Bugs, bugs, bugs… They are everywhere! It no longer surprises me at all that God used insects and pests for several of the plagues. They are HORRIBLE.
We are all now in a constant lookout mode for creepy crawlies and flying pests. K screams about them, L eats them, J and I squish them as often as possible, but they STILL hang around! Part of the problem is the area of the country we now live in, I know. That side of it we will just have to get used to at some point. But, I also think that a big part of our problem is that the house we are renting here sat on the market empty for over 5 months before we moved in, and all those months were hot, muggy, summer months. So, to some extent, it is understandable that the thousands of bugs we have had to deal with set up refuge in and around our “abandoned” house while no one took care of it. Our landlord lives several states away and uses a local property management company here. So, we have never met him, and it seems like neither he nor the property management company could care about our situation or helping us de-bug the house. In fact, after dozens of phone calls to them over the past 6 weeks, I have nearly given up entirely. As homeowners/landlords ourselves, we do not understand this. We do everything in our abilities to aid our tenants when they call or email us with a problem, and we solve the issue quickly for them. Regardless, we are coming close to throwing in the towel on fighting the bugs here.
So far, J has gotten hives twice as a result of the many bites he has sustained while maintaining the yard. Each time he mows the lawn, he will acquire anywhere from 2-4 dozen fire ant, spider, and mosquito bites. And most of you have heard by now about the TWO different occasions where L has eaten dirt from the fire ant hills, resulting in a couple dozen bites covering him from head to toe.
All the black specs on the board are not dirt… those are ants!
We tried treating this enormous fire ant hill with a fire ant killer that came highly recommended by nearly everyone we talked to here. Unfortunately, it did very little to subdue and kill the ants. They merely moved their hill across the yard, and our little 15 pound pug decided that the leftover ant killer on the old hill would make a nice afternoon snack — BAD dog, and bad pet owners for not watching her outside while it was still out there. We should have known better… $100 later, we had her stomach emptied at the veterinary hospital and she was lethargically recovering at home. These ants are costing us ridiculous amounts of money!
Basically, the ant infestation here has been nothing but trouble since we arrived.
Then, this week, we also got to experience our first encounter (and many more encounters followed) with cockroaches. They are such vile creatures… and they are enormous here! We figured out that despite our barrier/perimeter treatment from Terminix, they are managing to get into our house through our plumbing of all things. Apparently, cockroaches can survive without any food for up to a month, without air for up to 45 minutes, and can fully recover from being submerged underwater for up to 30 minutes! So, how am I supposed to kill these things?! The only sure way I can find is to be super brave and squish each one that comes in — GROSS. They crunch when you squish them… Loudly. It is very disturbing, and it makes my skin crawl.
I guess this move is going to continue to be an adventure for us. *shudder*
