I arrive home with my kiddos as we sit down for dinner and I notice a fly-thingy on my table. Gross! I kill him and sanitize. A bit later I noticed another fly-thingy on the floor. I chewed my kids out and told them "see you guys won't keep the door shut, now we have flies." An hour later princess said to me "mommy there are bugs". I said "okay sweetie just stomp them." "I can't she says there are too many'. I ask her to show me where the too many bugs were. She did. they were all over my living room carpet!. Little ant thingys with wings. WTH? I HATE bugs! And in my living room of all places! I send Mason to get the RA. He comes in and starts inspecting. He lifts a mini blind in the window and there are hundreds of these things! It looked like a scene from Amityville Horror. You know when the priest gets attacked by all those bees and they are all over the window? I have 6 windows in my living room and 5 of them had the same situation, I was mortified. They were termites!
Apparently the storms we had recently screwed up their nests and they were looking for a new place to nest and my home was the chosen spot. Lucky me eh? Our house is very old and very weird and the windows do dot quite fit into the window frames meaning there is a lot of draft space between the windows and the frames. We seal that space for the winter, unseal it in spring to open the windows for fresh air then reseal it for summer. We are in spring so they are not sealed and I suppose made the perfect entrance for the 600 or so termites to come in through.
RA spent hours spraying and killing and vacuuming up termites. I spent the time fussing at the kids telling them they brought the bugs in by not being neat enough. I know that is not true but hell any chance I can get to teach them a lesson I use it. It was quite effective too as I told them how bugs would crawl on them in their sleep until Michael looked up termite facts and let everyone know that the termites were not there for crumbs. I did a lil research and the good news is if they still have wings ,which they all did then they have not nested yet. See below:
When a colony is healthy or extremely stressed, alates or winged reproductives are sent from the colony to start new colonies. Alates emerge from the colony and find their way into living spaces through cracks around windows and door frames or any space accessible.
Then I read these facts:
Termite facts
Termites :
- Live for 15 years
- Lay 1 egg every 15 seconds
- Have 4 wings
- Burrow tiny mud tunnels to a source of wood
- Leave sawdust near windows
- Enjoy wood resulting from leaky plumbing
- Can destroy entire house in about 2-3 years
- Found in every U.S. state except Alaska
- Help the food chain by recycling wood for the soil
So I guess I got 2 years to relocate....... Sigh......... Just my luck.
