A Plague Upon Our House

I’ll admit, I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It’s just not normal, it’s just not natural, it’s just too much to bear. Sitting in your house, day after day, having to deal with this … this massive imposition, this daily disruption, this insidious invasion. Changing your life, always on edge, constantly on the lookout, wondering when or if it will go away and life as we know it will resume.

I mean, where did all these stink bugs that have taken over my home come from? Outer space? Hades? China? New Jersey by way of Florida? 

For those unfamiliar with the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), or shield bug as we also call the little monsters, it releases an odor when squashed or threatened. Therefore, you can’t just step on them or swat them, you have to handle their disposal in a most delicate manner.

They creep, they crawl, they fly, they flitter. They land on your pillow at night. They crawl around on the floor and the windows. They buzz around lamps and lights. Worst of all, they land in your evening cocktail and it’s so disgusting I, for one, am not just going to fish the little sucker out but have to pour the whole drink down the drain.

They’ve been infesting our house for the last couple of months. Just how you have bugs in the dead of winter is beyond me. And don’t get me started on their little bastard cousins, the ladybugs, who have tagged along and doubled our misery.

I’m hoping that now it’s spring they’ll all go outside and, I don’t know, soak up some rays or something, or do what insects are supposed to do outside. As I said, disposal of the critters to date has been problematic. Sometimes I give them the traditional goldfish burial at sea, but usually I just release them back into the wild. And sorry if it’s 24 degrees out there and you don’t like the snow but hey, life is tough all over.

Why don’t I just call an exterminator and be done with them? Well, I’m not sure I want chemicals sprayed all over my house and I’m not sure it would really do them in. I’ve researched a variety of home remedies, but they all conclude that you have to seal all the tiny cracks and openings in your house to keep them out. Have you seen my house? It hasn’t been effectively sealed since the Christmas Day storm a few years back that completely coated everything in a solid sheet of ice.

I don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this apocalyptic nightmare, but we should probably quarantine ourselves so we don’t involuntarily transfer these pestilential spawn of Satan to others. Can you imagine if these things spread uncontrolled throughout the neighborhood? Or beyond? What would we do?

I can see it now: Shortages of bug spray. Fly swatters flying off the shelves. Air fresheners disappearing as people combat the smell of crunched stink bug. And you certainly couldn’t expect the government to handle an outbreak of something like this; officials would probably downplay the problem and remind us that, oh, it’s not like you have an infestation of skunks in your house so go buy some stocks or bonds or something.

No, I guess we’ll just have to ride this out. In isolation. By ourselves. Just us. Helpless. Hoping they’ll just one day magically go away and we can get on with our lives.

In the meantime, I need a drink. Preferably one without any damn bugs in it.