June 20, 2014

Invasion and insight.

Last year our family room fell victim to tiny black bugs with fat hairy legs. We found out that they fed off wheat, rice and corn products.

If you know us, you know that we are little anal about keeping the home tidy. It's embarrassing, but Ryan might follow you around with a dust-buster. (It's also a bit tough to keep up now with all my other priorities, like a baby for example.)

After cleaning every single thing for two weeks and digging through anything that we could think of, we found the source -- an infested bag of birdseed in the garage. Seriously. The m f'ers found their way through the wall. So, we plugged any possible cracks and eliminated the food source. Done and done.

Imagine our dismay when the little m f'ers made an appearance earlier this week and seemed to grow exponentially as the days passed.

Everywhere we looked fell tiny black bugs, but mostly along our back patio door. The buggers look like they are dead, but as soon as you scoop them up their nasty little legs start truckin'.  So when I found one in the diaper bag, and then my work bag, I swear for Jesus that I was about to go insane.

The only thing I could think of was that Mack is eating rice cereal and oatmeal and has an abundant spit-up problem so maybe that could be a food source. Ha. Crazy, I know. But seriously, we went through everything.

In the meantime, my job was to pack up the entire freaking house for a weekend getaway to make sure Mack has everything he needs.

Ryan's job was to pack up what we need: beer and cornhole boards. Seems fair, believe me, I know that too. (Though, I made him go to the store for me twice.)

And if I find one more freaking bug I'm going to break something.

And sure as shit, I found one more bug.

But, I managed not to break anything and started up the vacuum at 10pm.  And after moving all the furniture I felt a little better, like I bought us some time.

All of a sudden Ryan yells at me to put my shoes on and come outside and think about what possible food source that we could possibly have stored in the garage.

There, locked in ziplock bags, inside a huge toolbox, are nasty-ass-infested cornhole bags. What. The. F.

Good thing we were bringing cornhole. Ironic eh?

Eliminated.

So, we found out that the m'fers are actually called "corn weevils" and not "m'fers." But they are some sort of beetle.

Some tips I found that you might want to take note of when buying/storing corn-filled bags:

  1. Make sure the corn has been inspected by the bag maker for the m'f'n corn weevils.
  2. Bags can become infested if they are stored in damp areas or left setting for too long and, once infested, the weevils lay eggs in the corn and will want to join the party. Gross. 
  3. To prevent weevil issues, store the unused whole kernel corn in a freezer if you make cornhole bags. This will kill weevil eggs that may already be in the corn.
  4. Already have bags? Store your cornhole bags in rubbermaid containers and put them in the freezer for a day or two just to be safe and then keep them in a dry place.

Seriously, can I type "weevil" one more time?

And, not to gross you out, but you should know what they look like:

I still have the heebie-jeebies so you can Google the shits yourself if you want a bigger image.

And, just to be done with bugs, you might want to spend your Friday watching a video of my super-cute kid who is just watching the trees:


He is amazing entertainment.