Rob and the California George Family

We have had an ongoing termite battle for the last 5 years since we moved into our home. We almost immediately found subterranean termites and had to deal with them. They were not covered by the pre-sale inspection since their damage was hidden until we removed some cabinets in the garage. We also found drywood termites that were treated locally in a few places as we found them. The final straw was a pile of sawdust and termite excrement found by our front door.

Anyway, last week we had the house tented as a kind of "reset" button. The termites will be back -- that is a fact here in SoCal. However, it will take time for the colony to grow to the point it was at which will minimize the damage.

We went to Carlsbad last Thursday - Saturday to avoid hearing the little bug screams (and of course we had to be out of the house anyway). This was after a major effort of bagging all of our food in special plastic to seal it from the gas. It turns out that we know for a fact that the sealing worked since a moth was alive in one of the bags when we got home. That was our inadvertent version of the coal miner's canary.

One unfortunate but interesting casualty was a small bat that we found dead on our balcony. I knew that there were bats in Orange County, but not around our home. It was around 1 inch long and looked like a little brown mouse with wings. I'm not sure if it was a fruit eater or a bug eater. I tried to do a little research but couldn't figure it out. I guess this will make us think when we hear something fluttering at night.

One ironic item was seeing the movie "The Ant Bully" while we were in Carlsbad. The kids didn't seem to make a connection between that and our tenting, but if they were younger it might have really been an issue!