I love my bedroom. It’s my haven from a busy day, a stressful day, a good day, any day, and when I hop into bed I look forward to my usually peaceful sleep. Some nights are restless but that’s either because I’m sick or just thinking too much about something.

About a week ago I woke up to an unusual noise in my room. I couldn’t figure it out. I turned on my light, had a look around but could see nothing. The noise continued on and off throughout the night but I kind of slept anyway.

A couple of nights later I heard it again and it sounded like it was coming from my wardrobe nearby. I opened the door and had a bit of a look around and again could see nothing. After work that day I pulled out some of the stuff that was sitting at the bottom of my wardrobe – it’s a place where I keep presents that I buy people including an Easter egg stash.

I picked up the chocolate Bilby that mum had bought JJ for Easter and had a closer look at it. It had a small hole in the bottom where the foil wrapper had obviously been eaten, and some chocolate was eaten as well. As I’ve had recent encounters with mice at a holiday shack I was pretty certain it wasn’t them but my other thought was cockroaches. I do see the odd cockroach inside and outside my house and they’re generally not a problem.

I put all the easter eggs, including the eaten one in a plastic bag, tied a knot in it and placed it on top of my little stepladder in my room – a place that JJ would never look. That was the end of it, or so I thought.

A few nights later I heard a rustling noise again. A pattern started where I’d turn on my light, sit up and try to figure out where it was coming from. I eventually got up, got the fly spray, gave the room a bit of a spray and went back to bed. The rustling continued. About the fourth time I turned on the light I realised the noise was coming from the plastic bag with the easter egg stash. I got up, shook the top of the bag a bit and a huge cockroach jumped out the bag and dashed to the wardrobe. As he did this, I screamed and jumped out the room – my heart pumping.

I got the bag and took it to the kitchen. The cockroach had obviously eaten a hole through the plastic bag and eaten more of the Easter Bilby so I threw it straight in the bin. The others were unscathed. I made sure there were none of cockroaches friends in the bag and put it into the fridge and went back to bed. By this time I’d been awake for nearly two hours.

The cockroach was obviously hungry, however, as he kept scouting my room for food. I have wooden floors in my bedroom so there’s no carpet to mask the sound and they’re quite loud – especially this big one. The next time I turned on the light I saw him jump out the rubbish bin. I tried to go to sleep yet again but this time he thought he’d have a party under my bed.

That’s it I thought – I need my sleep. I got up, got some blankets and went out to the lounge and bedded down for the two hours that were left of the night. This was yesterday morning.

Yesterday after work I bought some cockroach bait and put it in my bedroom and in the kitchen. When he started making some noise last night I didn’t even hang around to see if it really was him. Hopefully he’d eaten his bait and was in his death throes. I went out to the lounge, set up the lounge cushions on the floor and had a kind of okay sleep.

Today I will give my room a good clean and hopefully I find him flat on his back with his legs up in the air – DEAD.