Invasive Species

 Most recently I have found that the Box Elders enjoy coming into my car.  How they get in there I do not know.  They have attacked me while driving.  Luckily I didn't crash.

 On the head rest of the passenger seat.  He was missing a leg and yet was still crawling along.

                                             Dead in my seat.

                       Dead in the cup holder.  It scares me a little bit.

She has tasted her own medicine, and it is bitter!!

Carolee LOVES to torment me. It's like living with my brothers half the time. As mentioned in a previous post, she captured our first boxie of the season under a cup and named him Bob. Now that boxies are in full swing, she thought it'd be hilarious to "capture" one in my room and leave it on my nightstand. 

So, one night, I innocently come home and am getting into bed and notice this cup. 

I don't see a boxie in there. I am afraid now. Did he escape? Is this a new ninja boxie species? After careful examination to make sure no bug is there, I get rid of the cup and leave it in front of her bedroom door as a gift for the morning. Two can play at this game. Bwahahaha.

I go about my nightly readings. I see movement. It's a box elder on my wall. Killed. Go back to reading. Another boxie on a nearby frame. Killed. Go back to reading. Boxie appears on nightstand. Killed. Now I am pretty grossed out/freaked out. Through this torment, I keep my cool. Go back to reading. Boxie crawls out from underneath my sheet. Holy SHEET I think to myself! That was it. I could not longer pretend that I wasn't going to bothered by them. 

Solution? Sleeping on the couch for the night. For now, that seems to be the safest place in the apartment. 

Carolee recently spent the night on the couch due to multiple box elder attacks in bed. Sweet revenge? I think so. 

1987 called, they want their dust buster back!

 We have used an array of weapons against the Boxies to try to conquer them.  We started out with home defense.  That helps kill them sometimes.  Then we bought the can of raid that is supposed to help kill flying insects.  It only works to spray directly on them and not any sort of preventative.  Finally we found the recipe for 1/2 c. laundry detergent in 1 gallon of water.  We will put it in our spray bottle and go attack the boxies who like to live in the entry way of our house.   

I am super excited because yesterday I went and I bought this wonderful hand held vacuum.  I rather enjoy sucking up all those stupid bugs.

 

We have discovered a dilemma.  We now have a vacuum chamber full of box elders that will eventually need to be emptied.  Anyone want to volunteer for the job? 

 

Enough

After waking up three times last night with bugs crawling on me in my sleep, in my bed, I've decided enough is enough.  Let me give you a look inside what it's like living here.  This bug season all began with a beetle in the pot I got out to make popcorn.

We started out being very humane.  We put on our big old pot holder hot pads and carefully carried the pot outside.  Marianne carried it across the street and dumped it in the neighbors yard.  And then came the Box Elder Bugs, or as we call them, the Boxies.

The bathroom seems to be the bugs main entry point.  

 Yep.  It's crawling on a washcloth.  I thoroughly inspect my towels before using them now. 

 Even worse is them hiding under the toilet seat.  We are both afraid that the Box Elders might crawl up some places where they definitely do not belong.  

The bathroom floor by the window.   A cemetery for dead bugs.  You don't even want to see behind the washer.

Yep this one is hiding in the crack of the dryer.  Don't worry we've found plenty of them inside the dryer. 

This one is the bathroom window.  We finally bought some of those sticky spider traps.  This picture was taken in the morning, but the afternoon has bugs crawling all over the window. 

 If you throw them in the toilet they still survive.  They are often found in the shower, they will crawl out of the drain sometimes if you don't kill them before you wash them down.  They enjoy hanging out by the lights.  I also killed one crawling out of the air conditioning vent last night. 

Poor Marianne has a window that is probably the second main entrance for the Boxies.  This is pretty minimal for the amount of bugs in her window.  Also keep in mind that she vacuums them up every day.  

 

The front window isn't too bad but still collects quite a few.

And now we come to my bedroom where I was so mad this morning.  I had to take my blanket off my bed because it was providing too much camouflage for the Boxies.  I checked my bed three or four times last night, but it wasn't enough.  This morning this is where I found one of the culprits.    

 But don't worry I hit the boxie with my shoe.  I was very happy when two of it's legs were pulled off and it was lying "dead."  I went to go get some TP to properly dispose of it when....

 I came back and the stupid thing was still crawling away.  I was so mad.  I made sure he was good and dead the second time before I flushed him. 

 But don't worry just a foot away there was another one lurking in the corner.  Trying to hide until the night time when I could attack me in my sleep yet again.  Too bad for this bug though because I killed him too. 

Unfortunately that is the end of the picture evidence.  However I have plenty of more stories.  They have been in my car, and attacked me while driving.  They will stick on the outside of your car even while on the freeway going 70 mph.  I've sat at the kitchen table doing homework while one crawled across my computer.  This morning when I put my cereal bowl in the kitchen sink there was one hiding amongst the dishes.  It tried to hide next to the dish cloth but I stabbed it with a knife. 

Last night when I got home I killed 13 bugs in 20 minutes.  We guess that we kill probably 50 bugs a day inside the house.  I can't wait to see what tonight brings.... NOT.