Killer Ladybugs

It's an unusually sunny day in Fall City, maybe over 60 degrees. That's nice except for the ladybugs. On the sunny side of the house, there are thousands of them. When I go outside and venture into the sunlit area, I'm set upon by them. They go in my ears, down my shirt, in my hair, around my glasses...they're everywhere!

When I was building a shed-barn in the field several years ago, there was a similar onslaught of the little darlin's. There is a difference now, though. When building the shed-barn, I was bitten repeatedly by yellowish ladybugs. They pack a mean sting. This time, the ladybugs are all reddish in color and I haven't been stung yet. So, I have that going for me.

Also, several years ago, I happened to notice a large, dark ball of something in an upper corner of the kitchen. It turned out to be a mass of ladybugs about the size of a tennis ball...which I dispatched via my vacuum cleaner.

Getting back to today...these cuties have no problem getting into the house. They flatten themselves down as thin as a single sheet of 80# text paper and slide around the windows and doors. They just keep coming, oozing through the cracks, slithering under the doors faster than I can vacuum them up in here. Fifteen minutes ago, I vacuumed and now I count about fifty more in this room already. I was planning to mow the lawn before the rains settle in for the next six months but I don't think it's worth the ladybug aggravation...especially if these turn out to be of the biting kind. I can imagine myself flailing and swatting to no avail, falling to the grass, writhing in pain with millions of little bites as an agonizing certain death looms. Ladybugs are the piranhas of the insect world!

It's just horrifying to me to think that some people actually go out of their way to populate their lawns and gardens with these little bastards. They send away for them because ladybugs eat aphids...or something like that. They PAY for them! That's nonsense! It's like hiring a hit-man to off yourself.

I'll wait until sunset, then tend to those in the house. I don't know where they all go when it's cold and dark outside but it would sure be nice to get started on an early, depressing, dank, miserable winter...soon.

Additional note: After vacuuming as many ladybugs as I could find, I went to sleep. No sooner had I closed my eyes when a ladybug landed right on my eyelid. I swatted it away, only to have another graze my forehead. On with the lights! There were nearly fifty of the bastards in my bedroom. After vacuuming again, I went back to sleep with my head under the sheets. In the morning there were fewer than twenty-five in the room.