I’ve been feeling particularly bug-phobic here lately, which is bad because it’s springtime and the suckers are everywhere. The Snook thinks I should just learn to live with them, but I prefer the “kill-them-all” approach. I submit to the jury…
- Moths. A couple of weeks ago I started noticing moths in our kitchen. I figured they’d come in the window from the garden. No big deal. They were annoying and I’d kill them, but they kept coming back in greater numbers. We’ve finally accepted now that we have a full blown infestation. The Snook cleaned out our cupboard tonight on the hunch that some neglected bag of flour was hatching the bastards. He ended up throwing out about twenty packages of food. Seriously. Four or five bags of rice, several bags of flour, barley, seeds, everything. The buggers were everywhere. We think we’ve gotten rid of all their hotspots, but I’ll be watching closely to see if they return.
- Ants. You know our little lemon tree in the garden? Some of the leaves look like they’re being chewed on, so I examined it closely the other day. I discovered thousands of ants all over the plant! We think aphids are eating the leaves and the ants are milking the aphids (or something similarly gross). I don’t know how to get rid of them without killing the tree. (The Snook says to pick them off, but I’m not going there.) Any suggestions? Oh, and apparently the ants are telling all their friends about the prime grub on our tree, because several new little ant hills have appeared between the garden tiles. Again, I use the term infestation. I’m gonna declare war on them, I swear.
- Mozzies. Ah, the yearly ritual announcing the coming of summer: the first mozzie bite on my forehead. They’re not too bad right now (courtesy of the drought), but there have been enough to annoy. We need a new mosquito net for our bed. The only problem is that most of the ones I’ve seen for sale are the round “hoop” kind. We’ve got a four poster canopy bed, so we need a square one (preferably with doors on each side). The futon store up the road has one, but it’s over $200! I’m thinking there has to be a cheaper solution. Time is running out though, and if I get many more bites my sense of self-preservation will trump my frugality.
- Cockroaches. I don’t think I’d ever seen a cockroach in my life til I moved to London. You just don’t get ’em out in Indiana. Here in Newtown they’re an accepted fact of life. It’s an old neighborhood with lots of very old houses. Again, I’ve been told I need to just accept them. So far I’ve only seen two in this house: one on the floor in the bedroom (which I squished with a shoe), and one on the freakin’ corner of my desk. The problem is, Australian cockroaches are HUGE. They look like the fake anthropomorphized ones you see in commercials. They’re scary. I’ve decided to remain anti-cockroach. I shall be ever vigilant against their encroachment.
See what I mean? I feel surrounded by creatures all the time. (And you know how I am about wildlife.) I don’t have OCD, and I don’t require that my home be completely sterile. But is it too much to ask that the Great Outdoors remain, you know, outdoors??
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