Box Elder Bugs are Zombies from Outer Space

By Frankie Valinda Ghee

I am not by nature a hateful or even a homicidal person.  As a matter of fact, I can count on the fingers of one hand the things I dislike enough to qualify them as hated.  There are four of them, but don’t get me started on the other three. At this time of year, almost my entire ration of hatred gets used up on Box Elder bugs.

I detest with a whole body revulsion these skanky little monsters that show up each spring with the first hopeful rays of sunshine to ruin what should be a time of hope and revitalization.  These beasts which I grew up calling British soldier bugs in Great Falls, Montana where they were only a novelty around our house in summertime, I now call “Walkers” as in AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”  I kill them individually and in “herds.”  I smash the single walkers that catch my eye while I’m in the shower or on the toilet, and I hose down the giant mind altering swarms that gather on the front porch in August making it difficult to get into my apartment without feeling like I need a chemical bath.

Last year, I found them climbing glasses of freshly poured wine and walking meal tables like over indulgent dinner guests.  I sat outside with my computer in poetic bliss only to find these hideous, useless, nightmare beasts walking up my pants legs, flying at my head and breaking my concentration.  I wrote a song about it.  Would you like to hear it?

Box Elder Bugs are Zombies from Outer Space

To be sung loudly and in a screeching monotone

Box Elder bugs are zombies from outer space

They are totally filled with suck!

I mean completely and totally crammed

To the brim

With Suck!

Oh, if box elder bugs plan

They plan to take over the Earth

By first driving us crazy

And annoying us all to death

Oh, how I hate them

They are totally filled with suck!

Did you know that there is such a thing as a Box Elder tree?  Well, there is.  I Googled it.  The bugs apparently go with the trees of the same name.  Some people call Box Elder bugs “Maple bugs.”  I learned that today.  I also learned that my creative plan to kill the fiends by chucking big pots of boiling water at them as they sun bath on the side of the house (crawling over each other’s backs, fornicating and doing god knows what all-right in front of the impressionable neighborhood cats) is one of the best ways to deal with them.  First, you want to get rid of wood and leaves you have lying around in your yard.  These walkers love to hide under things like that.  My hoards like to hang out on the old wooden picnic table in the back yard.  Two years ago, I could actually sit at that table and enjoy the outside, but last year, I couldn’t go near the thing without being terrorized by zombies from outer space.

There were so many of them on the side of the house one day that I was almost afraid to make eye contact just in case I angered the ring leader and provoked an all-out attack.  I think the bug spray I was using actually made them stronger like the radioactive spiders in that old black and white movie.

Finally, I ended up wrapping a plastic leaf and lawn bag around the sweeping end of my broom and whacking the hell out of the huge clusters.  I was terrified the whole time.  Next, I hosed them, and boiled them and whacked some more.  In the end, the box elder bugs retained ownership of a much smaller parcel of real estate than they had originally claimed though they were never completely gone.  I’ve already killed at least ten this year, and it’s only March.  The “experts” say that box elder bugs are basically harmless, but I know better.

If we all work together, a few of us might maintain our sanity long enough to endure through the worst part of the invasion.  We’ll meet at the old house behind the railroad tracks and try to rebuild civilization.  Stay strong, and breathe through your nose.  You don’t want one of those sneaky bastards flying their red asses into your mouth.

Have a long life and plenty of stuff (Live long and prosper!)

Frankie Valinda Ghee

Links to the Experts:

http://boxelderbug.com  Says that soapy water will kill them.  I’m going to try this.

http://www.orkin.com/other/box-elder-bug  Shares information about their mating cycle and hibernation habits

http://www.pestworld.org/pest-guide/occasional-invaders/boxelder-bug/ Has a creepy ass photo and some basic information that looks credible.

note: I wrote this a couple of months ago.  In the mean-time, my measures have been helpful, but the infestation continues.  My neighbors seem to have it worse though, so there you go.

F