Pests

It’s not an infestation.  Call it a visit.

Near the end of May I start noticing flies in the house, on downstairs windows, buzzing back and forth between the kitchen and family room. First one, then two, then a couple three or four or five. Every day a few more. Twenty years ago, in late summer, we dealt with a full-force infestation, an invasion. We implemented a poison campaign, spraying the edges of windows downstairs. (Flies don’t seem to love the second floor. Maybe they’re afraid of heights.) It took a week for the tide to turn.

This time is different. These are early flies, cluster flies. I read up on them. They don’t lay eggs on the windows, they’re not interested in food. In the fall they lay their eggs in nooks and crevasses in the outside walls of your house and find a way indoors. I don’t know what they’re up to now, but we need to do something about them. It’s our house.

A useful modern invention: the hand-held vacuum cleaner. It’s better than poison, which could be a threat to man; better than a fly swatter, which can leave a messy smear of ex-fly on a window or wall. With a stealthy approach I can capture a fly with my hand-held vac. I’m reluctant to admit it–it’s kind of fun. Sometimes they see me coming. I learn that flies have five eyes, which gives them an advantage. They do not have ears, but they detect changes in sound waves, so I don’t turn on the vac until it’s practically on top of them. 

Flies were a nightmare to my mother. She grew up in the Michigan wilderness, before screens had been invented. She recalled hot summer days, windows open, flies on draperies, “clouds of them,” she would say, if a shade or drape was disturbed. Now, on a smaller scale, I detect the edge in Tizi’s voice when she sees a fly. Multiple flies, borderline panic. To her, more than one is more than a visit.

This past Sunday, by mid-day I had taken 30-40 flies into custody. I could see them through the blue plexiglass window on the hand-held, still alive. They had their whole lives ahead of them. I went outside and freed them. It was cold, maybe too cold for a fly. They were no longer where they didn’t belong. I have the upper hand. This too shall pass.

Note: This piece will show up eventually in a micro memoir project I’m working on. See the micro memoir link above? Check it out. Maybe, just maybe, you would like to capture some funny and memorable things that have happened to you. No writing experience necessary. Just write a moment you remember.