[Oabs] Something that bugs me.

Tue Jun 3 02:35:20 UTC 2014

Hi Emily and all,

As someone who has similar bug issues, I can totally sympathize.  I
have been very fortunate that bugs rarely if at all have gotten into
my dorm room and apartment while I was living at college, but they are
a little more common in Cincinnati when I'm home.  This is partially
because we have an older house, and partially because the stink bugs
are much worse down here than they are in Dayton for some odd reason.
I have only seen one in my two years of schooling at UD, and that is a
really interesting story.  My poor roommate lifted her pillow to put
her cell phone under it (so she could wake up and physically feel her
alarm in the morning since she didn't usually wake up to the noise),
and found a stink bug sitting there.

I think what Emily is saying more by her question is how to find the
bugs and get them to go away or kill them.  I know from seeing her
house, as well as from my own experiences, that bugs still manage to
get in regardless of whether or not your windows and doors are
screened in, and even when the house is clean.  Sometimes I find bugs
in the weirdest places around my house.  For example, a few weeks ago
I took my BrailleSense down to my basement to read, and after I had
been sitting there alone for a few minutes I heard a stink bug
buzzing.  Bear in mind that my basement has glass block windows which
only serve to let in a little natural light, and it is otherwise
completely underground.  There is an emergency door which goes out to
the back yard, but no one uses it on a regular basis.  The family
room, aside from the occasional laundr pile up, is kept pretty clean
since it's where we watch movies and have friends hang out in.  The
bug had to come in from upstairs, and there was no real reason for it
to be down there.

Like Emily though, I had no idea where the bug was.  I knew it was off
to my left in a corner of the room, but I wound up going to get my
younger brother like I usually do so he could find the bug.  It took a
while for him to find it, and he almost thought I was just freaking
out for no apparent reason because he couldn't see anything.  He found
it sitting on the windowsill of the glass block window, so he thinks
it was trying to get out.  He was able to get a tissue and use it to
grab the bug so he could get rid of it.  I wondered how I would have
located the bug and done the same, and what if the bug moved in the
time I went to go get a tissue to grab it with?

I will say that my cat used to be great at getting bugs, and sometimes
my dogs even chase after flies.  However, I've found as my cat gets
older she is more likely to ignore the bugs unless they fly close
enough to her.  She doesn't chase after them nearly as much as she
used to or bother to climb ontop of tables to try to jump for them.
She used to love it when a moth would fly into our house and fly
around the light fixture in our dining room, because it would become
her play-thing to try to catch.  She'd climb onto the dining room
table, follow the bug around with her eyes, and alternate between
stalking around the table and trying to pounc for it, or jumping up
into the air to try to catch it between her paws or with her teeth.
Now she'll lay right under the light with the bug flying around, and
only hiss at it and try to paw it when it gets in her way.  I think if
you want to have a cat for an exterminator, you need to make sure you
have one that will go after the bugs.

For rats, I think mice traps are the best bet.  I know plenty of
sighted people, including my parents, who have caught field mice by
just putting out traps and waiting it out until the mouse gets caught
in one.  My dad caught quite a few by putting traps in places which
don't danger people living in the house, or inconvenience them.  For
some reason mice really liked to hide behind our couches, so that was
where he put the majority of his traps.  My dogs used to chase the
mice and got a couple too when they were young enough to be fast, and
a cat would also be a good mouse hunter.

On 6/2/14, Darian via Oabs <oabs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Dear MS. Tim Brooke fellow (a.k.a. Emily)
> As you and everyone else knows, I am not from Ohio, nor do I live there
> (yet).
> Anyway, this is a great topic I wanted to chime in if you will allow
> I first think that it is important to come to understand that and insect
> phobia is not at all uncommon. In fact, the phobia itself and the question
> of how to deal with it is something that humans of every color, creed and
> visual acuity face
> So, my personal opinion is that the creation of insect screens (the stuff
> you put on your windows and doors), mouse traps and bug zappers and varying
> types of natural and chemical pesticides are in play when devising how one
> counteracts ever so annoying invasion of pests.
> I think the first thing that is highly important is to keep your residence
> as clean as you can make it. Is make sure home more hospitable to humans
> But less hospitable to the nonhumans
>
> I grew up in places where you had rats, aunts, and roaches (Yep I grew up in
> the hood :-))
> Learned from my mother that cleanliness fixes a good bit of the problem. She
> is cited actually.  I also would tried to install screen on windows and
> doors for the summer and try to understand that when the weather is hot, the
> insects want in.
> If you like cats and you live in a place where you can have one, they tend
> to keep away the smaller critters
>
> Because I have a difficult time being able to tell
> I think this is all I can think of at the moment (I totally love the pun in
> the subject line).
> I think I will "buzz "off now.
>  Darian
>
>> On Jun 2, 2014, at 4:17 PM, Emily Pennington via Oabs <oabs at nfbnet.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, everyone.
>>
>> With the summer season very much in evidence, I think it a very
>> appropriate
>> time for this post.
>>
>> Let me give a preface. I am a well-functioning, mostly happy college kid.
>> I
>> can do laundry, and I am slowly but surely mastering the culinary arts.
>> In
>> short, I can't wait to live independently.
>>
>> However, I have always had one huge phobia which causes me to regress into
>> a
>> helpless, quivering child: insects. I hate them all; even butterflies
>> landing on me scare the crap out of me. I know that bugs have a very
>> important place on this earth, and as long as they keep to themselves
>> outside, I am completely fine with that. What freaks me out is when they
>> appear in my house, on my desk, or worse, on my flesh. The hornet's nest
>> incident of '07 - about which most of you have heard in great detail -
>> has
>> only increased my fear. The stinkbugs love my room in the winter, and many
>> a
>> wasp turns up in our upstairs bathroom during the summer. I hate them, and
>> I
>> feel helpless when they're around. How do I kill something that I can't
>> find, let alone something with a painful stinger? My paralyzing fear of
>> bugs
>> also leads me to worry about what I'll do in the future when I have to
>> kill
>> the inevitable rodent in my house. I always joke that I'll marry somebody
>> who will kill all of the vermin, but I know that won't always work. More
>> importantly, I need to come up with a system for being able to detect,
>> locate, and safely and successfully exterminate unwanted insects when I'm
>> by
>> myself. After all, I won't live with my bug-killing parents forever.
>>
>> So, my fellow blind brethren, I ask you: What do you do in these
>> situations?
>> I know that not everyone has lived on their own in a non-dorm setting
>> yet,
>> but in any case, how have you - or how would you - handle it? I'm sure
>> Deborah and Eric are veteran exterminators and have some great tips as
>> well.
>> I'm anxious to hear your thoughts and war stories - not only to get some
>> good laughs, but also to give me some good ideas on how to work with my
>> phobia.
>>
>> Thanks, everyone, and have a great week. Enjoy the sun!
>>
>>
>>
>> Emily
>>
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-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma