Mutant Pine Beetles Threaten Big Pine Key

BIG PINE KEY — A mutant strain of pine beetle is wreaking havoc on the islands most luxurious homes, and sparking a response far more furious than any directed at the pests chewing up the pine trees.

Though the pine beetles threaten to decimate the Keys big pines, the scourge has spawned widespread disinterest until they turned on the Keys finest homes. Now, panicky homeowners, realtors and fish-and-chips vendors are demanding the federal government take immediate action to stop the mansion beetle, sometimes referred to by its scientific name, “chompus opulentious.”

“We have to protect this important resource of our mansions,” said Minky Malveaux, an interior designer who refuses to work on homes worth less than $2.5 million. “You can have a resort without trees and animals, but a world-class getaway without 6-bedroom, 3.5 bath Key West-style vacation lodges with Florida panther rugs, conch stair railings and walls made from the trunks of the last few dozen Amazonian redwoods? That are only used a week out of every year?”

But Scruffy Eagleneck, director of the environmental group Conch Key Chorus, said mansion beetles are part of natures natural cycle of regeneration. “It would be criminal for us to interfere, man,” Eagleneck said. “We should all take a deep breath — I mean really inhale this time— I mean, that’s good stuff, right? I got a sick bud connection in Sugarloaf. This B.P.K. Bud stuff just blows my mind. You bring any jerky, man, I’m hungry?”

A source close to the Big Pine mansion-beetle swarms said the pests have eaten about six mansions so far this year and could devour about a dozen more before the end of Stone Crab season. “They particularly enjoy eating tacky, nauseatingly expensive faux-Native American art — you know those awful watercolors of gloomy Indian chiefs? God I hate those,” said the source, whose name was withheld because he doesn’t actually exist and therefore, doesn’t have a name.

Baxter Phlegmsap, an arborist considered an expert in mansion beetles, said homeowners can take some precautions, such as ridding their homes of items that attract the pests. Removing spa tubs, flat screen TVs the size of billboards, multi-story elevators, helicopter pads and gem-encrusted, solid-gold kitchen fixtures can sometimes ward off the voracious bugs, Phlegmsap said. “They’ve really developed a taste for lobster, sushi and key lime pies,” he said. “The mansion beetle particularly enjoys swimming — and breeding and just hanging out — in indoor hot tubs,” he added.

Duchess Sapphyre Bichon-Frise Edam-Splurgington, who owns homes in Key West, Big Pine and Islamorada — as well as in St. Lucia, Chamonix, Uganda, the Gaza Strip, Islamabad, Bangladesh and Cockamamiestan — said if any of her Florida Keys island mansions, which combined are more worth more then Manhattan, are eaten she’ll simply have the all the pines in the Lower Keys bombed with napalm by the Conch Republic’s Air Force, which she also owns.

Forest Ranger Elko “Stumpy” Badgerhelmet said drastic measures may be necessary. “The only solution at this point may be a controlled burn of several mansions as well as the surrounding 600 acres of Pine Forest,” Barkchewer said. “It may not stop the mansion beetle, but the working classes will get a big kick out of it.”

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