Editor’s note: As of April 16, Diana George Chapin will no longer be the NEWS gardening columnist. She will continue to contribute lifestyle-related stories from time to time. Reeser Manley, who teaches horticulture at the University of Maine in Orono, will write about gardening starting April 23 in the Living section.

Our farmhouse, built in the early 1800s – drafty, cold, shudders when the washer spins, where snowflakes blow in through the window sashes – has been a preferred destination, an absolute Mecca, for generations of ladybugs. The comfort of our home, with its spacious gaps in the walls, easy accessibility and bright windows, has been lauded and sung about in the ladybug world down through the centuries.

Our home is the Queen Mary II of the ladybug world.

For a few weeks each spring, we have ladybugs in the windows, on the walls, in the stove, under the shoes, in the plants, on the ceilings. We have ladybugs floating, ladybugs drowning, ladybugs mating, ladybugs fighting, ladybugs flying. We have them on the beds, in the beds, under the beds, in the linens, in the clothes, in the closets, in the fridge, in the dishwasher, in the dryer, in the dog kennel, on the floors, in the breakfast dishes, in my tea, in the kettle, in the stove vent, on the screens, on the doors, in the curtains, in the desks, on the books, in the freezer, face down in rooting jars, face up in the sink.

They trick you, they annoy you, they make you downright mad. You get paranoid, and every dark spot you see turns into a ladybug. They come out of sockets, sunbathe near the lamps, lie on their backs in a flower pot in what looks to be a ladybug-yoga position. You find them in the dish cloths, on the bath towels, collecting dust under the fridge.

The dog eats them, the cats bat them and I vacuum them, sometimes, it seems, for an hour at a time. There are ladybugs by the tens on the counters, by the hundreds in the windows, by the thousands in the vacuum.

Yes, yes, I know, ladybugs are “nice bugs,” “predatory bugs,” “beneficials.”

“Vacuum them and release them to the outside,” a Cooperative Extension educator advised a couple years ago when my wits nearly came to an untimely end.

I heeded the advice for a while, until my compassion – my “ladybug catch and release” program – came to a screeching halt when one landed in the whipped cream on my hot cocoa. Sadly, my “no mercy” program isn’t particularly satisfying either.

Beneficial, yes – outside in the garden where they may dine with reckless abandon on the aphids who run rampant on the roses, angelica and cukes. But when they’re in the house, I feel a deep need to have access to that government employee who thought it would be a good idea to import Japanese ladybeetles. Let him come live with me for a week and protect his supper dish, check his shoes, shake out his facecloth, brush out his bed. Let him experience the horror of a ladybug crawling in his hair; let him gnash his teeth at one landing on him in the night; let him recoil in desperation when he reflexively squishes it, the fetid scent of ladybug juice filling the cool evening air.

Oh, now, now. Don’t worry about me! I’ve lived with this long enough to have developed mental health management strategies that allow me to survive until these dainty creatures find the outside in spring. It’s simple: I console myself with secret fantasies that he lives in a drafty old farmhouse, drinks ladybug tea, and that his vacuum reeks of ladybugs.

P.S. Faithful readers, Since my first column on July 3, 1993, writing to you has been a tremendous joy. Nearly 12 years of reading your letters, hearing your gardening ups and downs and meeting gardeners across Maine has meant a lot to me. My thanks and best gardening wishes to you, now and always!