The parking lot of a Waco shopping mall.
Crickets can mean something different depending on who you talk to and where they’re from. For the Chinese, crickets are a way of life. For some people, crickets are pants-soiling fear bugs. For others, crickets are a tasty snack. I’m sure some people feel they’re a combination of these things, but for the people of Waco, Texas, crickets are a smelly nuisance. Crickets generally don’t have a smell, but when they die, the stink is on. The dead remains of a cricket infestations are causing a city-wide stink problem in Waco.
In case you haven’t noticed, the mild winters we had last year have caused quite a bug problem this year. The moist, mild temperatures in Waco means cricket season came earlier than ever, and is stronger than ever. Crickets are usually a problem in the area, but tens of thousands of crickets are infesting walls and dying in stores, and that number only goes up every time it rains. Apparently, the cricket population waxes and wanes with rain.
“It’s outside, it’s inside,” said Jani Rodriquez, a branch manager at Waco’s cricket-infested Synergy Bank. “You kind of get used to it when you’re here. But when you walk out and come back in, it’s really bad.”
While the smell is obviously not cool, it’s also not really an issue. Dead crickets, even tens of thousands of them, aren’t a health hazard because they do not carry parasites or diseases. Thus, they’re an annoyance, not something critical to the public health.
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