Editorial: Crawly things give me creeps

Photo / Thinkstock

Unless you are a boy under 10, David Attenborough or someone who drives an electric car and drinks kale juice, I am sure you would agree with me that bugs are horrific.

I am one of those people who runs screaming from anything small, black and crawling - or the worst - oozing slime.

Come summer, I am rarely without a can of Black Flag at arm's reach, and douse myself and the kids in insect repellent each night.

The ants in the pantry have put me on an enforced diet as I cannot face their aggressive marching, and the sight of a cockroach will get me running out of the house screaming.

I am not alone. Our eduction reporter Sonya Bateson tells me she is so scared of cockroaches that when she was a student and saw one in her room, her mum had to drive all the way from Whakatane to get rid of it.

We are not all bug fearing here at the Bay of Plenty Times.

Photographer George Novak sometimes gets up close and personal with spiders for his naturalist photography.

And last month our intrepid digital reporter Kiri Gillespie brought us the story of how a cockroach scurrying across a car dashboard was blamed for causing a three-car collision on Turret Rd.

Lucky then, that we have our hard-working Bay bug exterminators who are in hot demand, reports Sandra Conchie today.

Neal Courtman, owner of pest exterminating firm The Flyman, said he was too busy to talk and BOP No Bugz owner Eddy Staessens said that over the past two months his phone had not stopped ringing.

I am pleased that there are good people like them who dedicate their lives to getting rid of creepy crawlies and, for that alone, this sector of the economy deserves to be buzzing.