Oh Ladybug, Ladybug... get out of my house

Isn't she pretty? She eats aphids that eat the plants we love. We like the ladybug. She is our friend.

Yah.. OK. To a point. I wish to talk about ladybugs and being stupid.... err - I mean naive, we thought we were being friends to the sweet ladybug when they decided to find a place in our home...... First, I'd like to back up a few years and tell a story about a Vancouver experience with ladybugs.

We lived along the Fraser River in South Vancouver at the time. Across the river, there were fields of cranberries. In mid October there is usually a warm spell. It's also the time when the cranberry fields get flooded - a harvest thing which I know a bit about. Anyway, all those lovely ladybugs that eat aphids and such have to take to the air. One particular year was a good year for ladybug reproduction. Understatement!

We were out for the day and had left some windows open in our high rise apartment. No biggie. When we got home, we saw our cat sitting at the window looking at 'something' with great interest. We went over to see what held her attention. Ladybug infestation! They were spilling into the sill, the air was filled with them and the apartment building (high rise!) was covered in lady bugs. I recall seeing a lady scooping them out of her apt. Tons and tons of ladybugs. It was science fiction in the making. I was in such awe and have never seen anything like it before or since.

Flash forward some six or so years later. We're country bumpkins now in Eastern Canada. A few ladybugs found their way into our home in the fall. No biggie. We like ladybugs. We have forgotten the infestation episode in Vancouver. We let them live with us till spring. BAD idea. They reproduce, you know, like rabbits, only worse. Poor hubs... filling a jar with them and releasing them outside. This went on for weeks... 50, 70, 90 at a time. By the time it was all said and done, we (mostly hubs) had removed several hundred of them from our house. All this from compassion for a few. Be afraid! Be very afraid and send them suckers right out your door as quickly as possible in the fall. Don't be a victim! Save yourselves and show no mercy. Well, maybe you don't have to go to such extremes. I can count a few of them in my bedroom right now. I just can't squish 'em or flush 'em. Hubs is collecting them and taking them out but I did purge the ones I could find last fall.