It's a Bug's Life

When we moved, I knew that Florida animal life would be very different from Indiana.  I realized that we would encounter snakes and lizards at our home.  If we went to the springs, we would also see alligator and manatees.  I had learned from my previous visits that there would even be wild monkeys. 

What I wasn't expecting to have to deal with was all of the bugs.  When we first moved in, I noticed ants in the driveway.  I asked our realtor about a pest service, but she said that most people just take care of it on their own.  We didn't do anything at first, but after a few days of cleaning we found more bugs and bigger ones at that.  That's when we tried our realtors advice and bought traps for the inside of the house.  They helped, but didn't completely solve the problem.  One night while Doug was sleeping, a Florida carpenter ant bit him.  That's when he decided to try a heavy duty spray.  It definitely made a difference and he slept well that night.

We kept up with our routine of changing the traps once a month and applying spray as needed.  I had read that bugs were worse in Florida if there was a lot of landscaping around the house, especially with pine needle mulch.  That was exactly what we had, so I mentioned to Doug the idea of taking it all out and putting down rock.  It didn't take much convincing as what we had looked pretty bad.   We hired someone to remove the landscaping for us this summer.  The house definitely looked better without the heavy vegetation, but the ants that were hiding underneath the bushes came in our front door.  By the time we moved down here in August, there were hundreds of dead ones lying on the tile in the foyer.  It was nice to know that the Ortho spray was working, but it put me over the top.  I knew that we had to do something else.

As I was vacuuming up the ants, I remembered that the person who cleaned our dryer vent also owned a pest control service.  I dug out his business card and Doug called him right away.  We set up an appointment for a lawn treatment and house perimeter service for Labor Day weekend.  It was more expensive than we had planned, but we had to try something.  I didn't want to fight bugs for the rest of our life in Florida.  

Fast forward three months later and we couldn't believe the difference.  The amount of bugs that we saw was reduced by 90% and those that we did see were usually dead or dying.  I called our pest guy last week for another service and to add us to his quarterly schedule.  He was pleased that we were happy with his business and offered to come out today.  I was relieved that we had an answer to our problem.  Even when I found a wolf spider in our garage after he left, I didn't freak out too much.  I knew that it was just trying to get away from the spray and would die soon.  Cameron made fun of me for helping it along the way and trying to convince him that I was going to somehow die along with it.  Thankfully, I survived and our home remained bug free.