Ewww

OK, what is with all the recent bug encounters?

First, it was the dreaded centipede episode (from the June 29th posting). Then, it was a slug crawling across the kids' dinner table. Then, it was a random grasshopper here or there on the wall or ceiling. Then, it was the 2 very large beetles trying to gain entrance (unsuccessfully) through the front screen door. And most recently, it was our encounter with carpenter ants, as I recount below. It's not like we live in filth or anything or have giant amounts of rotting food lying around, so why all the bugs all of a sudden?

As for the carpenter ants...I had never seen one before but I had heard they can be pretty destructive in that they act somewhat like termites. In fact, as it turns out, they look a lot termites too, wings and everything (who ever heard of a winged ant??). So I was not a happy camper when I saw a small swarm of them entering our basement through a crack in the foundation. Maybe it was the Californian in me (Land of the Termite), but all I could envision was thousands of dollars (and a lot of hassle) being poured into a giant tent around our house.

Well, here's where it pays to know people (not that we really know that many!). The guy behind us, who we had started to befriend somewhat recently, is an Orkin Man, so we called him over and he took a look. Brad even managed to trap some in a jar, so the guy could have a close up look. He confirmed they were NOT termites and were in fact carpenter ants. That was good news in that they are significantly less of a problem than termites. So he grabbed some of his industrial strength pest killer spray (that he uses on job sites) and sprayed the heck out of the crack where they were coming through. That was a few days ago and we haven't seen one since. Let's hope that continues!

And how did we repay the guy? With beer, of course! :)

--C.