Indoor pests

[Johny Cee]

So, this winter I bought a condo in a renovated 19th century schoolhouse.  Decent place, I'm in the pocess of fixing it up a bit.

My issue:  No, not cockroaches or ants or anything like that.  I've seen two centipedes in the last 3 weeks (been in the place since December).Google and a bit of research has identified them as "House Centipedes".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_centipede) 

Supposed to be insect hunters,  which is odd, because I haven't seen very many insects inside.  An occasional beetle or fly,  but really nothing compared to some places I've lived.  The disturbing thing is that they're FAST.  And alien looking.  And they're bite is equivalent to a "mild bee sting".

Mostly up here,  we just have ants (the little reddish brown ones), ladybugs, and cluster flies as indoor pests all of which are pretty easy to deal with.  I've even seen pseudo-scorpions,  which would be disturbing if they weren't exceedinly tiny.

So....  I'd like to get some stories about more odious critters people have dealth with.  Extra points for stories from Arizonia guys that involve Schild screaming like a girl and running from spiders.

Edit:

Some good pictures here: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/ehs/pes_centipedes.shtml

[Chimpy]

Well, here in the house I am living in we have to deal with tons of what look like ladybugs. They are everywhere in the kitchen. Their defense mechanism is they secrete this stuff that smells like rotting lettuce and lingers on surfaces/skin.

When I lived in Albuquerque in the early 80s there was one incident that about gave my mom a heart attack where I stepped out into the garage with no shoes on and when I turned on the light my mom saw (or at least she says so) a tarantula about 5 inches from my foot that scurried off. She freaked out, and still to this day swears on the story.

[NiX]

The weirdest thing I've ever seen looked kinda like a grass hopper but it was yellowish brown and almost looked somewhat fuzzy. Like a peach. I killed it with a hockey stick from afar.

[Kail]

So....  I'd like to get some stories about more odious critters people have dealth with.  Extra points for stories from Arizonia guys that involve Schild screaming like a girl and running from spiders.

Tent Caterpillars.  Not scary or creepy, but they are fucking gross.  They build these nests out of silk (or something) in the crooks of tree branches and you get whole writing clutches of them in there. Used to have a great yard when I was a kid, huge trees which I used to play in, and Tent Caterpillars were my arch-nemeses.  Nothing like reaching up to grab a tree branch above you and jamming your fingers into a squirming, slightly crunchy mass of hairy worms.  Plus, they sometimes fall off the trees, which is gross if you're under them.  A light shower of spiny larvae can absolutely ruin a barbecue. 

[Rasix]

I've had a number of scorpions in the past couple of weeks.  The worst encounter would be when I was about to take a dump in the downstairs bathroom.  Just as I took down my shorts I noticed a rather large scorpion make it's way into the bathroom.  So.. sans pants I shrieked, ran past it, and got a magazine to kill it with.  It would have been less fun if it had crawled up onto me through the toilet.  This is likely the one.

Last night I was playing my PS2 when I heard something hit the glass door.  Turned on the light and there was a beetle about the size of my hand that was upset it didn't make its way in.

We've also had a nice Colorado river toad hanging around in our backyard. Afraid the cats are going to catch it when we let them out.

[Selby]

I always end up with these:



Drag home enough car carcasses and you'll find them everywhere inside.  Their webs are nice and unique so they are easy to spot.  I tend to scream and run around when I see them.  Steam cleaners are my friends as they die when hit with 190°F water at high pressure.

[bhodi]

[Strazos]

Seriously, fuck Arizona. Scorpions, in your House?

Fuck that.

[schild]

I have no stories like that. But I hear Tuscon might as well be MARS compared to Phoenix.

[Merusk]

Supposed to be insect hunters,  which is odd, because I haven't seen very many insects inside.  An occasional beetle or fly,  but really nothing compared to some places I've lived. 

VD can probably back me up on this.. but most insects that are in your house you'll never see.  It's much nicer inside your easily accessible walls.

Insects.. evil bastards. Worst story I have is a cicada that latched onto me at the emergence 19 years ago.  I didn't realize it until I was walking indoors and went to look behind me to see where the dog was at.  There the bugger was, 2 inches from my face staring right at me on my shoulder.  I freaked the fuck out, screamed and hopped around like a twit.

These days the worst things I get are the big brown house spiders.  Those are my buddies. I scoop 'em up and toss 'em outside near a light so they can pig out.

[SnakeCharmer]

I should NOT have clicked that link or read this thread. 

