Orkin Prize Pack Give Away

The Orkin Scientific Back-to-School PRIZE PACK includes: - Clip-on Fisheye Lens (iPhone, Galaxy, Android compatible) - Orkin On-the-Go Drink Tumbler - Orkin Drawstring Bag - Orkin “Field Notes” Notebook w/ Pen

Do you know your bugs? Living in the south I have been exposed to more spiders, mosquitoes, and other creepy crawlies than I ever experienced north of the Mason Dixon line! I even got my first chigger bites this week, I kid you not. For as many bugs as I see, I usually hear different facts about them too...

“Daddy longlegs are poisonous.”
“Mosquitoes prefer adults over children.”
“Ants can survive underwater.”

You’ve heard the myths about bugs before I am sure, do you know what’s fact and what’s fake?

Take Orkin’s Scientific Fact or Scientific Fake™ Quiz to test your knowledge, and be sure to watch every clip for the scoop on these infamous bug myths.



Orkin uses the latest technology and unparalleled training to develop a treatment that's right for your home and your needs. To learn more about pest control that's based in science or to schedule an inspection, visit orkin.com or call (844) 503-8251.

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Each household is only eligible to win One (1) Orkin Fact or Fake School Pack via blog reviews and giveaways. Only one entrant per mailing address per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.

The prize will be sent via FedEx or USPS. No P.O. Boxes please. Please note that the assets included within this message were delivered to the author to promote Orkin LLC. All other opinions are my own as the author of this blog. I will be sent a prize pack for my participation but that does not effect my opinion in any way.

Bugging Out

If you follow me on facebook you already know the bugs down here in the South are killing me. We had bugs in DC and in New Jersey... hell some people say NJ mosquitos are nuclear/radio active and the size of hummingbirds. Bugs are important to an ecosystem and everywhere and I get it, ok? But right now I am just getting a little annoyed... bugged if you will.

When we moved in my husband sprayed our house with Spectracide on the inside and out. Our house was vacant for six plus months, it was desperately needed. Inside we have been ok up until yesterday. We were enjoying a nice bottle of wine in the backyard, our ankles and feet covered in bug spray, and we were still getting bit. Once again I covered myself in deep woods Off. I, at the present time, have twenty nine mosquito bites in varios stages from that's gonna scar to I got this six hours ago. They LOVE me. So after killing brain cells from the fumes of bug spray I go inside to use the bathroom.

As I am finishing up I see a tiny spider. Now I am not freaked by spiders normally, and this one was very tiny. But then I start to look. In the shower there are about twenty spiders forming a web. The shelf above the toilet had about ten more. All the corners of the ceilings were in various stages of web production. Mind you my husband was showering in said bathroom less than two hours ago! I think he would have mentioned this. Now, like previously stated, spiders don't freak me out that much. That many spiders freaked me out.

My poor husband had to come in and start squishing. He couldn't find the source so he emptied our stuff from the bathroom and made a bleach/ammonia bomb and turned on the fan, sealing the room off. Luckily it killed most of them. I squished a few more when I went to shower but have not seen any since.

Have I mentioned the beetles? The ones the size of baseballs that fly into our siding and I can hear them bouncing from inside the house?

And the mosquitos. I hate the little black and white striped monsters that love my blood. I was getting gas on base last week and I got bit on the face at the pump!

Yea, not the best picture but a woman at the check out asked me, "Oh dear, what happened to your face??" That makes me feel better :P

And I didn't even mention this guy yet.

Luckily he was not poisonous, but I didn't want Rylie out back for awhile after I found it since I wasn't sure. Turns out it is the harmless kind that eats slugs or whatever, but we thought for a bit that it was a baby copperhead. Glad we were wrong!

Our house juts up to a block of woods. I mean literally, a block. It goes for maybe five hundred feet and then there is a street and a Kia dealership. I hear them over the loudspeaker some mornings. The woods may be adding to it, we rarely get bit in the front, it is usually out back, but man I am tired of it. And it is only June! I want to enjoy my backyard darnit, and not bathe in bug spray to do so.

