Infestation

Well, it's getting to be that holiday-packed time of the year. You all know what that means. That's right: it's cold out. Especially up here in Indiana. No mild winters for us; it is still fall and it's already colder than a dingleberry on a polar bear. As if the cold alone wasn't bad enough, it makes all of the animals that normally live outside try to find someplace warm to chill out for a few months. One of these animals happens to be the Asian ladybug.

For those of you blessed enough to have never seen one of these things, an Asian ladybug looks pretty much like a normal ladybug. The only big difference is that their shells vary in color more and tend to be lighter than normal ladybugs. When winter comes, they all flock indoors to try to avoid freezing to death. This is where they and I start to run into trouble.

For whatever reason, all these little Asian bugs think that my apartment building (I live in Hilltop) is a perfect spot to live for a few months. They are everywhere. Whenever I walk in the building's front door, I have to put on my hood because I always worry that some of them will drop off the celing onto me. In the stairwell alone today I counted 87 of the damn things just sitting on the celing and clustering in the corners. It looks like someone rubbed superglue all over popcorn kernels and just flung them straight up in the foyer.

My only consolation here is that there are none in my apartment. They were all over the place until my roommate snapped and caught every single one in the same glass bottle. There must be more than 50 in there now. The bad thing is that he won't throw them out, so some of them have been sitting in there more than a week. I try not to look at the bottle. If any of you have a similar problem, there are a few things that you can do. First, you could get them all early, like my roommate did. If you get every one that starts to come in, they learn pretty quick not to enter the apartment. Second, you could keep your apartment really warm in the winter. I know I prefer it this way, even though many people don't, and this may help in warding off the bugs. Third, you could always Raid the suckers. This may make your place really uncomfortable to breathe in, but at least you won't have ladybugs everywhere.