Dear readers, this post will not be about food. In fact, don't read it if you are eating. On that note, I'd like to share with you the many unwanted visitors to our home this summer and how we got rid of them without resorting to toxic chemicals.
First, the male harem. We returned from our vacation to find male winged ants all over the floor. There's the tiniest of holes near my front door that goes under the floor to a crack opening about two feet away. Whether it was the promise of water or the smell of food (we cleared everything out before we left aside from pet food), the summer Romeos found their way in, clumsily ambling about and mostly hanging around the bathroom. After several sweep-and-flushes during what appeared to be their active time (3 a.m. – I was still on GMT), a blend of borax and sugar in the above-mentioned crack as well and the trillion spiders that cobweb the ceiling and stairs, they are no longer. Such potential mates for the queen only hang around a short time anyway.
Next was the "Mommy, there's something in my room". Not knowing what to expect from a four year old, I thought maybe the stinkbugs of winter were back for more. No, something worse: narrow-waisted, alien, long-legged, flying...a black wasp! It appeared to have come from her closet. I wasn't sure how it got in, but shooed it out through the second-floor window and promptly shut the screen.
"Mommy, there's something in my room again..."
Agh! Another one?! Same deal: Coming from the closet, and I chased out the window. After six more times of this, I decided to investigate the closet. I looked around with a flashlight. Nothing. I took out all the clothes and stepped inside, peering deep into the cedar-lined corners. Nothing. I turn around in the closet (a very small closet, mind you). There, above the sliding door, was the mud nest. I grabbed the first thing that looked thick enough: my daughter's corduroy dress that she had left on the floor. I pulled the thing off whole, wrapped it tightly, and ran! (Later, I found a minute opening in the ceiling and sealed it.)
Outside, I dumped the mass into a jar with a perforated lid. Who needs to waste money on those cheap plaster science toys that come with the wooden chisel, when I had the real cracker-jack prize right here. I had caught a glimpse of a larva as I had grabbed the nest. Mostly, the nest looked like just a mass of gray mud. Not exactly being scientific, I shook the nest into oblivion, fearing more wasps were inside ready to attack.
Now the nest was reduced to powder. Nothing moved. I spread the contents onto a towel. There were the larva, which moved slightly. I counted 8 with my fork. And orb spiders. THIRTY orb spiders! All dead. I wondered who was food for who, but considering the life-less arachnids, I made an assumption. After some internet research, I learned that "mud marauders" build nests from mud, lay their eggs in tube-like chambers, and leave paralyzed spiders either in the chamber or adjacent to it. The web (no pun intended) cited jumping spiders as the likely food source, but these were definitely orb spiders. I even found one in the window sill. Well, that took care of that...
"Mommy, something's in my room AGAIN!"
You've got to be kidding me! I sealed the crack! With a framed picture, I batted the wasp out the window again, quickly closing the screen. In a minute, I saw another one. Wait. I looked under the blind. The top half of the sliding window was open a full inch. No screen.
The newly started nest was removed. The pieces vacuumed. The window if officially closed. It's been four days, and no more mommy wasp.
Now we have meal moths! They started in a quite old box of lasagna. These moths usually begin as eggs already present in the food when you bought it, but the food is usually consumed before the tiny eggs hatch into larva then pupate into a tiny off-white moth. In fact, the accidental eating of insects is what staves off anemia in vegetarian Asian Indians. When these people move to, say, London, where food sanitation is stricter, they develop anemia. Still, I'd rather not eat bugs if I have a choice. We tossed food, transfered any thinly-packaged food to glass or thick plastic containers, and have two teenage boys eating 3-4 boxes of cereal a week as well as all the pasta. I'm killing any moths on sight. Bay leaf is supposed to deter them, so I will put some in the cupboards as soon as I finish this post. The cobweb spiders earn their keep, but I'll be cleaning up all those cobwebs again!
First, the male harem. We returned from our vacation to find male winged ants all over the floor. There's the tiniest of holes near my front door that goes under the floor to a crack opening about two feet away. Whether it was the promise of water or the smell of food (we cleared everything out before we left aside from pet food), the summer Romeos found their way in, clumsily ambling about and mostly hanging around the bathroom. After several sweep-and-flushes during what appeared to be their active time (3 a.m. – I was still on GMT), a blend of borax and sugar in the above-mentioned crack as well and the trillion spiders that cobweb the ceiling and stairs, they are no longer. Such potential mates for the queen only hang around a short time anyway.
Next was the "Mommy, there's something in my room". Not knowing what to expect from a four year old, I thought maybe the stinkbugs of winter were back for more. No, something worse: narrow-waisted, alien, long-legged, flying...a black wasp! It appeared to have come from her closet. I wasn't sure how it got in, but shooed it out through the second-floor window and promptly shut the screen.
"Mommy, there's something in my room again..."
Agh! Another one?! Same deal: Coming from the closet, and I chased out the window. After six more times of this, I decided to investigate the closet. I looked around with a flashlight. Nothing. I took out all the clothes and stepped inside, peering deep into the cedar-lined corners. Nothing. I turn around in the closet (a very small closet, mind you). There, above the sliding door, was the mud nest. I grabbed the first thing that looked thick enough: my daughter's corduroy dress that she had left on the floor. I pulled the thing off whole, wrapped it tightly, and ran! (Later, I found a minute opening in the ceiling and sealed it.)
Outside, I dumped the mass into a jar with a perforated lid. Who needs to waste money on those cheap plaster science toys that come with the wooden chisel, when I had the real cracker-jack prize right here. I had caught a glimpse of a larva as I had grabbed the nest. Mostly, the nest looked like just a mass of gray mud. Not exactly being scientific, I shook the nest into oblivion, fearing more wasps were inside ready to attack.
You've got to be kidding me! I sealed the crack! With a framed picture, I batted the wasp out the window again, quickly closing the screen. In a minute, I saw another one. Wait. I looked under the blind. The top half of the sliding window was open a full inch. No screen.
The newly started nest was removed. The pieces vacuumed. The window if officially closed. It's been four days, and no more mommy wasp.
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