Bob: A Story of Immigration.

In 2005 the Western Conifer Seed Bug (Leptoglossus Occidentalis) arrived at our house with a large extended family. Suddenly the place was crawling with these weird-looking bugs:

We named them Bob. The reason isn't important. It's a lot quicker to say, "there's a Bob" than to use either of the bug's official names.

Bob's story parallels the progression of most immigrant groups. At first we feared and disliked Bob. He looked different. He smelled funny. He had disturbing habits like flying ineptly at us or getting on our pillows or bath towels so that we inadvertently applied him roughly to our faces or bodies. We don't use bug spray and we wouldn't squish anything that gives off such a uniquely pungent odor when disturbed or injured, but we did capture and evict any that we found. The colder the day or night the better, as far as we were concerned. So you could say we started deportation: go back where you came from, Bob.

The Bobs don't quit. They keep crossing our borders, looking for a better life. We've gotten used to their appearance, their odors and their attempts at flight. They don't chew things, suck blood or poison our pets. They're just different. We see their struggle to survive the winter when their search for a hibernation niche accidentally led them to our warm lair. Now when they would be dormant they need water. Maybe they need food, I don't know. They feed on the sap in conifer cones. They won't ever find that in our house.

We've developed sympathy for Bob. No longer is he a lousy stinkin' bug. He's an Insect American.

The Bobs seem just as eager to go back out when the weather warms as they were to crawl in when it froze. We just have to learn to get along while we're sharing the same shanty.

In Bed with Bob

About four years ago, in the fall, I noticed a large number of fairly ugly bugs trying to snuggle into the frames of the casement windows of my house. They did not have the jaws of wood-eaters, so I mainly worried about squishing them in the window mechanism as I snugged the house for the coming of cold weather.

I'd been invaded by lady bugs in the fall before. They're cute little orange things with black spots, the sort of thing rendered in costume jewelry for little girls. They don't come around anymore.

The new winter guests soon managed to squeeze the rest of the way into the house. They're startlingly grotesque and, like many large bugs, sociably inclined. They love to fly up and land on you, or crawl up beside you to see what you are doing.

A little research disclosed only that they are called "leaf-legged bugs." While they are related to the notorious cone-nosed kissing bugs, blood-suckers of the south and southwest, our particular species seems to eat only plant juices.

Laurie and I had had a run of bad luck with animals we had named, losing one long-term pet and several adopted refugee birds from the shooting preserve across the street. So we figured the best way to exterminate the bugs was to name them. So we called them all Bob.

Bob does die, but Bob is numerous. Bob flies into light fixtures. Bob gets stepped on. Bob gets played with by the cats, though not too much, because he gives off an odor like crushed leaves when disturbed, particularly when crushed himself. Whenever I catch Bob in a window, I open it and flick him out into the natural world he fled. Go hibernate in a log somewhere, dammit.

Fortunately, Bob doesn't breed in the house. The number of Bobs represents only those who managed to squeeze into the house in the fall.

We've developed a truce. I'm not going to blast poisonous chemicals into my tightly-closed house just to kill a harmless, though unsightly, bug. So we try to get along. But sometimes Bob goes too far.

Two or three times now, Bob has crawled into bed with me. The bed is under a window. Bob is climbing my pillow to get to the window sill, or falling from the curtain. It's nothing personal.

Last night, I felt a tickling on my hand. When I scrached it, I felt the familiar crunch and smelled the crushed-leaf odor. I snapped on the light to evict the now five-legged Bob. It was 4:30 a.m. I twitched and scratched for the last hour before it was time to get up. Stupid Bob.

In this regard, spring can't come soon enough for any of us. But they're better than roaches.

Better than Roaches

This is a Bob. It's the best picture I have, since I haven't gone out of my way to photograph the ugly pests. Bobs are about 3/4" long.
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