Fucking things give me a case of the heebie jeebies something fierce.  Spiders will make me shreek like a little girl. 

[Johny Cee]

I should NOT have clicked that link or read this thread. 

Fucking things give me a case of the heebie jeebies something fierce.  Spiders will make me shreek like a little girl. 

I caught one if you want me to mail it to you in a ziplock container?

Most bugs don't bother me,  but large fast bugs are awful.  We had some species of wolf spider at the summer camp that I worked at that had a body a few inches long and long legs,  that lived under and around the docks.

The fuckers were fast as lightning,  and could actually run on water if someone knocked them off the dock.  Seeing something with a 4-5 inch leg span run along the water and back under the dock is just disturbing.

[voodoolily]

VD can probably back me up on this.. but most insects that are in your house you'll never see.  It's much nicer inside your easily accessible walls.

Yeah, it's true, for the most part.

I am not particularly fond of silverfish, but they're pretty benign. The only thing I will go out of my way to shoo or evict are wasps.

[Paelos]

I lived in a fraternity house for about two years when i was back in college. I was in charge of cleaning out the kitchen when we came back from summer break one year, so we decided to fumigate it first. We put down 3 bug bombs in the 400 sq ft area and closed all the doors, then walked to the TV room. I sat there watching shows with my buds for about 30 minutes, and suddenly looked over to the door and saw a cockroach slowly crawling into the room. It eventually stopped moving on the way in and died.

I then walked out of the room and saw about four more dead roaches in the hall. Then as I walked to the kitchen they kept getting more and more numerous. All in all I ended up sweeping up about 200 dead roaches off the floor from our kitchen in the house. I never told anyone living in the house other than the people who were there at the time.

[Wolf]

I have seen a 5 inch long German cockroach. I will always remember how fucking freaked out I was. It was in an abandoned installation in the mountains with a couple of friends. We went in with flashlights and went out screaming :P

[Fordel]

Supposed to be insect hunters,  which is odd, because I haven't seen very many insects inside.  An occasional beetle or fly,  but really nothing compared to some places I've lived.  The disturbing thing is that they're FAST.  And alien looking.  And they're bite is equivalent to a "mild bee sting".

Well duh, they've eaten all the insects ;). I have those very same bugs in my home (though I've always called them silverfish, which they are apparently not!), see one maybe once every month or so, no matter the time of year. Mostly in the basement. Other then scaring the crap out of me every so often, they are harmless. Never had one bite me or sting me etc.

But yea, freaky looking things that'll give yea a start when you turn on the lights and see one on the wall/ceiling. I think the worst thing about it for me, isn't seeing the actual bug, or catching it, but spending the next hour looking for more because of an over active imagination.

That scratch on the wall that's been there for eleven years that looks kinda odd when only the table lamp is on and has been proven to not be a bug every single time I've examined it... is totally a bug that needs to be checked and rechecked a half dozen times after seeing one of those house centipedes.  :-(

[SnakeCharmer]

My funniest bug story:

We hadn't lived in it more than a couple months, so I guess it was March or so.  This...thing...I swear was bigger than my thumb flew in the back door and dive bombed my wife.  Anyway, we corraled it in the corner.  I was standing by with a broom to swat at it, my wife being the trooper she is picked up my size 11 Birkenstock and gave it a good whack.  What followed I will never forget...

This thing let out the most Godawful reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I've ever heard in my life.  I went screaming like a little girl through the kitchen, she jumped three feet off the ground and charged outside, and my ever vigilant, tough boxer went scattering down the hall way in a scurry of dog paws and claws on hardwood and jumped on the bed in the master bedroom.  We finally composed ourselves, and decided a two pronged attack would be best.  She took the broom, I took the aforementioned Birkenstock.  The thing was injured, but still screaching.  War was on...

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
<whack!!>
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
<whack!!!>
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
<whack!!!>
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee
<whack!!!>
Reeeeeeeee
<whack!!!>
Reeeee
<whack!!!>
<whack!!!>

Finally.  It as over.  We'd conquered the best.


Second funniest bug story:
When I dream, I tend to have very real, very active dreams.  I flop around in the bed, have damn near punched my wife (she moved at the last second before my fist went into her pillow).  Anyway, I dreamed I was running through the woods, and ran through a spiderweb and was freaking out in my dream because I had webbing and spiders all over me.  I remember twisting violently in my dream, which I was also doing as I was sleeping, and literally launched myself up and out of our king size rice bed that sits nearly 4 feet high.  That was two years ago, and my back hasn't been right since.




