Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Beetle Battle


I love North Carolina. I love Bahama. I love my house. But it occurs to me that it is probably only fair, right, and good to be honest and blog from time to time about the things that I don't love about this beautiful place. And it will probably help those of you not lucky enough to live her to know that there is, occasionally, a downside.

Like last night. I came home from visiting teaching a lovely sister at about 9:45. I walked into the garage (always at least slightly messy) and before I was halfway in realized that there were a bunch of bugs on the floor. Beetles, to be exact. And probably at least 30 of them, headed en masse towards the wall that the garage shares with the house. (No, not Tanzanian Dung Beetles, as pictured above--that was just the best picture of more than one beetle that I could find on google!)

I was grossed out.

I went into the house hoping that my knight in shining armor would be downstairs somewhere and I could turn the beetle infestation into his problem. No such luck.

I went back into the garage, hoping that in the intervening 90 seconds the beetles would have changed their collective minds and started making their way towards the invitingly open garage door. No such luck.

I stood on the garage steps contemplating my options. We have a big push broom, but the thought of being that close to so many beetles was revolting. And enough of them were under & around bikes, trikes, and jump ropes that I might have had a problem getting at them. I finally walked (carefully) over to the other side of the garage. (Beetle free. Is there a connection between sawdust and lack of beetles??) There I grabbed the blower and an extension cord.

I plugged the blower in and turned it on with only the slightest feeling of guilt that I was about to make a tremendous amount of noise so late at night. (Sorry Catherine!!) And I started blowing beetles.

The oddest thing happened. I would have said "the funniest thing happened," but the beetles were too gross to be funny. So it was odd.

As the beetles would get blown towards the open garage door, they would land, then turn around and start marching back towards the inside wall. Over and over and over again. I don't think I ever saw a beetle recognize that freedom from the noisy blast of air lay in a different direction; they all came back towards the house. Which only intensified my committment to blow them as far as possible.

I blew the first group out into the driveway, and then halfway across the driveway. Hopefully that was far enough to disorient them. Then I returned to the garage stairs to survey the floor for bugs that had been lucky enough to evade the first blast.

I ended up blowing in the garage for over 15 minutes, trying to get rid of every last bug. At one point I saw a disgustingly large and hairy spider--but it was smart enough to know that I was not a person to be messed with, and so it retreated to it's home. (A place I hope to never discover.)

In the end I walked victorious and beetle-less back into the house. For the moment, at least, victory was mine. I had vanquished the beetle foe.

Let's just hope they stay gone...


UPDATE: Tonight I only saw one very small beetle in the garage. I can live with that.

4 comments:

  1. What ingenuity! I'm glad it was you and not me!!

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  2. Oh - NASTY!! I'm impressed with your determination to get rid of them! I usually just pretend I didn't see the bug crawling across the floor...or, if it's exceptionally mean-looking, I'll cover it with a cup and wait until my own 'knight in shining armor' comes home. :) But - there was one time I saw a black widow spider...and that time I felt like I HAD to attack it before it attacked us - so I sprayed it with bleach spray until it died (That way I could keep a relatively sane distance between us)...so I guess with 30 beetles or so, I might have felt the need to address the problem myself, too. :) Great idea about the leaf-blower!

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  3. Lindsay--I think I would have had to deal with a black widow as well. But I understand needing to keep your distance. That was what was great about the blower--I was at least 3 feet away.

    Recently I was surprised by a big centipede in our house. I put a shoe on it so that it couldn't go any farther, and then ran and got the raid. I sprayed it with raid but it wouldn't die. So I (not very gently) put the shoe back on it and left it. I figured it would either die, or the knight would deal with it when he got home!

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