Your Christmas Tree is Home to 25,000 Insects
Some people like to keep their Christmas trees up through New Year's Day. Some have their tree up clear through St. Patrick's Day. Others take down their tree the day after Christmas, or even Christmas night! If you're taking down your tree as your neighbors are opening their pool, here are 25,000 reasons you may want to do it sooner.
An expert on insects at the University of Bergen in Norway says that if you have a real Christmas tree it's most likely crawling with bugs. Associate professor Bjarte Jordal said that real trees can be home to up to 25,000 different insects and spiders.
Things you'll find in your tree include book lice, snow fleas, also spiders, moths, mites, and bark lice. Most of them burrow into the tree and hibernate for the winter, but when you bring the tree inside your nice, toasty warm home, they wake up!
But the good news is that most of them live inside the tree, which means they're probably not going to leave it and spread throughout your house. Your house is also dry, and there's not a lot of food for them, so they'll die pretty quickly.