Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Box Elder Bugs ... the story of an infestation ...

Oh hey! Recently there has been a sudden appearance of these things:


delightful right? Wrong ... these things are lean mean killing machines ... in the most sarcastic of ways ... these kung-foo fighting bugs strike when you are least prepared ... flying at your face ... landing on you ... crawling around inside your house ... worst of all they congregate around your door (most likely plotting their next strike) preventing you from entering or leaving your house (at least without having to sprint). There is a reason for their coloring ... red and black ... it's called mark of the devil.

I was reading an article last night ... trying to figure out how to kill these conspiring groupies ... and all they said was that this bug is no more than a nuisance bug ... are you kidding?!?!? they are more than a nuisance ... they are spawn of Satan himself!! All I want it to be able to leave my home without being rampaged by millions of flying torpedoes ...  is that too much to ask?

There were two other things that I learned from this article ... apparently when smashed they emit some kind of foul odor that attracts more of the foul beasts ... of course ... foul beasts would be attracted by foul odors ... spiders do the same thing ... go figure ... well ... to avoid that stench you are supposed to suck them up with your vacuum. Ok ... so what are you supposed to do with them after that? Leave them there to crawl back out and infest your house again??? I think not! I have resorted to flushing them all down the toilet ... but this is how our staircase has been looking lately:


Mr. Vacuum has a new permanent home! Or ... at least until the creepy crawlies migrate for the winter ... or die off (hopefully). His cord is forever plugged in ... his hose is off and extended just waiting for it's next victim (wow ... that sounded kind of dirty ... unintentional! This is a family blog) ... he's like a puma ... laying in wait until the next bug shows his ugly mug.

The next thing I read was that they aren't very good swimmers ... in fact ... they stink at it ... it is very easy to drown them ... ha ha ha (this is my evil villain laugh) ... I found my new secret weapon!!! Last night when I was watering my new plant (thank you very much father-in-law for providing me with my new Fall beauty) I decided to test this theory ... after a cup full of water against a now dirty window ... I realized that it kinda works! more come eventually ... but I think it at least lessened the load.

being filled with this hands-on knowledge, I felt prepared for anything crazy that may come ... yanno ... like dive-bombing the window ... well ... I wasn't  ... today after grocery shopping I wasn't ready for the sheer number that covered my door preventing me from getting my cold food inside .... yea ... that bad ... sooo ... I lost it ... I ran inside threw the trash bag out of its can ... filled the can with water (no ... we don't have a hose ... or anywhere to plug it in) ... and marched outside ... in my best Stallone voice I address these mongrels by saying "alright bugs ... lets do this" (you should all know that while I'm doing this I am completely oblivious to the man walking behind me to take his trash to the trash bin ... my given internal monologue for him was this: "crazy white ladies" [he was Mexican ... but that wasn't relevant to my story til now]) ... now ... what I do next may shock some people (who am I kidding ... everyone knows I am nuts ... in the best possible way of course) ... I threw the water all over my door ... hitting the overhang ... hitting the window again ... hitting the door ... soaking myself and my doorway while screaming "DIE BUGS DIE" ... yup ... did it ... this was the aftermath:

you can't really tell ... but there is water dripping from the ceiling and the top of the door frame ... the drip-age continued for a good five minutes ... that's how much water I threw (the white thing is the trash can I used)
The damage didn't quit there ... there was more inside ... just look:

The shoes I was wearing were the Toms ... you can see how wet they were to get a sense of how crazy I went with the water ... I should have taken a picture of my pants because the water went halfway up my calves

I don't know how well you can see ... but it is officially time to mop again. pluses and minuses to this endeavor (no ... I am not going to call it an irrational freakout) ... plus - i got all of my food in without one dive bomb ... it reduced the number of demon bugs there were for the rest of the night ... Minus - it drove seven inside of the house (thank goodness for the well stationed vacuum) ... it got me all wet ... it helped me to see how crazy I truly am (ok ... already knew that one ... especially with bugs ).

Will I ever do it again ? possibly ... depends on how much these suckers are annoying me. Really ... I am just ready for box elder bug season to be over.

OH! just another quick tid-bit of info I learned from the article ... they like south facing walls ... don't ask me why they are so picky ... but for those of you with south facing doors (like ours) it might be wise to find another way in and out of your house ... or else you can attack back like I do ... because really we cannot let them win ... and what kind of example for the Darwin theory would we humans be setting by letting them win?

good luck out there my friends ... it's a battlefield

3 comments :

  1. Amy- I hate those things. Nothing was worse than living in the old white house with that huge south facing window. They are of the devil. But if you go to Cal Ranch there is stuff called Box Elder be-gone It is a miracle worker. You can just spray them and they are dead. Aaron would shoot them mid air even. You can also get a solution to hook up to a hose to hose your house down with. It helps millions. Good luck surviving them.

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  2. Ha ha. I too have written of these little bugs on my own blog. (back in 09) skipand.blogspot.com/2009/bugged.html. Now that I think about it, though, ever since then they haven't been a problem here. Maybe they surf the blogosphere and stay away from where they are not wanted. Keeping my fingers crossed you make it through the season and that next year is fire bug free for you.

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  3. Oh goodness, those things are disgusting. DISGUSTING. I thought it was bad when we first moved in, they were crawling all over every piece of wood out on the playground here....but now...NOW....holy crap. They're everywhere. Our back porch is covered with dead ones, it's quite gross. I need to implement your bucket approach since we don't have any hose hook-up either. It's now on tomorrow's agenda. And I may be headed to Cal Ranch per the recommendation of the above comment.

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