Ugh, just looking at this picture makes my blood boil.
Every fall, we get a huge infestation of box elder bugs. They like to hang out on our warm front porch. And they somehow get into every crevice possible and make their way inside the house. If they're outside, I leave them alone. When they come inside, I become a ruthless killer.
And it's full-on war. They fight hard and are amazingly resiliant. You can't squish them with a kleenex. They'll find a way to still live. Same with fly-swatters. My weapon of choice has turned out to be my dish soap bottle. It has enough heavyness to really do the job. Luckily, box elder bugs aren't very fast.
They leave tons and tons of blood when you squish them. You can't just squish them like you squish a spider - squish and then go throw away the kleenex. You have to clean up the area where you squished them, unless you think blood adds to the decor of your house.
Even after it started freezing, these bugs stuck around for like two more weeks, I swear. I was like, "How are they surviving this???"
I feel that the box elder situation has gotten better in the last two years. Our first autumn here, it was REALLY bad. So bad that we couldn't even open our windows. Despite having screens in our windows, the box elders had found a way to get inside them, so opening the window would allow like 20 more of them inside the house. It was awful.
I like to keep track of how many I kill each season. Like notches on my belt, if you will. These are just the bugs that got into my house. I killed 23 this year. But it was like 50 bugs in 2007, so it's getting better.
4 comments:
Yeah, I hate those bugs too, but we don't have that big a problem. Hope the infestation numbers keep decreasing for you!
Do you remember in grade school with Mrs. Pancheri? She always talked about bugs that she would only kill inside the house. "The outside is their home and I only kill them when they come in mine."
I never knew those bugs were called Box Elder bugs. That sounds very pioneer-y to me.
They come from your Maple tree. We get them too...not as many as we used to but sometimes I find them in my bedroom upstairs. I'm sure they don't climb all the way up the stairs. I just flush them down the toilet or throw them outside if I am feeling humane. Love your blog. Thank you.
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