Invasion!

Sunday night was a quiet evening at home for us.  A little surfing the interwebs, a little Netflix, a whole lot of not much.  Interrupting our quiet evening was a scuffle from the cats as they both began to chase a bug across the living room.  We were actually quite proud, until we noticed there were several little black bugs around the downstairs.  A search for the source of the bugs turned up empty, so went to bed.....puzzled, but not really concerned.

The next morning, I set up my "office" at our kitchen counter.  (Our actual office is quite uncomfortable at the moment).  Around 9 AM I look to my right toward the back door and see a swarm of these on the outside of the glass door and a line of them crawling through the cracks on the bottom:

I immediately think they're a combination of termite swarm, wood chewing, poisonous, blood sucking, infectious, attacking insects.  I mean look at those creepy beady red eyes.... 

Quickly grabbing the Windex (we didn't have any bug spray), I coat the inside of the back door in the blue liquid.  As I'm peeking out the window, without getting too close - I notice the entire back of the house is COVERED in the bugs.  Similar to this:

Time to call TB.  No answer.  Really?  Didn't he know this was an emergency?  Hmmmmm.  Then I call my dad.  No answer. HMMMMMMM.  Time to take this on myself.

While I'm impatiently waiting for a call back, I do some Goggle searches and discover via Wikipedia:

"They may form huge colorful aggregations while sunning themselves in areas near their host plant (e.g. rocks, shrubs, trees, and man-made structures). However, their presence can frighten and annoy people, thus they are considered nuisance pests. This is especially a problem during the cooler months, where they sometimes invade houses and other man-made structures seeking warmth or a safe place to overwinter. They remain inactive inside the walls (and behind siding) while the weather is cool, without doing any damage to the building."



Oh. 

So, not termites.  Not going to bite me.  Or kill me.  Or damage anything.  Or give me a disease.

But it did say they remain "inactive INSIDE walls".  Inside?  That didn't sound good.  Just to be on the safe side, I made a call to the pest control company - since after all, they were coming in the house.....  I nice older gentleman on the other end of the phone, gave me an imaginary patronizing pat on the head and told me not to worry.  His advice was to put some new weather stripping on the door and use some bug spray.  He promised they would be gone with the next cold night.  I hope he's right.....  And I hope all that Windex doesn't eat away at the paint on the door......