DROUGHT IN CALIFORNIA - BUG INFESTATION EXPERIENCE

Spring has come weeks earlier than usual here in Southern California, and some of our Native California plant seeds have sprouted which we are very excited about after last years failed attempt to use Native Seeds to create a butterfly garden and habitat. 

We have also experienced our first bug infestation indoors, which we have been valiantly if not aggressively trying to combat with the least poisonous means.  We believe that the bugs are coming indoors in record numbers in search of water.  We found mosquito hawks hanging out on the walls of our bathroom waiting for mosquitos and what seemed to attract them was that we had socks presoaking in a small tub.  We also found fruit flies, roaches, water bugs, and other unidentifiable little insects, possibly babies.  These bugs quickly made it into our refrigerator where they seem to have frozen to death, into our stove, though we keep cleaning it, and into our microwave.  Although we know that West Nile Virus has been detected in the area, like anyone what we are most concerned about is the roaches. 

We have a dog who is very curious and loves to taste things.  We felt that, by making our own traps with boric acid powder and powdered sugar and putting them in places that would be difficult for the dog to get into, we would succeed.  It has been about a month now and our entire kitchen is closed off.  We think we are beginning to win but we do not want our dog to eat a dead roach full of poison.

Admitting to roaches is kind of embarrassing.  Reading about them, we know that they will eat anything, including the paste that keeps your wallpaper stuck to the walls and soap.   They are not an indication that you're a slob or have a filthy house.

But they don't have to eat much or that often and what they really do need is water.

What this means is that we cannot ever have any dishes drying, any water laying, any spills not cleaned up, including spills beneath the cooking surface of our gas stove. 

To be dramatic, one day I spilled some water, and before I could mop it up four bugs came running and were drinking at the edges of it as if it were a pond!

So when we change our dog's water, we started  taking her water bowl outdoors and throwing that water into the weeds rather than into the sink, in hopes that some of the bugs will stay out there!  As is, we already try to reuse very mildly soapy water, such as water from the third rinse of handwashables, to water our lemon tree.

If you're having the same problem with bugs...

The potion of boric acid powder, a poison, mixed with powdered sugar was suggested to us by an apartment building manager down the street.  She said that was what the Building Inspectors suggested.  Online there are a number of recipes and the suggestion that plain old baking soda can work too without the poison.  The idea is that it should be spread finely such as with an old toothbrush, in areas where the bugs are going to walk.  The idea is that some of them will eat other dead bugs or take it back to a "nest" where it will then kill  others.  Eventually the bugs get a heavy hint, give up, and take a hike?

But to where when they want water?