Hey all.
Curious to know what creepy crawlies you have scurring about your house that really get you ticked off, while you desperately look around for a flyswatter/can of bugspray, or just mush it with a hand or paper towel.
Me, I got gnats everywhere. Damnit damnit damnit!!!
Bats. In the attic. They give me the creepy-crawlies. Not very squishable, though.
(I do know you meant bugs, retrorussell. Bats is what I have.)
Earlier ths summer, I did my part to try to be the first human to sh*t a brick...
As I was cleaning out my closet, something was living in a folded blanket that was in there for years. As I slowly pulled it out, and unfolded it, a huge brown Wolf Spider (perhaps 2 and 1\2 or 3 inches wide) stared me right in the face. Each one of his legs must were god knows how long..he had to be as big as my hand.
It started right for me, and you never saw a man in my weight class jump so far back... :buggedout: I let him get onto the floor of the living room, and then I showed him my love with the bottom of my foot. I hate spiders.
As a locomotive marvel, they are fascinating to watch; as a house guest, they need to be evicted, and fast.
yep.cave crickets.. ugly ones. They are big and brown and look like a cross between spiders and grasshoppers.
Thankfully, we have none in our current home except the occasional spider or fly. In our previous home we had a few mice. We had an exterminator come in and put traps and poison around but we had a heavily wooded area behind our house and I assume mice would move in, die, and other mice would move in. So, no amount of extermination would keep us mouse free. They really didn't bother me. We lived there for 3 years and I only saw 2 mice the whole time. I think they mostly stayed in the attic. But my wife didn't want to stay - - and she's the boss - - so we sold the house and bought a new one that is NOT bordered by woods. In fact, we have only one tree in our yard.
Right now, I'm cleaning up the last of the mice in our basement. We had a little bit of rot at the bottom of our side door frame, which allowed them to chew their way in where wood meets stone. By the time I found it and fixed it, we had four or five in the house. I figure there's one left. This one's gotten wise to the traps, and keeps out of sight. I got three of them easily with traps, and Lori threw a bucket over one, then called me at work to come home and move it outside.
For the last one, I'm just going to have to go back to the old-fashioned mousetraps. We had mice a few years ago, and I cleaned them up with plain old wooden Victory mousetraps. They did the job, but they didn't always catch the mouse in a fatal spot. Two got caught by the front leg. One of them I had to track down and find behind a stack of boxes, where he'd dragged himself trap and all. Then I had to come up with a way to finish those mice as quickly and painlessly and neatly as possible. The first idea turned out to be none of the above. So, this time I got some fancier traps that require the mouse to lift a cover off the bait, which guarantees he's right where he needs to be. I highly recommend that kind of trap. And putting one of those ultrasonic gadgets in the kitchen after the last time has kept the mice in the basement.
A few people we know have also gotten mice moving in, now that the weather is getting colder. Same thing happened last time too. Apparently, some years are worse for mice than others.
I won't even go into what the moles have been doing to the yard. Last spring, after the snow melted, it looked like a miniature WW1 battlefield, all trenches and craters and displaced dirt.
In my house we get shellacked with sugar ants every year. They are ridiculous to try to control. I've found Terro Ant Traps to work rather nicely as a temporary fix. However, they always seem to regenerate within a few weeks. Luckily winter cancels them out completely. We also get a lot of spiders around here which I like Umaril can't stand. I'm petrified of them.
When my wife (then girlfriend) first moved in together we lived in a shack in the woods basically. We fought mice battles all year round. I killed, no lie, probably at least a dozen mice a week if not more. Not sure how we got out of there without diseases.
Quote from: Newt on September 22, 2010, 02:17:21 PM
(I do know you meant bugs, retrorussell. Bats is what I have.)
Any small critter that doesn't belong in your household counts. Glad I don't have bats!
We had a lot of these ugly little things this year:
(http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww28/jackc8/th_earwig.jpg?t=1285241643)
I guess the weather was just perfect for them or something. I even found one in the bottom of the cup that we keep our toothbrushes in :buggedout: They seem to be going down in numbers quite a bit lately though.
Now that it's fall, we usually get a lot of bugs trying to escape the cold and come live with us in our cozy warm house. I spray some bug killer all around the foundation. Probably doesn't do any good, but it makes me feel better at least.