Yes, "Welcome to the South". I've heard it from about twenty different people..... still not a fan.

Praying Mantis

My New Years update will wait until we can get my pictures onto a computer somewhere, so in the mean time, let's go back a week or so...


Ryan and I tend to have moments like this. Remember how our first married vacation that turned into one of THOSE vacations? Well our first Christmas may be the same!! Luckily this did not happen on Christmas, but it will revolve around our first tree and will always be remembered as part of our first Christmas.

We argued a bit about how long to leave the tree up. In my family we always left it up until the Feast of the Epiphany, or January 6th. Ryan's thought it was bad luckto leave it up past New Years. I was winning out, we went up to NJ for Christmas and were about to do the same for New Years. Getting all the ornaments away was going to take a lot of time so it looked like it was going to stay up til we got back from new Jersey. On Wednesday night, December 29th, we were in the living room and I glanced up at ceiling and saw something up there.


sorry not my picture

What is it you ask? A baby praying mantis. Now I always heard you were not supposed to kill them. As a kid you were told it was against the law in Jersey even! Not sure if that is true.... *googles* Ok it's not. Anyway....

We caught the first one and set it outside like nice karma abiding people. Or whatever. We get back in and notice another one. And another. And two more over there. Ryan suggests they may have been coming from our Christmas tree. We look by the tree and five more are on the wall. Ugh. Bugs don't bother me usually, but this was kind of grossing me out. So I set my husband on getting all of them and told him since he was off tomorrow and I had to work he could take down the tree if he wanted to. That way he gets his way and it is down before New Years. I even said if he just gently took all the ornaments off the tree I'd put them away when I got home.

Deal.

The next day I am at work and it is D.E.A.D. I am googling and reading blogs and playing words with friends or scrabble on my itouch when I hear from Ryan. Apparently he went to take off the ornaments and when he looked inside the tree it was swarming with hundreds of baby praying mantises manti mantises! He looked up at the star and saw even more of them congregating.

ACK!

So my calm husband (thank god I was at work) quickly removes all the ornaments except for the lights and the silver strand of ball things we had on the tree. He then dragged it stand and all to the front door, quickly undid the stand, and ran out of the apartment and outside and threw our tree down in the bushes. He then shook all the praying mantises off him and whipped off his jacket and started beating it against the railing.

ACKx2!

He then carefully stands up the tree and begins to spin off the lights and other stringed decorations. Bugs were aflyin! He then dragged the tree to the dumpster and headed over to the leasing office. They got the exterminator to come and respray out baseboards (free of charge!).

The exterminator was shocked though.

E: Why would you want to kill praying mantises? They eat other bugs!
Ryan: Yes but we had hundreds of them in our apartment.
E: Yea well they eat each other anyway. If you left for a week you'd only have one big one left!
Ryan: That's nice, but we still want to make sure none get out and into other apartments.
E: I sometimes will catch them and put them in my garden even.
Ryan: Yes, but you don't put them in your living room. Please spray.

Oy.

I am not going to lie, when Ryan told me the story I was laughing. Very grateful I was not home, but laughing. I can just imagine my big strong Marine jumping up and down to shake off the little things and frantically beating his jacket and it made me laugh. When I got home I put all the ornaments away and we still found about five more.

But we got in the car and drove to Jersey regardless. Me shuddering randomly every now and then when I thought about it.

When we got home Sunday night we found one dead one hanging out on the ceiling and Ryan said there was one in the bathroom... but no sightings since then. We suspect our Christmas tree had eggs on it and our apartment is quite warm so they thought Hey it's spring! Let's hatch! I told Ryan next year, we are getting a fake tree. He told me we're just going to go somewhere next year that sprays their trees.

Let's see what happens eh?

*shudder*