A Pattern of Personal, Perplexing Plagues

Life in Reno has been a series of personal plagues. Although not quite of Biblical proportions, for whining, wimpy, mere mortal me, they’ve been epic, loathsome, and alarmingly nonstop.Of course, good wife that I am, I blame my suffering not on God, but on my spouse. You can appreciate my faultless logic. He (my spouse, not God) dragged me away from civilization — Berkeley, CA — and moved me to the godless wilderness of Reno, Nevada.

My woes began, I kid you not, on Week One.

Personal Plague No. 1

First came the wildfires. This was not only sad, but also ironic. We moved to Reno in part to escape California wildfires. Yet, immediately upon moving, I learned that — thanks to climate change and reduced snowpack levels in the Sierra Nevada Mountains — Reno now faces frequent wildfire threats.

In fact, our neighborhood had been evacuated the year before we moved here when a fire came perilously close. I learned all this while squinting, eyes burning, out the window at an obscured orange sky.

I faced one particularly frightening alert last summer, when I loaded the car with prized possessions and sat staring at the phone, waiting for a “red flag” evacuation notice. Thankfully, the winds shifted, and the evacuation didn’t happen, but it was a long sleepless night. Handsome Hubby was out of town and missed all the fun.

Personal Plague No. 2: Gnats

During the first summer here, a swarm of gnats descended upon my beloved houseplants. They apparently liked the location and multiplied in filthy, disgusting proportions.

Now, I am, in general, a planty kind of gal with a green thumb. I’m not so good at raising children — ask my children. Wait, better you don’t! But when it comes to plants, I’m veritably verdant. Blossoms and blooms everywhere. That is, until we moved to Reno and the gnats cozied up.

Bug-phobic me applied every trick the internet offered. I tried “natural” remedies, including a multi-week watering drought, yellow sticky traps to catch the adults, “treating” larvae with hydrogen peroxide, and adding neem oil to the soil. I also tried “unnatural” remedies, which meant toxic chemicals. I removed soil. I added soil.

Nothing worked. The gnats just thrived.

Finally, tearfully, I tossed my plants, one and all, into the trash.

Plague No. 3: Snakes

Not just snakes, but rattlesnakes.

Our neighborhood became ground zero for a rhumba of rattlesnakes. “Rhumba” isn’t just alliteration. It’s the actual term for a group of rattlesnakes. Trust me, I’m now an uncertified snake-ologist, I mean, herpetologist.

Of course, that’s what you get for leaving the golden San Francisco Bay and moving to the dusty Wild West: rattlers and a new vocabulary.

Not understanding that we lived in a gated community, the poison-packing serpents arrived uninvited and immediately bit a couple of neighborhood dogs. The pooches survived. A couple of big snakes were corralled, but more were sighted.

I never saw one myself, but the mere thought of a rhumba of rambling rattlers ruined my repose and kept me cowering indoors for most of the summer.

Plague No. 4: Caterpillars

The next invaders who violated the neighborhood’s clearly posted “no solicitors or unannounced visitors” sign were caterpillars, not the cute kind like in Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar, but massive monstrosities.

They shimmied down from the nearby hills onto our streets, our driveways, up our walls, and into our garages. It was like something out of a horror movie.

It was an infestation of, yes, I’ll say it, biblical proportions. It lasted weeks, driving neighbors, dogs, and exterminators crazy.

The marauders were thicker than my thumb. They crunched when crushed under car wheels. It made me want to run for the hills (past the rattlesnakes) straight back to Berkeley.

Plagues No. 5, 6 and 7: Floods

The floods came next. Not outside, but inside.

We have a sump pump. Oh, lucky us!

It is admittedly not an uncommon basement feature, but our downstairs isn’t some sad, moldy, uncarpeted dank space. It’s pretty swanky — if I do say so myself — complete with a carpeted office, guest room, den, and a chic tiled bathroom.

But oh, curse that sump pump. It broke. It broke not once, not twice, but three times. Thanks to a faulty something-or-other, it spewed sewage onto the hall and den carpet and onto that chic tile, damagine not only carpet and tile, but cabinets and floor boards. Not once, not twice, but three times.

The damage was so extensive that our insurance company canceled our policy. (A plague upon the company.)

The only grace I can manage here is that, thankfully, we didn’t contract a bona fide plague from the sewage.

Plague No. 8: Flies

For two months this past winter, in one bright, warm, sun-drenched window corner of our family room, we had constant swarms of flies. They swirled. They sat, and like the gnats before them, I’m sure they smirked.

They were not the usual buzzy, fast-moving flies that annoy, but slow-moving, thundering lima-bean-sized beasts.

They made their first appearance on a day when Handsome Hubby was, you guessed it, out of town.

Berserk, bug-phobic me swatted 14 of them. Combat vets would have been awed by my kill numbers. I was instead nauseous.

An exterminator took pity on me and came right over. He scanned the carnage and identified the beasts as “corpse flies.” He explained they appeared when “something dies.” Like a bat. A rat. A mouse. A raccoon.

The bug man crawled up into the attic and down into the crawl space but failed to find a decomposing “feeder source.” He shrugged and left.

The flies kept swarming until spring, then disappeared. The reason they appeared in my otherwise pristine home was never solved.

Plague No. 9: Gnats Redux

Post-flies, the gnats returned in full force, attacking my new crop of houseplants. Defeated, I called it quits and threw out my plants once and for all. I’m now officially anti-green and pro-artificial. I’m sorry, Mom Nature.

Plagues on steroids!

And in the months since then, Reno and surrounding environs have experienced earthquakes and more wildfires. Words fail, but you get the picture. It’s just too exciting, too harrowing, living in The Biggest Little City in the World.

What can I say? Well, at least I won’t die of boredom here, but what will get me in the end is unknown. A bear, perhaps? Up at Lake Tahoe, bears constantly break into people’s homes searching for food. Can Reno be far behind?

And just the other week, an aggressive otter attacked a swimmer at the lake. The swimmer was badly scratched but survived. Gee whiz. That’s crazy.

So, bears, otters. What else can happen?

As for me, I worry about all the aggressive drivers on the roads. To me, speeders going through red lights and drivers who change lanes without signaling are the most vicious creatures known to man! I’ve encountered more than my fair share of them since we’ve moved here.

To play it safe, I think I’ll just stay indoors and keep writing. The worst that can happen is a severe case of writer’s block or maybe a cramp!

🦦 🐍  🚘 🚰  🐛 🔥 ✍️

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