You Cannot Eat My House!

  I finally have new siding on the Little Bayou House thanks to Hubby and Son.  They have been renovating the place for quite some time due to an infestation of my enemy, termite.  Yep.  The place was being eaten from inside the walls.  So...the walls came down.  New walls went up.  I am a happy camper because termites are gone!  Now it seems as if other critters want to "try out" the new siding.  For the past few weeks, I have found adult antlions, grasshoppers, spiders and wasps nosing around the siding.  While I adore my siding, I am not sure what the great attraction is for bugs.  This stuff is not wood!  The siding is some stuff called cement siding.  It is supposed to be termite resistant at least....termite proof at best.  I am hoping for the latter.  But these other critters are driving me crazy with their affinity for my house.

  The other morning, I noticed what I thought was a smudge on my new paint job.  The siding seemed to have a blotch of something high enough to be just out of my reach.  A few days later, I noticed that my blotch was moving.  There were little squiggles "worming" their way away from the original smear.  Uh, oh!  I do not need more critters.  I climbed a ladder, took photos and sprayed the teeny-tiny, siding-dwelling critters.  After killing the mass of them (there was clearly hundreds), I decided I had better determine the type of critter.  It appears that my house was the host to a couple of hundred moth caterpillars.  Ok, so I have seen caterpillars on plants but never cement siding.  There cannot be much to eat on the side of a house.

  I feel better after eradicating the critters even though I usually follow a no kill motto.  I suppose that strategy only applies when the critter is not trying to literally eat me out of house and home.  Nope...we are not going that route again.  I have had enough already.