EEEWWWWWW! EARWIGS! Cave crickets are creepy enough...but earwigs are just ICKY!
Earwigs used to bother me more, but now I don't really mind them. Probably a good thing, because they're just about everywhere around here in the summer.
Spiders are another one. Used to hate spiders, but somewhere along the line, they just stopped bothering me. If I see one go scurrying across the carpet, I'll as often as not just let it continue on its way. I'm sure it didn't hurt that I've gone out of my way to avoid giving Ro any irrational fears of creepy crawly things, to the point of even getting them to crawl onto my hand so I could show them to her. She loves bugs, and it gives me a real sense of satisfaction when I see her next to some of her little friends, who run from anything with more than four legs or less than two. A couple of these kids freak out if a dog licks them. Makes me regret that we also taught Ro not to mock people. :teddyr:
Thanks to Jack I finally figured out what the name of those things are.
In Delaware our most common unwanted pest in the house is the common housefly. From the beginning of summer until around now, they are hard to keep out (especially with three kids who run in and out). We also end up with a number of fruit gnats during the summer, but there is a way to make a trap for them that works pretty well.
Haven't had a problem with ants since right after we moved in. Terro is extremely effective at killing off ant colonies.
Otherwise, we get the normal number of crickets that you see in this area. Most of those are in the unfinished basement. The cat takes care of any that make it to the first floor. There are a lot of cellar spiders in the basement. I go through and clean them out from time to time. We mostly get medium sized jumping spiders in the actual house. Either the kids or I catch them and put them outside.
The garage is where the craziness goes on. Lots of crickets, spiders of all kinds (including some fair sized wolf spiders), and then there are the toads. The toads think that they live in the garage. Heck, they do live in the garage. They feast on the insects, and you can hear them doing their little mating chirps at all hours. I've cleaned the garage and removed all of the toads. They came right back.
Darn toads.
We haven't had many problems with mice. Part could be the cat. Mostly it is that I've gone through and sealed up holes, removed any vegetation touching the house, and gotten rid of places they would use as homes near the house. Since our land used to be a field, there are not many places nearby for them to live besides other houses or neighbor's sheds. I keep mouse traps in the two places they might enter the house (garage and under the gas fireplace), and that has caught any that tried to move inside. My wife likes the new round traps that you turn to wind and set, and they have done a good job at catching the mice.
Katie and I did kill a mouse last year that got in the garage. I scooped it up with a dustbin and tossed him out of the garage into the yard before he could hop out. Then we beat him to death with the rakes. They neighbors probably thought we were nuts.
We've had butterflies and a dragonfly loose in the house this summer, and the wife wasn't too appreciative. A large dragonfly buzzing through the room and crashing into things is, to say the least, disruptive. I get blamed at times for any temporary pets (insect, reptile, or amphibian) that get loose in the house, probably for teaching the kids how to catch them.
I find that any critters thus far get taken out by the cat who stalks any insect/bug with an interest that would make a serial killer gasp.
So really, the only unwanted critter is my cat [who is a bit of a psycho at times] :teddyr: [wouldn't have it any other way though]
Our old Brittany Spaniel, when he was younger, used to see spiders scurrying across the floor and just casually trot over and eat them. He was a handy dog. Great for spills too.
In my last rented "suite" I had problems with spiders popping up in my shower every few days. Now, I don't mind spiders provided they don't catch me by surprise or crawl on me. Heck, I think some species are just plain gorgeous. I didn't even think these guys were gross or scary, but it was annoying having to take a few minutes to scoop them into a container so that I could release them somewhere that'd be better for the both of us.
Now I just see the occasional fruit fly buzzing around my plants. I think I might get a venus flytrap to deal with that problem.
Quote from: Jack on September 23, 2010, 06:39:30 AM
We had a lot of these ugly little things this year:
(http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww28/jackc8/th_earwig.jpg?t=1285241643)
I guess the weather was just perfect for them or something. I even found one in the bottom of the cup that we keep our toothbrushes in :buggedout: They seem to be going down in numbers quite a bit lately though.