I refuse to look at any pictures or links in this thread. 

[FatuousTwat]

Ha some of these are great...

A few years ago I was helping my sister renovate an old house out in the middle of nowhere that had an in ground concrete cistern that we had to clean out. When I removed the plywood sheet that had been covering it for who knows how long, hundreds of these huge black crickets with massive 2 inch long legs came pouring out. Luckily there was some long pieces of PVC pipe lying around, or else I wouldn't have ever gotten in there.

Edit:  Cave Crickets. Oh man... I shouldn't have gone and found them with google. Brought back some bad memories:

[Ozzu]

Mother of God. Did you have to post a picture of a cave cricket? Now everything I see moving in the dark is going to be THAT.

[Fabricated]

We get ants off and on, but we spray down the outside edges of the house every year, so that tends to keep most critters out.

[OcellotJenkins]

Yeah the house centipedes are a bit creepy.  We had a little infestation of those things in my office at work.  They seemed to be attracted to damp areas and showed up after ceiling leak.  Nothing like opening a file folder and having one of the bastards run across your hand!  For around the house, I use Ortho Home Defense around the foundation and along the baseboards inside about every other year.  It works wonderfully although I'm sure it kills off good insects as well and will probably give me cancer.

[MrHat]

Is this like annual thread?  Seriously, we had cockroaches immune to RAID.  They could also fly.  And they made sounds.  Also, sometimes they spit.

Did I meantion they were 3-4" long?

[Sky]

I remember living in CA, you simply couldn't get rid of cockroaches. Most people just kinda gave up and dealt with it.

Here in NY, we battle with ants occasionally. I grew up in sand plains so we had a shitload of ant species warring all the time, I loved it when I was a kid. I'd map out territories on my lawn and use tactics banned by the geneva convention when my chosen race was being pushed off the lawn. WD40+lighter=win. Especially when you really soak the main mound really good, sometimes you can then torch a nearby secondary mound and get a fireball that travels all the way to the main mound and shoots out of the ground to terrific effect. Anyway...I was a geeky kid. Thank god for rock-n-roll.

I like spiders. They kill weaker bugs.

Worst ant story I have didn't really freak me out much, in fact I was relieved. You see...an ant had crawled into my ear canal. This may have freaked me out...but I was very high on LSD and thought I was freaking out. When it actually DID turn out to be an ant in my ear (I was worried I was getting one of those bad trips I've heard about but never experienced), I was actually relieved.

The overall worse I probably dealt with was when I lived on the mountain a few years ago. My landlord, a total douche, had some fish food in a 50gal barrel...didn't tell me. I had an infestation of field mice I couldn't get rid of, even being in total bear-country camp mode (all food sealed, all counters bleached, etc). I would even go on expeditions to destroy the mice nests in the woods around the house, but they kept coming back. I'd fill five traps a night indoors, easy, stopped trapping outdoors because it took so long to empty them. Asswipe landlord kept blaming me for it.

When I moved out and we were arguing over the deposit, he knocked the drywall off a studs near an entry hole. His intention was to show me how it was filled with my food or whatever...and his fucking fish food came pouring out. Man, that guy was a douchebag. Never did get my deposit back, wasn't worth taking him to court.

[murdoc]

We have a infestation of little black spiders, about the size of a pinkie finger nail. The wife HATES spiders so when I'm downstairs watching TV and I hear the 'Ahhhh' *stompstompstomp* 'Ahhhhh' *stompstompstomp* it means it's time to go upstairs and trap another tiny spider.

The outside of our house is covered in them. They really don't hurt anything except all the other bugs, but it's enough that it kind of bugs (ha!) me to be outside near the house. Also, they're everywhere in the lawn. I know spiders are beneficial but a few hundred are pushing it. I think it's time to get someone in to take a look.

Scariest one we had was a decent sized one that would probably fit in the palm of my hand and when my sandal hit it, it made a HUGE mess on the window. Past that, the worst insects we have in my part of Alberta are mosquitoes. Millions upon millions of mosquitoes.

[MrHat]

Millions upon millions of mosquitoes.

lol, I somehow got a mental image of mosquitoes forming like VOLTRON.

[Riggswolfe]

My worst story is about me losing a chunk of flesh about the size of a wine cork in my calf to a fiddleback. (Known in most places as a Brown Recluse.) Needless to say my attitude towards spiders has greatly changed.

This thread is making me want to run to Walmart and buy about 15 bugbombs and bomb the shit out of my house.

