Don't worry! The ladybugs on the Milwaukee Building will be back later this month.

Wendy Burke said the three large ladybugs that adorn the side of the Milwaukee Building on Water Street don't move, despite the common misconception they crawl around to different spots. It takes a lot of work to move them around, so it's really not feasible.

Well, that is, until they need a little TLC.

Last weekend, Burke — the president of Burke Properties and whose father had them put on the building in 1999 — had the three ladybugs removed from the side of the building for a refurbishing. The plan is to clean them and give them a shiny new coat of paint.

“They’ll be back better than ever,” Burke told the Journal Sentinel.

There’s particular emphasis on the shiny part, as Burke had them last refurbished a decade ago and she wasn’t thrilled with the coat of paint the bugs got. They were a bit dull compared to their original coat, she said.

“I have not been happy with how they were painted,” she said. “So, I’m hoping they’ll look great when they’re back up.”

Burke hopes to have the ladybugs returned to the side of the building later this month. The refurbishment process will take “several weeks” as they strip the paint and repaint them.

An unwitting public wasn’t happy with the move, many fearful of what it meant.

When the ladybugs were brought down a post on social media site Reddit, asked in capital letters WHERE DID THE LADYBUGS GO? A tag on the post was labeled “WTF IS HAPPENING.”

“They took them down why???” the post's user asked.

One user accurately commented that they were taken down for restoration, but others quipped “Riot” or “What?? Really?!?” and “Someone needs to go to jail. This is not ok.”

Burke acknowledged the interest in their removal and said some pulled their cars over Saturday to see what was going on. She noticed the panicked Reddit post, too.

But she's taken it in stride.

“I know there was a lot of interest … people were kind of angry,” she said. “It was kind of funny.”

Burke’s father, John Burke, who died in 2019 at 77, was an avid art enthusiast and philanthropist, Wendy said. He has several other artworks in the city that he’s affected through funding or other means, including the Burke Brise Soleil at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

In July 1999, when the ladybugs were placed on the side of the building at 622 N. Water St, the Journal Sentinel put a photo of them on the front page of the paper. Burke joked with a reporter who asked why the three ladybugs were “climbing up” the west side of his building.

Reporter Jo Sandin wrote his response:

“I guess," says the real estate developer with the supersized streak of whimsy, "they just like the building."

Sandin reported that Burke said he had an “affinity for art” and wanted to get involved himself. He told the Journal Sentinel that he designed the ladybugs, which are 6 feet, 6 inches in diameter and 3 feet, 6 inches tall.

Wendy Burke said that her father, who had a ladybug pin and had the insect on his stationary for a period, hung them up at a time in Milwaukee when “there was a conversation going on in town about what is art and what is decoration.”

Now, she's the caretaker of the ladybugs that have adorned the wall of the building for almost a quarter century.

“To my honor my father, he thought art was in the eye of the beholder and for him, he liked this, because he liked to stimulate public conversation,” she said. "Hopefully, they will look better than ever, and they'll be back up soon."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee building's ladybugs will be back later this month