Our apartment in Glebe is the epicentre of cockroach society. Every tier is represented. Every species. I have never known such activity as what happens in our kitchen after dark.

Even when I opened my laptop (my laptop!), a tiny cockroach ran out.

A couple of weeks ago I was feeding the baby in bed and a ‘roach the size of a kitten climbed up my back. Shudder.

It is so creepy. So very, very creepy to co-exist with so many skittering creatures.

And now there are vinegar flies, shipped in on some errant piece of fruit. They swirl up whenever you approach the fruit bowl and I have taken to clapping my hands in the air to squash them like some loony chorus girl.

And then there’s the spider in the bathroom. I have watched this insect grow from a wee bairn to a fully fledged killer and, oddly, it’s my favourite character in our entomological zoo. I just wish he (or she – my spider anatomy isn’t too flash) wasn’t such a lazy teenager. This house is a Las Vegas-style buffet. Get off your window ledge and go to town, spidey!

And yet I can’t bring myself to poison them. I have only recently been able to squash them, and now, like some domestic Femme Nikita, I have developed a frightening remorselessness. I’m like Liam Neeson and they have taken my daughter, not once, but three times (may I point out to the writers of Taken: this is starting to seem a little careless).

So what to do? How do you guys deal with it when your house becomes a modern day sanctuary for the unattractive members of the animal kingdom? Should I expect some hyenas to show up soon? Some vultures? Should I invest in some carrion for my new guests? Got any eco-friendly ways of dealing with this infestation that don’t involve burning the place to the ground?