A day in the life . . .
Say What?!!!
I was working hard at my desk when one of our residents phoned.
“Are the pest control people coming tomorrow?” he asked in a somewhat irritated tone.
After quickly consulting the calendar, I replied, “Yes, they’re scheduled to be here from one until
four. Since you live in Building II, your apartment will be one of the first homes they’ll treat. Are
there any issues I should make the pest control company aware of?”
“As a matter of fact, there are,” he answered. “Those guys need to clean the cobwebs out of the
halls in my building. After that, they need to spray the grass around the entire area. Me and
several of my neighbors are seeing a lot of those trigoniulus corallinus. They’re everywhere in
the halls, climbing up the walls and now we’re all seeing them inside our apartments.”
Send In the Entomologist!
I wasn’t about to admit that I had no idea what the guy was talking about. So, I played it cool
and said, “You’ve got it. How about you spell that out for me please?” I waited patiently while
he spelled out the name of the offensive pests that were apparently plaguing Building II. Of course,
as soon as I got off the call, I immediately googled trigoniulus corallinus. Turns out they’re
rusty-colored millipedes, sometimes called scarlet millipedes. Further research revealed that
the small, invertebrates are harmless, and some people actually keep them as pets.
(In case you’re now considering taking one in, they live up to 10 years with proper care)
Of course, after my quick lesson on these colorful anthropods, I took great pleasure in writing
up the request for our pest control guy. The look on his face was priceless as he studied the
work order. I almost fell out of my chair laughing when he finally shook his head and asked,
“What the heck is a trigoniulus corallinus?” Hey, in this crazy business, you’ve got to find
time for some fun, right?
Austin