Bugs In Your Yard

As mentioned in previous articles, I have worked the past fifteen years in city public works, some call public utilities.  Several of those years were spent reading water meters every month.  Let me tell you something...water meter boxes are prime bug hide-outs!  This is a water meter box lid for you uncultured folks...

Don't get mad at me for calling people uncultured haha!  I bet at least 50% of people who have water service don't know where or what that thing in their yard even is, much less want or need to open the lid.

So some meter boxes are black plastic like the one shown, some are concrete and some old ones are cast iron, some round and some square.  There is hardly a time I can remember opening a meter box lid and not finding some sort of bug inside and sometimes many of them.  These boxes are usually at least eighteen inches deep in the South and I'm not even sure what they do in the colder regions where the ground freezes really deep.

Depending on the time of year, one can expect to find different insects or other creatures as well as flooded boxes with dead things in them during high water events.  Camel crickets seem to love concrete boxes all year long in certain places and scorpions like any meter box where they may be found in nature such as rocky terrain.  Some months I never thought I would open a box that did not have a black widow spider nesting inside and often wondered if there was a market for them. Have even found bee hives in a couple of the deep, round styles of meter box.  Oh and wasps also love meter boxes.

Then there's the common lizard or frog and sometimes a small snake.  It pays to be careful when inspecting meter boxes but you just might find a never ending supply of bugs for whatever purpose you desire. There is usually a small access door with a key hole but they are not locked unless it's an old style round lid and the whole cover will pop off by using a lid tool in the rectangular hole on the end. If you have a friendly public works operator who would not mind, they might even take you on the route one month so you can see where all the meter boxes are and even let you have a tool unless there is a city ordinance prohibiting people from opening meter box lids.  I'm pretty sure they would if you volunteer to open the lids and yell out the numbers for them to record!  I know for a fact they wouldn't mind having to deal with less creatures every month haha!

The enterprising bug collector might just find themselves digging holes in their yard and putting covers with small holes in them.  I know at least one person who knows where there are going to be lots and lots of camel crickets.  :)