"The beacons are lit..."

The beacons of Minis Tirith!  The beacons are lit!  Gondor calls for aid.

And Rohan will answer.  Muster the Rohirrim.

OK, so it wasn't as dramatic a moment as in LOTR:  Return of the King, but we finally threw up the white flag.  Our Rohirrim came in the form of Paul the Terminex guy to deal with our NCELM problem.  


For those of you not versed in the issue, NCELM stands for nasty creepy eight legged monstrosity, or s-p-i-d-e-r.  For the last two years we've been using over the counter sprays and relying on the generosity of our neighbor to help.  But February isn't even over yet and we're still a month away from the spring equinox, and we've already had four of the creatures in the house.

I'm not talking the odd daddy long legs or the occasional critter no bigger than your average gnat.  I'm talking creatures with bodies as big as a quarter.  Add the legs and a few of them can carry off a small child.  These are big and black and...GAH!


That is not acceptable.  Think of the fear that takes your breath and makes your heart rate go up...then double it.  That's how afraid I am of s-p-i-d-e-r-s.  Pam isn't much better.  You'd laugh at us trying to kill them by drowning them in bug spray, because we're too afraid to get close enough to hit them with a fly swatter...or even a broom.


But when you laugh, I'll remind you of that thing that scares you like that...and tell you that it's going to happen to you frequently for at least eight months out of the year.  And I'll remind you that when it isn't happening, you'll be on guard against it happening so that the simple act of walking into a room in your house can cause unease.


Yeah, so we finally called Terminex.  Paul came on Saturday and he'll come once a quarter.  He sprayed the chemical around the outside.  Then he came inside and put some powder chemical in the most obvious entry points.  Then he left some sticky traps in some other high risk areas.

And he killed and removed at least two NCELMs he found.

Paul didn't make fun of me at all for being a guy afraid of s-p-i-d-e-r-s.  He even made me feel OK about the alleged NCELMs in the crawl space.  He said those are good bugs and they aren't the ones coming up into the condo.  They like dark and damp, and they are actually guarding the house against other kinds of bugs.

He's the expert, so I believe him.


We're not completely relaxed yet.  But we feel better knowing that we've done something to address the problem.  And if we still get NCELMs, we can always have the full chemical treatment inside.  We'd have to leave for a few days for it to dry.  But it's still an option.


I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, and that the quarterly treatment schedule will deal with them.