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My house is bug heaven.

This is because it is a very old house that was vacant for years and all sorts of critters moved in ranging from the usual ants, termites, spiders, cockroaches and scorpions all the way up the food chain to squirrels and a possum.

I should add the house is made out of adobe (mud) and is located in Southern Arizona.

There being no difference between the earth and the walls of the house, so obviously the bugs made no distinction.

Bugs are not stupid. Living outside means dealing with rain and cold and heat and hungry predators. Houses are great controbutions by humanity to providing better and safer homes for bugs. And they've evolved a good tolerance to most of our poisons, so on the whole, their lifespans have obviously increased by moving in with humans.

Instead of tunneling into the ground like normal ants , my ants actually started on the top of one wall and tunneled down into the wall for their home. For some reason they love sunning themselves on my roof. The extra distance they had to travel to get food seemed to be a good trade for highrise accomodations and a great view.

The problem finally got resolved by mixing a slurry of poison and mortar into their tunnel system, creating perfect little ant fossils for some future paleontologists.

The termites looked to fairly easy to control, except the ghost that haunts the house had issues with the termite treatment person and chased her out. A peace treaty had to bes worked out between the ghost and the termite people so the termites could be removed. I really didn't want to hire an exorcist since the ghost is pretty benign to me, anyway. I also think theghost provides a new level of home security that beats the heck out of an alarm system.

There is no known solution to cockroaches except they eventually learn to not show themselves in daylight, and it is good to make noise before you turn on the lights at night. They are smart.

I already had a decent population of spiders and lizards in the house, and decided that "living with nature" meant finding an acceptable balance since the good spiders and lizards did a fair job of keeping the bugs under control. No black widows or brown recluse spiders allowed. No poisonous lizards allowed. Just have to note to new visitors that the big spider up in the corner of the living room is Bob, and he never comes down below the tops of the windows. The lizards are actually cute.

I will never get a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but when there's nothing to watch on tv, there's always the Wild Kingdom scenes around the house as the gecko nabs a bug.

The possum accepted relocation, but the squirrel still sneaks in when the door is left open.

And of course, I live alone.

Learn more about this author, Hugh Holub.
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