Tales of misery amid the storm
SOUTH BUFFALO — Few things encompass the Christmas spirit like a Christmas tree. What doesn't bring that spirit are Christmas critters. But that's exactly what customers at the Don Majeski Nursery received with their trees.
"It was horrible," said Michelle Timmens of South Buffalo, "They were every where. We inspected the tree and it was fine, then a few days later it was like an explosion. They left their droppings in our food as well."
Michelle Timmons, along with hundreds of other customers of the Nursery on Clinton Street in South Buffalo, have been victimized by oversized roaches commonly found in pine trees. They are common only in the wild. Only in rare cases do they survive after being taken from tree farms.
"My wife and I were sleeping, and then I felt a tickling on my backside," said Chris Fukes of South Buffalo, "And all of a sudden there were 20 of them. I couldn't believe it we had the tree for over a week and there were no problems."
Don Majesky, owner of the nursey is dumbfounded, "This has never happened before I have no explanation."
But Dr. Don Voo, entomolgist at the University at Buffalo, does have an explanation. "The roaches themselves are not surviving, but their eggs are." This would explain why they've gone undetected. "The eggs, which are the size of a quarter, expand rapidly in the hours before hatching going from that quarter size to the size of a baseball."
The question remains, how has this happened, and who is at fault? Dr. Voo blames the nursery. "Usually pesticides are applied to the trees. This prevents the eggs from developing."
"Absolutely we have. We've used the same process for years, nothing has changed." Majeski said.
The nursery is offering to take the trees back, but not for a full refund. A 10% processing fee will be charged. And customers looking to get cash back are in for a surprise, the refund will be a credit to the nursery.
Fukes thinks that is unacceptable. "That's just wrong, the horror that our family was put through, along with hundreds of other people, we deserve better than that."
Some of the smaller roaches were found in the hair of dogs. "I was watching [television] when i heard a hissing coming from my dog Charles." explained Savah Delotenta of Lackawanna.
The hissing has been explained as the worst part by many victims. "It was traumatizing my daughter has not slept for days, she keeps thinking she can still hear the hissing." Rebecca Ditondo of West Seneca is an eight year old heard the hissing and then saw ten or so roaches on her hope chest.
A major issue has been the spread of germs. Several cases of Swine Flu have been reported amongst victims ofthe Christmas critters.
"This is not to be taken lightly," explained Dr. Voo "I would suggest anyone who purchased a tree from that nursery immediately get rid of it."
Dr. Voo also suggest calling in an exterminator, even if you've not found roaches from the Majeski Trees. "Just because you've not seen or heard them does not mean they aren't in your house."
The standard rates for an exterminator range from $60 to $80 depending on the size of your house and amount of roaches.
If you would like to return your tree bring customers are asked to bring their receipts.
Reader comments
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Comments have been disabled.
Due to a high volume of submissions that violate The News’ guidelines, commenting is no longer available on this story. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this story, click here to get information on contributing to The News’ opinion pages.