Ammonia Factories

I wonder at what point I will stop listening when my wife and kids when they say that they will take care of new pets.

I am the sole cleaning service for a pair of lovely "Ammonia Factories"; which most of you would probably call guinea pigs or cavies. I refer to them as "Ammonia Factories" due to the lovely sickening aroma they exude. As the sole cleaning provider, I get to wallow in their by-products on a weekly basis; and I'm getting sick of it. I'm fairly certain that my wife who will certainly complain about the smell, would suffer through it until we all passed out due to ammonia fumes, rather than stoop to cleaning the cage. I can drop all of the hints I want and they will just sit and stew before she ever cleans the cage.

The fish are no different. We have a goldfish that we rescued when someone abandoned it and 2 betta's (who are funny to watch when you pull the little shade away and they start puffing). Have you ever smelled a betta bowl on cleaning day? Holy smurf noses! The smell sticks to your hands for a hour or more.

I wonder how hard it would be to explain that they got away while I was cleaning their cage. Ok, not really...I wouldn't be able to tolerate the tears and crying from the children. Far be it from me, a mere mammal and fish maid, to incur pain and suffering on my younglings.