the current population...

...of millipedes in the kitchen is: 2. Both of which are in the trash. I got over being squeamish last summer when they were so bad, I wanted to get them in the trash before they wandered off, so would just pinch and pick them up. In past years, I would dash for the broom and dustpan to sweep them all together and deposit, but now I'm more prone to just pinch them and drop into the can. Begone!

I never did make any effort to figure out how they get in the house, where they all come from, what causes them to 'swarm', with dozens scooting across the floor. As well as various other small insects that can creep through miniscule cracks to enter where they are not welcome. Along with the millipedes there are always a few balled up, deceased rolly-pollies, ready to be swept up and given a short-shrift disposal. In corners and along the edges of the cabinet bottom, where they run into a roadblock and do not have the brain power to figure out the next move, so unlike bumper-cars, they just curl up and die where they got stuck.

The ones I have been relocating into the feeding trough which is the kitchen trash can are likely deceased before they go out for pick-up on trash truck day. And compared to the numbers I have swept up on a daily basis when they were swarming in years past, the two or three that have been creeping across the floor each morning recently are negligible. But I did not want you to think that the lack of reporting was due to not having visitors. They are either industriously making their way across the tiles, as fast a dozens of miniscule legs can go, or already deceased, curled up into little crescent shapes, already crispy.

Totally out of character, I used the vacuum one day earlier in the week, wanting to clean carpeted areas long neglected. And found numerous apostrophe shaped millipedes along the edges of the carpet near baseboards, curled up and crunchy. So some have obviously made their way into other areas of the house before kicking the bucket. Wondering how they get in, or if they are multiplying inside. But thankful the population explosion is not as dramatic as in years past.