to massacre the pests, that was until we somehow lost the fly swatter.
Then the flies started to come in droves. In one day, there was about twenty of the little bastards flying around. What made it so much worse was that these were not small flies. They were big. About the size of a kidney bean. You would also be able to hear them buzzing around from across the room.
After killing the flies for about thirty minutes, I got sick of swatting the buggers with my sandals. So I went to the store to buy another fly swatter.
While I was at the store, I found some fly tape and I picked that up too. I also bought some bug spray to deal with the pests.
When I got home, my wife and kids were panting. Flip flops and rolled up newspapers in hand.
I looked at them and chuckled saying, “Looks like you guys had a nice workout.”
Unfortunately for me though my wife didn’t find it funny. She decided that when the flies showed up again, I would have to be the one to kill them, all by my self.
I bet my wife was real glad that I was the only one on fly-killing duty, because the next day the little bastards were back and with a vengeance.
The fly tape that I put up was completely black by the time the kids got home and there was still some flies flying around.
Taking down the fly tape was one of the most disgusting things that I had ever done.
I moved to grab the tape from the top but my foot slipped on something, which I think was a dead fly that I had sprayed. I reached out to grab something to stop my fall and one of my hands landed on the counter. My other hand that was still in the air and it landed on the closest thing to it.
Which was the fly tape.
I felt like I wanted to vomit as my hand closed around the tape and the flies popped under my grip.
I recoiled back flailing, trying to get this disgusting thing of my hand, while stepping on more dead flies, and swinging my hand sending some of the flies on the tape that weren’t attached properly, shooting off in wild directions.
***
After that experience, I was done with the flies and decided that I would just get the house fumigated.
What annoyed me to no end was that I never knew how the flies got in, all the doors would be closed, the windows shut but they would always be in the house.
I called a pest control company and explained our situation that the flies just kept on coming back. They said that they would have their people over shortly.
They arrived at our home, the guy in charge told me that this seemed like a common case of an animal getting stuck in a wall or the roof and dying. He said that he would inspect the house so that we wouldn’t get fumigated and just have the same problem after a few weeks.
After about thirty minutes, he called me to the side of the house and showed me the problem. There was a hole in the roof that looked like it had been there for a while. It was about the size of a volleyball but kind of an oval shape. I had no idea how I had missed it.
Thinking back on it now, the person who sold us the house had not shown us this side up close, plus there were a lot of trees and bushes pushed up against it, so the hole was not that noticeable.
The guy said that a raccoon or something probably went into the roof had gotten stuck and died. He said that they could inspect it for us but they would have to make the hole bigger so that they could fit. Seeing that, the pull down ladder for the attic had gotten jammed somehow.
Around this point in time, I didn’t care and I just wanted my house to be fly-free.
About three minutes had gone by after they had made the hole bigger and one of their guys went in. When I heard him yell, “I found your problem!” he came out of the hole with a garbage bag that wafted the scent of decay and what followed him was a swarm of black flies.
He brought it to me and reluctantly, I looked in the bag and there was several raccoon corpses. He said that he had found them huddled together, and that they must have rabies or something, because they were all bloody and scratched up, and they had taken big chunks out of each other.
***
After a few more days of spraying out the house, and having a carpenter coming by to fix the hole, everything was back to normal. No more flies. My entire family was relieved.
That was until about three weeks had gone by. I woke up to the sound of buzzing around my ears. When I turned the light on in my room, there was several black flies zipping around the room.
Learning from the last encounter with the pests, I figured that something had died again.
I got up and started to search the house to see if I could find anything, but there was nothing. As time went by, there were more flies. I moved to check the attic last because I figured that there was no way that a raccoon was in the attic again. Well, at least not so soon.
I moved to the attic hack and reached up to pull down the ladder, but the guy that was up there to get the raccoons either didn’t know about the stuck ladder or he didn’t care enough to try and fix it, because it was still stuck.
I was not fond of the idea that I would have to call the pest control again for basically the exact situation I was just in, and having them cut another hole in my roof. So I just grabbed onto the string and pulled as hard as I could.
I have no idea what that string is made of and I don’t know what that door was stuck on, but I was pulling as hard as I could and the door didn’t budge and that string didn’t snap. I eventually said screw it and decided to put my entire weight on it.
When I did, I heard something creak, and before I realized it, I was falling backwards and the attic hatch swung open.
I landed on my back with a thud and before I could get up something else fell on top of me.
I looked up to see that it was a blanket, but it was far too heavy. Then I realized that something was inside it.
The smell hit my nose before I even moved to see what was inside the blanket, and I could feel my stomach start to turn.
I opened the blanket and my eyes started to water, but it wasn’t from the smell, on the inside of the blanket, there was a body.
The decomposing body of a small child.
I sit there stunned at the sight before me, then my wife came out of our room, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and asking what was happening.
When she saw what was in my lap, she let out a blood curdling scream that made me jump, and that sent the corpse tumbling.
Sending maggots, blood and bugs all over the floor.
The kids were about to come out of their rooms when I sent them back and told my daughter to call the cops. My wife was shaking and I had to try to calm her down before she had a panic attack, which wouldn’t be unwarranted to be honest.
The cops arrived and I explained what happened and how the body fell out of the attic. I was obviously the first person on the suspect list, but after the investigated they found evidence saying that the boy was living in the attic for a while, and he was apparently stealing food from the kitchen. They found empty bottles of water some bread crumbs and chip bags, but he couldn’t get anymore food after the attic door got stuck. When that happened, he started to lure animals into the attic with the remaining food that he had left, then he kill and eat them. When the man went into the attic to get the raccoons he had eaten, he must have hidden in one of the boxes in the attic.
When the attic was fixed, he didn’t have any food left and starved to death.
The police found out his name was Michael Brown from his dental records. What makes me even more angry and sad for the poor boy is that his parents didn’t even report him missing, and the cops said that the boy had scars and bruises on his body. His parents were arrested and his siblings are now in the system.
I feel sad for the poor boy, and wish that we had found him sooner, but he must have thought that he would be sent back to his abusive home if he had revealed himself.
