The bug-a-day sucker

You know this is not some goal of mine or anything but I noticed recently that on average I find a bug per day in my house. Now what ‘bugs’ me about this is that we spray along the foundation and then at least once per year, we will spray along the baseboards and all of the inside walls of the house. I also give a double dose of ‘death water’ in the garage since everyone knows all insects who don’t fly, drive cars.

The odd thing is that if you go to the garden center and tell them that you found a ‘bug’ in your house, they just scurry away, kind of like a BIG roach. But of course I protest at the dismissive nature of their buggy demeanor, then restate the facts … “no – I find a bug a day in my house so what do I do?” At that point, I can see that I have piqued their interest a tad more and they ask, “What specific kind of bug problem do you have – ants, termites, spiders, worms”? So I say “well you see that’s the problem it is one of EACH of those things and others but only ONE per day and I find them ALL over the house.”

“So you can’t define an entry point like a door or window where they are coming in?” the garden center guy queries. Hmmm, I think to myself – Do bugs need to come in doors or windows like humans, or aren’t they small enough to find any old hole or outlet box to sneak in? Clearly this isn’t helping. I excuse myself and end up buying a huge bag of ‘multipurpose’ killing granules. They recommend keeping any pets away from the stuff so the application by sled-dog is out. This is a man’s job, or more likely a task for the neighbor’s kids when they come around looking for easy jobs to do for quarters.

So for now until I unleash the death granules, which look strangely similar to Grape Nuts, I must go around the house gathering up bugs the old fashioned way. The highest tech method thus far is a little kid’s toy that is amazingly effective at vacuuming up insects. This ‘suck gun’ is great at locking the bugs up in a transparent container for later analysis or slow torture by magnifying glass on a sunny day. I also have a ‘wand’ of sorts that has a little slide door on the bottom and I can trap spiders alive and then take them outdoors to ‘return to sender’. Many times I still resort to a newspaper or magazine to inflict an execution upon crawlies like roaches, but then it requires a spatula to remove the unwanted pest and I use those things to flip eggs in the morning (the spatulas not the bugs). Uh Oh – my spidey senses are tingling … I’m sure somewhere in this house an insect is planning a RAID this very moment. I had better go double check to make sure all the doors and windows are closed and LOCKED!