Now that it's fall, we usually get a lot of bugs trying to escape the cold and come live with us in our cozy warm house. I spray some bug killer all around the foundation. Probably doesn't do any good, but it makes me feel better at least.
One of my favorite NIGHT GALLERY episodes is the one where one of these crawls inside a guy's ear.
A few years ago, maybe 2002, my wife and I went to Chicago, and we saw an exhibit at the Field Museum that was sort of a scaled-up model of the world in your backyard. The most memorable thing was the earwig nest. It had a six-foot animatronic earwig that would aggressively defend its nest if you came close enough to trigger a sensor, arching its back and snapping its ass-grabbers at you. Scared the living snot out of some little kid while we were there. He just started shrieking and telling Daddy to "KILL IT! KILL IT!" Practically climbed over the top of his dad. I felt sorry for the kid and his parents, but it was still funny as hell.
Looked it up, and it's still there. The Underground Adventure.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/undergroundadventure/critters/critter_info.shtml#earwig (http://www.fieldmuseum.org/undergroundadventure/critters/critter_info.shtml#earwig)
Quote from: Newt on September 23, 2010, 07:30:20 AM
EEEWWWWWW! EARWIGS! Cave crickets are creepy enough...but earwigs are just ICKY!
I've got a larger picture of that if you wanted to use it as a desktop background or something :teddyr:
Roaches, both non-flying and flying......
My mother in law's alleged dog!!!!!!!!! :hatred:
It is a small ball of yellow fur, snot, and fleas that I simply refer to as THE BOOGER.
I fantasize about tossing her into a wood chipper. Or a crocodile habitat. Or a shark tank. Or Mount Doom. Or an iron smelter. Or . . . you get the idea.
Quote from: indianasmith on September 23, 2010, 08:13:33 PM
My mother in law's alleged dog!!!!!!!!! :hatred:
It is a small ball of yellow fur, snot, and fleas that I simply refer to as THE BOOGER.
I fantasize about tossing her into a wood chipper. Or a crocodile habitat. Or a shark tank. Or Mount Doom. Or an iron smelter. Or . . . you get the idea.
well, since you put it that way, my Sister's Chihuahua. Try to be nice to him, he's bs's me everytime! :hatred:
Quote from: 3mnkids on September 22, 2010, 02:37:24 PM
yep.cave crickets.. ugly ones. They are big and brown and look like a cross between spiders and grasshoppers.
Same! My mom's house has them, and while they're harmless, they DO keep the hosue up in summer. So years back I devised a not-so-original (but effective) use for them-fishing bait. I used to put them on the hook, float them on the water w\o a sinker to weight em' down. I pulled some of the best lookin' trout and largemouth bass out of one of our local lakes due to these insects :bouncegiggle:
Ants....them damn ants!
I get ants during the summer, but they always stick around the same window, so it doesn't bother me much.
Roaches are my big annoyance.
I hate houseflies.. last night I reached into the fridge to pull out some cheese and a fly was lying on the shelf in there, dead. Must have flown in unnoticed when I had the fridge open once. Yuck!!!
We had flies really bad at one point this year. It got to the point I was looking for the person who had a horde of Hebrew slaves building monuments so I could tell him to let those people go.
Also I have to deal with my neighbors dogs. That's why I have a Ninja Shovel of Dog Poop Flinging +5 because I tend to go out with it and sling their dogs' crap back into their yards with it. Often do this at night with a flashlight and fling it onto their porches, cars, and lawn furniture. Really wish they would have an open grill outside one night so I could load it with their dog crap.
Quote from: meQal on September 28, 2010, 05:44:18 AM
We had flies really bad at one point this year. It got to the point I was looking for the person who had a horde of Hebrew slaves building monuments so I could tell him to let those people go.
Also I have to deal with my neighbors dogs. That's why I have a Ninja Shovel of Dog Poop Flinging +5 because I tend to go out with it and sling their dogs' crap back into their yards with it. Often do this at night with a flashlight and fling it onto their porches, cars, and lawn furniture. Really wish they would have an open grill outside one night so I could load it with their dog crap.
