Memory: Have Bloodsuckers Vanished?
I’ve been remembering bloodsuckers and wondering what ever happened to them. Along with white dog poo, they were a staple of 1980s suburbia that entirely disappeared without fanfare. Now I’ve learned the white dog-poo vanishing act is down to changes in dog food. That I can accept. But what about bloodsuckers?
Bloodsuckers were very tiny little red insects that crawled along the tops of walls and the concrete balls that sat atop the gate-posts. Sometimes you might see a green bloodsucker but I supposed at the time that they were baby ones that weren’t ripe just yet.
We children, with what was on reflection a disturbing abuse of power, would gleefully squish them under our thumbs. There were little sprays of blood behind on the wall. Sometimes we would name them and decide which ones were the kings, queens, and princesses - before squishing them regardless. Perhaps it further tickled our blood-lust to think we were destroying miniature societies.
That all ended after the Quinn girls from a few doors down warned us that if you killed one bloodsucker the others would remember you and come for you.
I never squished another one, and still haven’t to this day. Though I rarely get the chance to consider it. They’re all gone. Or more likely they are still very much there but I spend much less of my time climbing suburban walls and sitting on gateposts of an afternoon.
FACT CHECK
I found a blog by Trevor O’Donoghue here that says the wee bloodsuckers I’m talking about may well be clover mites (or Bryobia praetiosa to give them their proper name). They don’t suck blood. They are all female - no male has ever been recorded. They aren’t insects as they have eight legs (rather than six) and so are more closely related to spiders. They scuttle about for two weeks looking for heat, give birth, and then die. So probably that’s why they were found crawling about those concrete walls which were always warm to touch in the summer.
And it turns out they are still plentiful - but I as I supposed, I just don’t spent as much time in the places where they might be found.