I’ve been bugged lately. No, not in an attitude of mind. Literally. Bugs and crawly things keep interrupting my enjoyment of life, in the middle of winter.

Certain times of year, we expect to deal with flying and crawly things. When it’s warm outside, we get bees and flies and mosquitoes and those beetle-family things that stick to the side of the house.

My dismay began in late fall when I started finding a specific kind of bee in my house. It was past the warm summer so I thought it too late to call the professional company I’ve previously used to spray the perimeter of the house.

Sometimes, I saw them congregating over the back doorway and noticed a small nest in an area I’ve treated before. A recess and peak over the door makes a good hiding place for hive action, but it’s very annoying when you open the door and bees follow you in.

I found the late timing perplexing, however. That, and the fact the bees appeared even when we weren’t using the back door. I guessed some may have come in through the small catio opening. Strips of carpet the cats can navigate usually help dissuade a horde of bugs. Almost every day, a new bee or two appeared in the window over my sink, or one in my home office.

I know sometimes bees get in through faulty window casements, but when I bought the house, the previous owners had replaced windows and everything was pretty tight, which left their entry a mystery. Finally, it was cold enough they stopped appearing. It will be an issue to revisit in the spring.

One December night, I fluffed the pillows, settled myself to read in bed, and saw something out of the corner of my eye. A black spider as big as my fingernail. Yikes! It was crawling across the turned down sheet. I jumped up — and it disappeared. Like most would, I had no intention of returning to bed until I found it. Fortunately, I did, when I moved the pillows.

It put me in mind of our teenage years when my sister Cheri found a spider in her bed. She tore the whole bed apart and would not get back in until she was sure it was gone. “Crawlies” were pretty common in our basement bedrooms on the Happy Hollow Road. We lived in fear of them.

I’m sorry, but I’m not one to carry the creepy spiders outdoors. I BLASTED the bedroom with half a jug of a product that takes care of crawling things without harming people or pets. I was glad to have found this because I always worry about my cats with items made from strong chemicals. My whole upstairs smelled like lemongrass for days, and it wasn’t an unpleasant scent.

But we’re still bugged, the cats and I. Each night as I sit in my living room, I frequently find Tate and Dory with their attention seriously fixed on something. Quite often, they’re looking up. Then, I’ll see it — a bug on the ceiling. One night, both perched on the back of the couch, looking down. I soon found the bug. Another night one was at the base of a lamp on an end table.

Occasionally, the cats are chasing something I can’t see and knocking things over as they run. This pesky insect flies, too! It’s like a beetle and is quite ugly, similar to what I think some call “a stink bug.” It is a camo-brown or tan on its wings. I don’t know where they’re coming from since the catio is not open and the doors and windows are mostly closed. Tate may have provided a clue the night I heard him monkeying around behind my chair, under the windows. His eyes were intently fixed along the heating baseboard. Yards and yards of warm steam pipes wrap their way through walls and rooms of my house. These may offer a moist, heated breeding ground.

Last night, Dory was after something I couldn’t see — until one of the bugs landed on my TV tray, right in front of me. She seemed disappointed when I got rid of it. They often continue to look for the bugs I’ve removed to the trash bin.

I guess I expect some bugs in winter, like the little fruit flies that abound when I haven’t eaten all the bananas before they get too ripe. Many have encountered those little gnat-like flying black bugs in winter and wonder where they come from and why they thrive inside even the cleanest house or facility. I’m now putting the new jug of spray that just arrived to good use throughout the house. I had to order it online because I can’t find it in the store anymore.

These intruders are a nuisance, for sure, but I guess I should consider myself lucky. The last time I noticed a cat looking up, it was my late little Lucy — tracking the bats in the house!

(Contact contributor Deb Wuethrich at deborahmarcein@gmail.com)