LOL :teddyr: I found an extremely large dog poop in our yard last time I was mowing. My wife loves to put those things back where they came from, usually on the front steps or something. In the grill would be absolutely epic though :bouncegiggle:
Still fighting the mice. Body count is up to about five, plus one live catch and release. I think I might be down to the last mouse now, and this one is smart. Sets off the traps (probably from behind) then steals the bait. I've reached the point of entertaining ideas like setting up a mouse blind in the laundry room and laying in wait with a pellet gun. Or I could just clean out all the junk in the basement and probably uncover his little hiding place, but we all know that's not going to happen. :teddyr:
This year I'm being mobbed by spiders! I'm terrified of spiders! Normally, my cats take care of them, but this year there are babies! Teensy weensy baby spiders dangling centimeters from my face! At first I think it's a fleck of dust or a little fuzzy, but then my eyes focus on the horror before me! And then I stumble away gasping for help and no one can see the darn thing and I have to get all close to it again to point it out! In many ways these microscopic menaces are scarier than the big guys.. what if I inhale one? or one gets tangled in my hair? or plops into my cereal?? I've ran into about 5 of these in the past few weeks.
Had ants problems earlier in the summer but that has for the most part stopped. The other big thing and this is mainly the a big problem with the Mid-Atlantic region is stink bugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug). Now we don't too many in the house but they are EVERYWHERE outside. You see them all the time outside and you can't step on them, because they give off a terrible smell (I haven't smelled it myself so I can't give an info on that.)
I've just learned to accept them and do my best to avoid stepping on them.
Quote from: Paquita on September 28, 2010, 09:57:56 PM
This year I'm being mobbed by spiders! I'm terrified of spiders! Normally, my cats take care of them, but this year there are babies! Teensy weensy baby spiders dangling centimeters from my face! At first I think it's a fleck of dust or a little fuzzy, but then my eyes focus on the horror before me! And then I stumble away gasping for help and no one can see the darn thing and I have to get all close to it again to point it out! In many ways these microscopic menaces are scarier than the big guys.. what if I inhale one? or one gets tangled in my hair? or plops into my cereal?? I've ran into about 5 of these in the past few weeks.
Maybe hunt around the outside of the house or in corners of the ceilings inside of the house and see if there's any egg sacs. Spray the hell out of them. There's also a product called "Catchmaster" specifically designed for spiders.
http://www.cleanertoday.com/Spider-traps-s/86.htm
You know, Paquita, one out of five adults have a spider living in their ear canal . . . . :teddyr:
Quote from: asimpson2006 on September 29, 2010, 06:58:31 AM
Had ants problems earlier in the summer but that has for the most part stopped. The other big thing and this is mainly the a big problem with the Mid-Atlantic region is stink bugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug). Now we don't too many in the house but they are EVERYWHERE outside. You see them all the time outside and you can't step on them, because they give off a terrible smell (I haven't smelled it myself so I can't give an info on that.)
I've just learned to accept them and do my best to avoid stepping on them.
We've got them in droves here in DE.
As far as decidedly unwelcome house guests, does anyone remember the British family that recently had a Camel Spider living in their house?
One of their sons, a military vet from the current Afghanistan war, somehow brought it back with him (might have stowed in his duffle bag) and it wreaked so much havoc the family had to move out. Now there's a truly creepy crawler! :buggedout:
Quote from: Umaril The Unfeathered on September 30, 2010, 09:11:02 PM
As far as decidedly unwelcome house guests, does anyone remember the British family that recently had a Camel Spider living in their house?
One of their sons, a military vet from the current Afghanistan war, somehow brought it back with him (might have stowed in his duffle bag) and it wreaked so much havoc the family had to move out. Now there's a truly creepy crawler! :buggedout:
Catch it! People buy those things as pets. Talk to the right people and you could probably get some cash for your pest.
Anyway, the aphids have gotten pretty bad around here. You step outside, and you're in a swarm of them. You can't get away from them, because they're EVERYWHERE. You breathe aphids outside, every gentle breeze sends at least a half dozen crashing into you (around here we're HAPPY to get a gentle breeze; it's usually just flat-out wind), if you open your mouth you risk swallowing one by accident. At least ladybugs are starting to show up, so hopefully they'll put a dent in the aphid population.
