Mealworms & Cockroaches

My husband entered the house with a tub of mealworms and a tub of 6 cockroaches. I nearly phoned a solicitor.

We have a lizard (a blue-tongued skink) and she eats strange food.

When the pet shop in Eastleigh ran out of locusts last week, my husband bought mealworms and cockroaches instead.

These wriggly mealworms and scuttling cockroaches came in little tubs similar to Tupperware. Better still, these little tubs are breathable.

Each tub (mix and match) costs £2.50, or four tubs for £7.

The mealworms quickly burrowed underneath the substrate in the vivarium.

Should I tell my 80-year-old mother her youngest and the most cherished daughter abroad now lives with locusts, cockroaches and mealworms?

She was not happy when I told her last year there were rats about in the garden, and later the fox killed off all our 3 hens.

Three years ago I told my mother our milk snake had escaped. Now she asks me if we’ve found the snake each time I phone her.

Tropical heat: cockroaches and mosquitoes

When I was growing up in Malaysia, cockroaches and mosquitoes were ubiquitous. All our kitchenware had to be washed before use. Our cupboards were filled with mothballs, but cockroaches appeared to be intelligent and they were not easily deterred.

Dengue fever was dangerous. The local health authorities would carry out public mosquito control spraying as a prevention against mosquito-transmitted diseases, or when the mosquito populations reached levels that threatened public health.

It meant a few mask-wearing men would march into your house spraying your house with pesticides. I never liked the odour of the chemicals and their residue.

What should I tell my mother about my domestic life in this glorious suburbs of England?