Cricket Plague

Last week's cricket in a box was a precursor. Now the beasties are all over the place!

In my efforts to save my employer cash (aren't I the noble one!), I roamed the deserted halls downstairs, switching off lights and aircon (unneeded until students return). And found the carpets swarming with crickets.

The passages on our floor are strewn with the ant-nibbled, foot-crunched carcasses of crickets. The lucky ones hide behind filing cabinets and furniture, creaking out tentative songs and munching paper.

On a quick trip to the mall we dropped by the back of a shop to pick up some discarded planks (with potential!), only to discover hordes of crickets hiding underneath the pile! A colleague says they fumigated the other end of the mall, and there were literal drifts of crisp bodies piled in the parking lots.

I think I'm starting to understand how those Egyptians felt when the locusts, frogs and hail struck....

::update::
Seems it's a nation-wide problem. One of my bosses says while waiting at Joburg International Airport there were literally THOUSANDS of the things crawling on the floor, up the walls, over people's luggage, causing many shrieks from many women. "Don't worry, they're harmless" say the run-out-of-bug-spray official. Yeah, harmless - but freaky nontheless!

Our computer guy says they're copulating like bunnies on the traffic islands in town and in the streets. I guess we'll count our blessings they haven't really struck in force here yet!