…and then termites
Having finally beat back the invading ants, we were looking forward to a peaceful Sunday. Got up, had a relaxed breakfast, some coffee, read the paper, watch the talking heads on “This Week” with George Ste… whatever. I hadn’t noticed Becky had got out of her chair, as I was dozing, until I heard the screeching from the bathroom. So I rushed to the door and the floor’s covered with things about the size of ants but long straight-back wings, Becky standing in the middle of them, stomping like mad, and screeching. I joined the “dance” but realized I needed a bathroom myself, and went back to the “master” bathroom and there they were all over the floor, walls, shower. So I commenced to dancing some more, partly to stomp bugs and partly ’cause I needed to pee. I wasn’t making much headway just stomping; didn’t help with the critters on the walls. So I ran out to my desk and grabbed my latest Playboy, noticing as I ran through the kitchen they’re all over the floor in there, too.
Well, at this point, the screeching has mostly stopped and I have various scenarios playing through my head, none of which involved spending the day inside the house. Nevertheless, I proceeded to make good, though unusual, use of Playboy. We finally got enough of them squashed that Becky felt like trying a dash through the shower, so I joined her and we got cleaned up and dressed.
Becky’s figuring to bug-bomb the place, and I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to get a brief done that I was planning to spend the day working on. By this point, though, most of the bugs are dead ones and I’m thinking it looks like time for a vacuum cleaner. Instead, I hit the computer and did some searching on pests hoping to find a picture that would show me these were not termites. I quickly found a good authority and my hopes were promptly dashed, for the most part. The good news was there ain’t much use trying to bug-bomb the damn things. For the short term, the only thing worthwhile, according to this authority, was (and here I thought myself a genius of some sort) vacuuming.
While I did some additional searching for pest control candidates to call tomorrow, Becky cleaned up with the vacuum. At that point, it’s almost mid-afternoon and a decision is made to go out for burgers. If the place was swarming again on return, it would be bug-bombed. If not, we just hold the fort and call reinforcements tomorrow.
When we got back, there were a few stragglers, but not enough to let loose the bombs. So, I got to do a little work on the brief, and Becky did some other cleaning stuff. Normal people, of course, were outside mowing their lawns, washing their cars, etc., as it was just a perfectly gorgious day, outside.
We’d rate today: :yuck:
kathie says:
Oh icky…termites! Wow, hope they didn’t do too much damage!
jeff says:
So, then what happened? Waiting for the next blog entry r.e. termite saga.
kim says:
Eeewwwwww! I hate bugs. So sorry! I didn’t realize they got that big. Yuck!
Speaking of bugs, I can’t get rid of the silverfish. I came home from my overnight trip to the farm, all snuggly in bed. Decided I needed to fluff my pillow and a big silverfish was hanging out under my head! Remember that star trek movie with the bugs in the ear? Sick!
Have the termites come back yet?
John says:
Becky worked her way back to the corner in the garage and there found like millions of termites, they’d gotten into boxes and ate up anything made out of wood. Becky said they ate my wooden train set, which I don’t remember what it was, actually. She said when she’d pick up one of the train cars it’d crumble into sawdust in her hand. And there are termite tunnels all over the wall back there. So, take a lesson – if you stack a bunch of stuff somewhere, unstack it every couple years or so to see what’s going on behind the boxes where you can’t see. I knew there were mice back there. Termites didn’t occur to me, though.