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I *do* hallucinate more bugs in late summer. I have no idea why late summer is such a good time for visual and tactile hallucinations, but it is. Nevertheless, I squashed at least 20 non-hallucinatory bugs in the last 5 hours. For the last week or so, I've been encountering several every time I come home. I don't always find them in the bathtub, but more often than not. I thought I was keeping them out of my bed, but they're coming back now that it's cold enough for me to want covers. (I think the route is through the baseboard heating vents, across the floor, up the trailing edge of the bedclothes to the foot of the bed.)
These are small crawling insects, but I don't think they look much like ants. They are brown with horizontal stripes. I think they might be silverfish. I want them gone. It's amazing how badly these stupid little bugs are wearing down my ability to cope. I need for them to be gone now. Dealing with them takes time and energy I really don't have. It's not just the bugs themselves. It's all the crawling sensations and flickers of motion that now need active responses, and even worry, rather than trying to ignore them. Or the stickiness of my kitchen floor (of course it's sticky. It's made of linoleum. It's always going to be faintly sticky.) I clean up spilled food, and the floor is still faintly sticky. Does the residue of the spill make a trail inviting the bugs across the kitchen and into my apartment? I can't tell. The floor always feels sticky and the bugs always feel there.
I'm looking for effective ways to get rid of these bugs. Does borax drive them off, as with ants? Can I put borax inside the heating vents, or just sprinkle it on the floor next to the baseboard? There are no cats, dogs, or small children in the apartment, so I can use things that are toxic to mammals. Can anyone recommend something that works well and quickly, and doesn't have a strong smell? Some popular perfumes are migraine triggers for me, and I hate it when a related fragrance is used to mask chemical smells in consumer products. I want to avoid spraying toxic materials into the air, for my own safety, but I will consider it if nothing else works. When I saw 2 or 3 of them in a day, and thought they were oddly-colored ants, I could be more relaxed about the whole thing. Now I'm seeing dozens of them in an evening, and seeing them as silverfish, which have the reputation of attacking books...it's nightmarish.
These are small crawling insects, but I don't think they look much like ants. They are brown with horizontal stripes. I think they might be silverfish. I want them gone. It's amazing how badly these stupid little bugs are wearing down my ability to cope. I need for them to be gone now. Dealing with them takes time and energy I really don't have. It's not just the bugs themselves. It's all the crawling sensations and flickers of motion that now need active responses, and even worry, rather than trying to ignore them. Or the stickiness of my kitchen floor (of course it's sticky. It's made of linoleum. It's always going to be faintly sticky.) I clean up spilled food, and the floor is still faintly sticky. Does the residue of the spill make a trail inviting the bugs across the kitchen and into my apartment? I can't tell. The floor always feels sticky and the bugs always feel there.
I'm looking for effective ways to get rid of these bugs. Does borax drive them off, as with ants? Can I put borax inside the heating vents, or just sprinkle it on the floor next to the baseboard? There are no cats, dogs, or small children in the apartment, so I can use things that are toxic to mammals. Can anyone recommend something that works well and quickly, and doesn't have a strong smell? Some popular perfumes are migraine triggers for me, and I hate it when a related fragrance is used to mask chemical smells in consumer products. I want to avoid spraying toxic materials into the air, for my own safety, but I will consider it if nothing else works. When I saw 2 or 3 of them in a day, and thought they were oddly-colored ants, I could be more relaxed about the whole thing. Now I'm seeing dozens of them in an evening, and seeing them as silverfish, which have the reputation of attacking books...it's nightmarish.
