When checking out a new apartment or room for rent in Latin America, you should be aware of "the hole in the wall."
It is a hole or any space from the outside where some strange ass creature or annoying bug will come through.
When I lived by Metro Bellas Artes, I had an issue with the room I was renting out as you can read here where I had to live in another room of the same building.
That other room had some type of window that you see down here in Mexico where there's some weird open space that mosquitos can come through.
You can see what I mean in this video here where this American gal is checking out a house and she shows you what I mean in the house she is showing.
Thankfully for her, the house included some mosquito net for that same window.
Unfortunately for me, the room I was staying in by Bellas Artes did not have a mosquito net.
Every night was a battle against mosquitos to the point that I couldn't sleep in the room and had to sleep on the couch in the living room with the door to that other room shut so that no mosquitos would bite me.
But yet, to my luck, maybe once or twice a week would involve my body being itchy from all the stupid ass mosquito bugs.
Similarly, I remember living in my old apartment in Pachuca de Soto and also a room rented out in Tlahuac of Mexico City.
In both places, I had an issue with ants.
Where, for whatever reason, an entire army of ants would come through the small hole of some random part of the area.
I learned over time that, if you pour vodka all over them, they die.
And they don't come back for at least a week.
In case anyone has one of those holes in the wall that lets a massive army of ants in, just remember to always have some vodka around.
Similarly, I was living in an apartment by Pedregal de Santo Domingo.
Here in Mexico City, you sometimes find rooms for rent where the light bulb is sticking out of a hole but there's space around the hole that a bug could come through.
In that place, I remember a bee coming through and fucking with me.
Finally, I had some bad luck recently in the current place I am living in of Iztapalapa of Mexico City.
I was simply sitting in front of my laptop, listening to music, drinking vodka and all the rest of it late at around at around 2 AM when I heard some noise to the side of me.
I didn't think much of it.
Then, when I got up to take a piss in the bathroom down stairs, I saw a little rodent run out of nowhere like it's life depended on it towards the next room.
It freaked me the fuck out.
I go into the next room but I have a bunch of junk in there and not sure where it was hiding.
So I started tossing random shit (spoons and whatever) at random things in the room to see if I'd scare it into showing itself.
I also had a knife in hand in case it attacked me.
And drunk as fuck on vodka.
My first few attempts at getting it to show itself were not successful.
I kept chucking shit.
Knowing it was somewhere in there.
Then, after a few minutes, it scrambles towards a hole in the wall.
A minor little hole where it ran straight into.
Before going to bed, I made sure to clog the hole up.
Basically stuffed dirty underwear, shirts and whatever inside the fucking hole.
It didn't come back for the rest of the night.
The following day, I made sure to order some duck tape from Uber Eats.
When it showed up, I taped the living fuck out of every hole in that room.
There's a few gaps where maybe the rat came through and obviously I taped the specific hole that it ran for that night.
You can see photos of the gaps I taped together.
So, unless that rat is super determined, I'd assume it's not forcing its way through the tape.
I included some dirty laundry and a towel to clog up the holes also.
So it's probably not coming through.
This was the first time I saw it in my room anyhow.
So it must've came in when I left the room for the night to spend the night elsewhere at a friend's place.
At any rate, I checked every corner of the room so far and haven't seen the rat again and all the gaps are filled.
So I guess it's gone.
But, above all, it's a fact of living here in Mexico City where you should be mindful of this little annoying detail.
The Point
To be fair, I don't want to pick on Mexico.
Though, having lived in apartments in other countries (not including the US), I never had to be this fucking conscious of bugs, rats, etc.
Over the years here in Mexico City (and Pachuca), I have to be before moving into a place.
Just checking out the little gaps that it might have.
When I moved into my place in a Mexico City neighborhood known as Pedregal de Santo Domingo, I had a similar window type in the room that you saw in the video way above.
Never had issues with bugs, rats or anything when I lived there.
But I knew right away to tape the living fuck out of those gaps on the first night.
Now that I think about it, I remember another place I lived in at Santo Domingo years ago where I had to eventually tape shut some little gap on the top of a wall.
It was late at night and I remember seeing some fucking bugs that I had never seen before (to this day, have no idea what they were) trying to crawl through that gap unsuccessfully.
I grabbed something and started hitting them with it to keep them away.
They never got inside.
The next day, I went to the Soriana to buy some tape.
Similarly, you might also have issues with mini scorpions.
I've known of two people who woke up to find a mini scorpion inside the house.
Maybe some tape would've fixed the issue preemptively if they found out where the mini scorpion came through.
Above all, I've written about this subject before like in this article here.
It often does feel like a massively annoying issue because, back when, I never once had to worry about bugs or whatever the fuck else annoying me when living somewhere.
Here in Mexico City, it's a common issue.
My main tips though are two things:
For one, it'd obviously helped if you spent more money on your place before picking one to move into.
I've been going for cheap places that are not strict on how long I need to rent there so I can move around the city more easily.
If you picked a nicer apartment, perhaps the bug issue wouldn't be as likely of a problem (though, even in nicer places I've lived in, it was so whatever).
Second, before moving into a place (cheap or not), keep an eye for the holes.
Look around the apartment.
Any holes that some strange ass creature, bug or whatever might crawl through?
That's a hole you'll want to tape up.
GET YOUR FUCKING TAPE.
Though, having said that, you will also be more likely to suffer from extra heat in your room if you tape those "little gaps" in the windows and never open them.
If the apartment is all rented to you specifically with no roommates, I guess you could always keep the doors open during the afternoon to any bedrooms.
I guess you could to if you did have roommates but I don't like to keep it open all the time.
Anyway, just keep that in mind.
And I'm about to go out now to buy some more fucking tape.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt