I have a whole bunch of domain names, some goofy and some serious, but now I'm wondering if another wouldn't be appropriate.
Last year, from pretty much June through September, we had earwigs living in our mailbox. Well, maybe earwigs. Possibly silverfish or something like that. You know, the crawly things you occasionally find in your house and never ever want to see anywhere near anything you're touching, never mind reaching your arm into. I scraped them out, I threw bucket after bucket of hot water into the mailbox – which, I can say with some certainty, looks certifiably insane – I looked up eco-friendly solutions (none of which panned out, of course, or even involved ingredients I could readily find). I even left the poor mailman a note as it must've sucked dealing with that every day. I went nuts with the weedwacker and cut down all the greenery around the mailbox, including some flowers, which of course thrilled my wife.
I did some Googling and it sounded like it wasn't an uncommon malady. Sometimes they just like mailboxes.
Finally, October came and almost overnight they disappeared. I was ecstatic. No more opening the mailbox with a stick and stepping back! No more slapping the mail on the ground to make sure there were no bugs inside the newspaper or hiding between bills! It was a crappy winter but at least I didn't have bugs living in my mailbox.
Fast forward to spring, maybe a week ago. We got home from work and stopped at the mailbox to grab the mail. I popped open the door, grabbed the mail, and was about to shut it when I almost had a heart attack. There were two wasps (or hornets, or yellowjackets, I don't know) BUILDING A NEST just inside the door on the top right. If you know me at all, you know I have an unnatural, unhealthy fear of bees. I have been known to "scream and run" in my time. I reasonably kept my cool this time, but what the hell? I ended up grabbing a 1x2 from the garage, about 3' long, and beat the hell out of them inside the mailbox until they and the nest were gone. I'm sure that looked perfectly sane to the neighbors, too.
The next day there was a single one in there, right by the door, and it felt out when I opened it. No nest that time, though.
Since then it's been clean, but now I'm back to slowly creeping up on the mailbox and opening it with a stick, waiting for what's going to take up residence next. But seriously, I want to know. WHAT THE HELL.
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5 comments:
get a condo--- Dad
Get your own account, "Nancy."
Was the "earwig" one of these? If you have an unnatural fear of bees, I have a similar fear of house centipedes. I hope and pray that our next house doesn't have these. I'd take spiders anyday.
When I lived in New Zealand, snails ate my mail all the time. It was fucking gross. Earwigs are grody too.
You could put a natural trap in the mailbox. I've also heard garlic works (cut a clove open and smear around the inside.) Then your mail will be garlicky. ask metafilter has some good ideas too.
Hillary -- god no, smaller than that and with fewer legs. I find those nasty as well.
And speaking of spiders, I picked up my bag from the backseat when we got to work yesterday and there was a spider the size of a nickel under it. He crawled into the seat and is presumably still in my car somewhere.
Cara -- thanks for the tip, I'll give that a shot if they come back this year. The only things I'd seen previously were for something like "dicetaceous earth" or some such. As much as I couldn't stand them, I was too lazy to go on a wild goose chase.
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