{"id":76034,"date":"2018-03-29T23:29:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T05:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=76034"},"modified":"2018-03-29T01:53:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T08:53:41","slug":"while-termites-split-the-house-mosquitoes-feast-on-and-attack-householders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/03\/29\/while-termites-split-the-house-mosquitoes-feast-on-and-attack-householders\/","title":{"rendered":"While Termites Split the House Mosquitoes Feast on and Attack Householders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

(The foregoing has no resemblance to any country or persons. Any similarity is only coincidental.)<\/p>\n

A house stands along busy east-west Indian Ocean Drive. Its occupants have lived there as long as they can remember. They have no other first or second home. However, they are not the only living beings in the house. The house next door, towards the northern side, is infested with termites and they have spread to this house as well. The closer northern part of the house has been colonized by termites eating away its wooden structures. Householders fumigated part of it exterminating the more aggressive termites. It costed them an arm and a leg! It even resulted in complaints from neighbors for the use of harsh chemicals. Inhabitants of the house to the north suffer from asthma and particularly allergic to anti-termite medicine. A neighborhood clash was narrowly averted. However, there are still more termites. Some larger termites managed to fly away during fumigation only to return when the dust settled. There is nothing much to salvage in that part. It is advisable to forget about that part and save the rest before the whole house is lost to termites.<\/p>\n

Then there are mosquitoes. Unlike termites they don’t want a part of the house; they don’t want to split the house. In fact, they have nothing against the structure of the house. They are after its human inhabitants. Day and night, they harass and harangue its inhabitants and suck their life blood. No law applies to them as they seem to have their own laws. They don’t sleep when inhabitants sleep but keep pestering them. As a token of appreciation, they leave their dirty germs to infect the inhabitants after draining their blood. No amount of negotiating works as harassing mosquitoes keep singing in the ears of householders. If only householders could take out a court order against sound pollution! Though mosquito breeding grounds were cleared, they keep breeding; breeding like mosquitoes.<\/p>\n

Householders are divided on what to do. Well off householders escaped to greener pastures but most are still stuck in it. Some want a permanent resolution but another round of fumigation is prohibitively expensive and even dangerous to householders. A global extermination of termites and mosquitoes is foolish and impractical. In reality they far outnumber the householders. Some others want to come to some understanding with termites and mosquitoes. Only problem is the language barrier. Even if communication is established how can a termite not eat wood and a mosquito not suck blood!<\/p>\n

Attracted by the success of resident termites and mosquitoes, more and more termites and mosquitoes from the neighborhood colonize the house. A number of householders have suggested to split away the termite infested part as it cannot be salvaged and use harsh methods to prevent their spread. Once all wood is chewed away they will die a natural death or fly away to any hell of their choice. Though mosquitoes cannot be removed totally, sufficient repellents will keep them away from the house. They have plenty of room in the garden and elsewhere to roam and moan. But there are powerful voices that want the entire house back to how it was in olden days. Little that they realize their well-intended desires actually help the termites infest the entire house leaving them nothing. Abuse of mosquito repellents cause the insects to adapt to a more extremist variety. Therefore, it has to be used carefully. Inability to consider practicalities is the biggest problem facing householders. They must let go part of their house in order to allow termites eat their way to their own termination. If blood is deprived, mosquitoes will also die a natural death particularly given their astronomically high breeding rate and the massive volume of flesh needed to sustain them. Will the householders come to reality and take tough decisions to save what is left or will they lose it all trying to save the entirety?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara (The foregoing has no resemblance to any country or persons. Any similarity is only coincidental.) A house stands along busy east-west Indian Ocean Drive. Its occupants have lived there as long as they can remember. They have no other first or second home. However, they are not the only living beings in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}