On Ladybugs

Well, our relatively new house has been beset by a scourge of ladybugs. They’ve descended in a swarm that has to be somewhat akin to the Biblical plagues. It is really quite unpleasant. I don’t so much mind them outside, but for some reason they are congregating in Nathan’s room. They are mostly bunching around his light. Tonight I vacuumed up a little over 100 of them. It was like that horrible scene with the flies in the Amityville Horror (if you don’t remember that movie, suffice it to say that it caused a number of nightmares in my youth).

Now, I’ve been told that one should not vacuum these insects because when they die they emit poisonous gasses. The problem is that I think they emit the same gasses when you try to catch them by hand. I really can’t see any way around the problem without resorting to the vacuum cleaner. I could spray the room with bug spray. I could simply wait for them to live out their natural life span. Or I could vacuum them up. In fact, in the first and the second place I would be vacuuming them up anyway. I’d just be vacuuming up their carcasses rather than their live bodies.

I’ve been told that the ladybugs were actually released by the Park Service in order to try to control non-native invasive pests that seem to like to kill off whole species of trees in our area. If they were doing that, I’d be a little less annoyed with them than I am now.

I’m trying to think of some big thoughtful metaphor that will allow me to grow from my encounters with these small interlopers. I haven’t succeeded yet, but I’m still working on it. I still like them more than fire ants. So that is something.