Infestations
Well, we've had our flat for nearly 2 months, and so far (lucky us) we've had 2 infestations.
The first was of baby sp*ders - loads of fun for an ar@chnophobic I can tell you. Luckily as they were so small they didn't bother me too much as long as they were removed promptly - but there were so many of them! Matthew must've removed over 90 (yes, nine-oh) in less than a week :-0 Eventually we think we tracked the source down to the kitchen blind (which has since been removed), as that appeared to be the epicentre. However, you'd stare at the area where the baby sp*ders were for an hour and see nothing - leave the room for 5 minutes and there'd be two! We were tempted to put up a webcam, but, well, didn't have one. In the end frequent removal of an extant critters, hoovering the general area to try and get any remaining eggs and getting rid of the blind appeared to have worked so far...
The current infestation is freaking me out a little less (other than the 'how did they get in?!' quandary) - this morning I discovered a nest of ladybirds in the living room. We have been finding lots of ladybirds in the flat, but then there were always loads in Matthew's old flat too, so I thought it was just a Cheltenham thing - but now we have a source.
Not quite sure what to do with them. Matthew seems to think they are hibernating and we should leave them there. I'm more tempted to put them outside - maybe in some kind of ladybird hibernation box to protect them. I'm just mindful that mummy sp*der hasn't yet been found and keeping a nest of food in the living room might not be the best idea. If you ask me it's the best excuse to get one of those 'ladybird houses' you get from the National Trust magazine I've ever seen :P
The first was of baby sp*ders - loads of fun for an ar@chnophobic I can tell you. Luckily as they were so small they didn't bother me too much as long as they were removed promptly - but there were so many of them! Matthew must've removed over 90 (yes, nine-oh) in less than a week :-0 Eventually we think we tracked the source down to the kitchen blind (which has since been removed), as that appeared to be the epicentre. However, you'd stare at the area where the baby sp*ders were for an hour and see nothing - leave the room for 5 minutes and there'd be two! We were tempted to put up a webcam, but, well, didn't have one. In the end frequent removal of an extant critters, hoovering the general area to try and get any remaining eggs and getting rid of the blind appeared to have worked so far...
The current infestation is freaking me out a little less (other than the 'how did they get in?!' quandary) - this morning I discovered a nest of ladybirds in the living room. We have been finding lots of ladybirds in the flat, but then there were always loads in Matthew's old flat too, so I thought it was just a Cheltenham thing - but now we have a source.
Not quite sure what to do with them. Matthew seems to think they are hibernating and we should leave them there. I'm more tempted to put them outside - maybe in some kind of ladybird hibernation box to protect them. I'm just mindful that mummy sp*der hasn't yet been found and keeping a nest of food in the living room might not be the best idea. If you ask me it's the best excuse to get one of those 'ladybird houses' you get from the National Trust magazine I've ever seen :P
posted by DMK @ 1:19 PM
2 Comments:
At 9:57 AM,
Anonymous said…
We have a lot of ladybirds too. Although I've never found a nest.
Google told me, when I got all curious, that they hibernate in crooks and cracks in buildings in the winter and then make their way out in the summer - which is when we were finding millions of the blighters running around!
So we have them in Manchester too!
At 10:34 AM,
DMK said…
Ooh - great minds think alike: I Googled yesterday too, looking for Ladybird Houses. Apparently a certain breed of ladybird (those with mostly 2 spots) like to hibernate in the corners of windows, in groups of up to a dozen (we drew the lucky straw there: some like to hibernate in groups of up to 10,000). However, if it gets too warm inside they will wake up and, because it's winter, die from lack of food :( So we need to move them on before we switch on the storage heater beneath the window.
I think I'll try and make a ladybird house at some point and hope it works!
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