My home is being taken over by ladybirds this autumn, but why? I asked an expert

My house, near Wellington, is slowly being taken over by harlequin ladybirds. To understand the magnitude of this issue, it’s important to first describe my house.

I call it a house but realistically it’s a small flat that happens to have stairs.

My lounge, on the second floor, shares a window with my bedroom on the first. The wee beasties that are by now, I’m sure, deciding on how best to eat me and my dog, have taken up residence in this window. There are no doors I can close until this whole thing blows over.

My home is in an old building, the window where they gather is original and doesn’t quite shut all the way. Because of this, all sweeping of the ladybirds is in vain. As soon as I have swept them out of the window, they simply turn around and come back in. I have taken to sweeping about a dozen of them into a dustpan and walking down two flights of stairs to empty them out the other side of the house. But by the time I climb back up the stairs, another dozen have appeared.

If they stayed in the window, I could probably cope. But they don’t. I have found them in my pockets, in my bedsheets, down my sofa – one even drowned itself in my toilet. Now, I’m not scared of ladybirds – but this is driving me mental. The futility of attempts to quell their numbers has driven me to fantasise about burning down my house.