I think I finally caught the last mouse. I have a little pile of Niger seed on the basement floor that the little buggers seem to like. They scatter it pretty quickly. Every time I catch one, I sweep it back into a nice, neat pile and watch to see if it gets scattered again. So far, the seed is staying together. :thumbup:
Oh man. My house is right next to a big thing of woods. We have mice living in our basement (it's almost pointless to try to kill all of them, since they can obviously relatively easily get in from the woods). Also, cave crickets, which I friggin' HATE. Occasionally we find asian cockroaches (they're slow moving, black, and don't have full wings). We get spiders too.
All of these I can deal with. What I can't deal with is our cats got fleas a while ago. And we simply CAN'T get rid of them. Nothing seems to really help long term, even doing the topical drugs which are supposed to kill every flea on the cat in a matter of hours, there's ALWAYS some on them still alive when we check - even if we isolate the cat for half a day so it can't pick them up from the carpet (which, yes, we vaccuum just to get fleas). I really don't know what we're going to do, as it's rather frustrating and it means we find fleas in random places every so often. :hatred:
With the weather getting cooler the flies arent as big of a problem but Im still getting the occasional one in the house. I hate flies. They are disgusting. After living in FL for so long and dealing with love bugs, palmetto bugs, fire ants, and some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen, Cave crickets and flies in IL arent so bad. :teddyr:
I don't know what kind of spider it was that I found on my living room ceiling in the corner, but it was so damn HUGE I thought it was a big cricket at first glance. I got on a chair with a wad of paper towel in hand, jumped up and tried to mush it. It fell to a loud thud (for a spider, anyway) and I didn't see where it went. Turned on the light and there it was on the floor trying to hide from me. Didn't work. :) Mush!!!
Quote from: Umaril The Unfeathered on September 30, 2010, 09:11:02 PM
As far as decidedly unwelcome house guests, does anyone remember the British family that recently had a Camel Spider living in their house?
One of their sons, a military vet from the current Afghanistan war, somehow brought it back with him (might have stowed in his duffle bag) and it wreaked so much havoc the family had to move out. Now there's a truly creepy crawler! :buggedout:
Quote from: The Gravekeeper on September 30, 2010, 09:53:57 PMCatch it! People buy those things as pets. Talk to the right people and you could probably get some cash for your pest.
Try to get it? Not when it's
10 inches long, I ain't. You first :buggedout:
These things are bigger than the Amazonian bird eating tarantulas, which in itself are 1 and a half times the size of a man's hand. Let me know how it went for you :twirl:
Camel spiders are freakishly hideous even by spider standards.
When I first moved into this house we had a real problem with cockroaches. The big two-inch cockroaches, which you just can't ignore. I used to walk around with bare feet until I had the experience of the pitter-patter of little feet crawling across my own feet.
A heavy dusting of boric acid mixed with cockroach pheromones seems to have taken care of most of them, except for the few who crawl in from outside and don't have the sense to die.
My problem now is worse, since any inch of my house I don't keep up becomes the home to a black widow. I womp them with a broom when I see them, but I really don't relish the idea of being surprised by a black widow. Now, I'm not going to die from a bite but...
Ah, life without health insurance...
Right now, it's builders here, the garden flat I live in and the attached house are being renovated. I suppose I shouldn't grumble really as it's positive progress.
Quote from: AndyC on October 01, 2010, 10:29:54 PM
Camel spiders are freakishly hideous even by spider standards.
You ain't kiddin, man! As a side note, my next door neighbor's son is currently in the U.S. Army and he's had 2 tours in Iraq, and he said that one thing the guys would is out on desert patrol is catch Camel Spiders and make bets on which one would win in the ring. And yes, he said pretty much what you did, that these things are hideous.
Got it. The pair came in during the hot summer... maybe 'cause it was cooler in here? I don't know, but that was odd... they come in at this time of year, not Summer... :question: They git in under the garage door, than can squeeze thru if persistent... I've had mice before (expeshyally if ya leave lots of bird seed and piles a fabric for nesting around... :hatred: :lookingup:) Anyway, I got the first one weeks ago... but this second one... I could hear a whisper of it running around sometimes... I saw it twice in the garage at night, late; I couldn't catch it until I left it peanut butter served on one of these:
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff259/allhallowsday/MOUSETRAPsz.jpg) :bluesad: ( :wink:)