[Yegolev]

Funny you mention centipedes.  I have seen exactly two in my house.  The first one bit my wife on the neck while she was sleeping.  She felt something crawling on her neck and instinctively slapped it with her hand and was bitten.  I came into the room and did the whole husband thing, and on the way to the kitchen I saw a house centipede just standing there in the foyer.

Pictorial reference

Wife was bitten by a Figure 2 and I found a Figure 3 in the foyer.

[Sky]

The wife HATES spiders so when I'm downstairs watching TV and I hear the 'Ahhhh' *stompstompstomp* 'Ahhhhh' *stompstompstomp* it means it's time to go upstairs and trap another tiny spider.

My fiancee is good with that kind of thing, though she does have this thing where I need to be called in to visually verify the species or whatever. My mother...she's hilarious. Blood-curdling screams and she starts freaking out and smashing things with her spider-bashing shoe. Seriously, in the laundry room sits a lone shoe, who's only purpose is to smash spiders. It's kinda funny.

When I bbq'd at her house Friday, there was a moth on the sliding glass door. She went over and started smacking it with a catalog. It was on the outside. Then she mumbles something about it being trapped between the doors, and before I could get out "The screen door is open", she opens the door and starts shooing it. As she closes the door...it flies into the house behind her. I fell off the sofa I was laughing so hard. Then it escalated as she chased it around the room with the aforementioned catalog, breaking two lamps before I made her stop. A moth! 

[OcellotJenkins]

I work in a pretty old university building (the office with the house centipedes) and we had a mouse problem a few years back.  I was sitting in a chair talking to a coworker and I felt something tickling the underside of my knee.  I didn't even think much about it for a couple of minutes then finally I said "I think there is a bug or something up my britches leg".  I stood up and a fucking mouse ran down my leg, out my pants leg, and across the floor.  The lady I was talking to freaked out big time and stood up in her chair.  I almost died laughing.

[Yegolev]

Mice like nuts.

[Roac]

Anyone know how to get rid of carpenter bees?  I just moved into a new house, and they're doing a number on my front porch railing.  I would just spray them in their hateful drill-holes, but there's no way to angle a sprayer to hit them from where they're at. 

[Yegolev]

There is no way to get rid of carpenter bees other than direct spray or physical violence.  If anyone challenges me, please be verbose so that I might try your wacky voodoo on my own bees.

[Samwise]

Pretty light on pests around here.  We had a big fruit fly problem last summer, but dealt with it by leaving an open bottle of cheap beer out and letting them drown themselves.  Worked surprisingly well.

We've also got a few of these little brown spiders that like to hide in my pants while I'm sleeping.  I was tolerant of them before they started doing that, but now there's a kill on sight policy.  Spider bites on the inner thigh are not comfortable.   

[hal]

Carpenter bees are easy. Theres a hose connection at the bottom of your hot water heater. All bees are in the hive at night and will not leave no mater what. (they use the sun to navigate). At night connect hose to hot water heater connection  (Its good to drain this every now and again anyway, flushes the crud that gathers at the bottom of the tank) and stick it in hive entrance as best you can. Turn on the hot water and those that don't drown will cook from the heat and steam. Works fine every time--fail safe.

[Yoru]

I used to have a bit of an Argentinean ant problem at my current place (which I hear is pretty common in California), which I solved through the liberal application of caulk.

My worst encounter would have to be the 'Pede of Doom that attacked me towards the end of a multi-hour gaming marathon. Back in college, I lived in a shitty old dorm built during World War II, meaning it was constructed almost entirely with cinderblocks and mortar. It's bright, as I had an east-facing room and it's a sunny Upstate winter morning, with all the sunlight reflecting off the two feet of snow outside and streaming directly into my window, just because it hates me. I'm in something of a daze, as I'm also on hour twenty or so of an Anachronox marathon and the light isn't helping. Needless to say, I'm not exactly at my most aware, so I haven't noticed anything else in the room.

Then I see a little streak off to my left and hear a loud, metallic *THWACK* from the top of my tower, which is situated just to the left of my desk. Groggily looking down, I see..

A CENTIPEDE HALF THE LENGTH OF MY FUCKING FOREARM OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID THAT GET IN HERE.

Fortunately, I was tired enough to not freak out. So I grabbed my shoe and smashed the fucker right there on top of my computer case. Probably didn't do wonders for my power supply's longevity, but it was a massive bug and I wasn't about to go to sleep with it there.

To this day I have no idea how it got into that place and survived long enough to fall onto my computer.