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 buggers! (Page 2)
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| Author | Topic: buggers! |
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Lis Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 07:48 AM
  
Gawd, this thread's like a car wreck...I too am getting the heebie jeebies just reading, but I can't stop! To answer Naynay, we were just staying in a youth center in VA for a week. It was in a suburbian area near the bay of the James River, but I don't remember the town. The coordinators at the center told us they were waterbugs, b/c the center was so close to the water (I don't know if nicer places like hotels and houses had them). I think, judging from breana's info,those "waterbugs" and the Philly and NM ones are actually Oriental cockroaches. From what I've heard, they're not really a health hazard, like the German ones. But they're bigger, uglier, and brazen. Still, it's making me rethink getting my own place in Philly. IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 08:20 AM
quote: Ha!! IP: Logged |
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BabyBug7301 Subletter |
posted 06-24-2002 09:14 AM
I think Epicurus is right, the FL "palmetto bugs" are death's head cockroaches. They are WAY evil. I like the Nair idea. I think it's really funny how Breana's links actually have stuff for raising roaches! Like, "hi, this is my pet roach, Fluffy." Yikes! We need a new topic, folks! IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 09:27 AM
Hey! I used to raise cockraoches as part of an educational outreach program. I raised five different kinds, all very well behaved and interesting little critters. I also raised millipedes, assasin bugs, grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, mealworms, tarantula, scorpions, black widows, and crickets, along with many other transient guests, like dragonflies and flamboyant flower beetles. Just because it's not fluffy doesn't mean it won't make a good pet. I don't keep any of these at home, nor do I raise insects anymore, unless you count the scorpion in my pants, which is now in a tank on my desk. Sorry if I'm a little sensitive, but us entomologists are very protective of our critters. IP: Logged |
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sarah Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 12:09 PM
Oh man, I was getting a bowl of cereal last night and to my horror, on top of the microwave there were three rotten bananas that I'd wanted to throw away a couple of days ago, but was stopped because we "might use them." Last night, though, I knew it was their time to go because of the FRUIT FLY LARVAE that had taken up residence... Needless to say, they're OUTTA THERE. Ugh. Ryan said he had a dream about someone being killed by fruit flies last night. Hrmmm. IP: Logged |
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greschya Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 12:35 PM
Here's two bug stories -- My mom is a second grade teacher, and as anyone who has every stuck their head inside a teacher's room can attest to, food placed on the table is soon eaten. This last holiday season, someone had made a HUGE bowl of trail mix stuff, with coconut and sunflower seeds, dried raisins and cranberries -- really delicious snack food, according to my mom, the teachers were eating it up. Until one teacher looked into her hand and started SCREAMING bloody murder -- she couldn't even speak -- just pointed at the bowl and said "WORMS!" Sure enough, some tiny little mealwormy things were in the trail mix bowl. Once you saw them, apparently, you saw HUNDREDS. It was absolutely infested. Eww. Another bug story, maybe some new englanders remember this, but back in 81/82 ish (I was in grade 1) there was an infestation of army worms up here -- fuzzy dark green caterpillars. It was awful -- the playground equipment looked like it was covered in velvet, there were car wrecks of people losing control when they hit a patch of worm covered road (it was worse than ice, the slipperiness) and a lot of trees were destroyed by them. People wrapped their trees in foil, and burned the nests, but it was REALLY BAD. And they MADE us go out for recess!!! I can STILL remember crying on the steps of the school, not wanting to step into the sea of caterpillars -- they crunched and crawled on you, it was AWFUL. I still, more than twenty years later, have nightmares about army worms. IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 12:51 PM
Those are both horrible! IP: Logged |
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kellyrae Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 12:54 PM
Ok, Greschya, you're NOT allowed to tell any more stories. Those are DISGUSTING!!!!!! EW! Have you noticed a LOT of my posts today have words in CAPS? HAHAHAHA!!! IP: Logged |
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greschya Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 01:04 PM
You know, Dave says that all the time. Only he says "You know, instead of trying to gross ME out, why don't you channel that energy into writing gross-out kids books? Please?!?" I grew up in RURAL Maine, I could tell stories for hours. IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 01:07 PM
Actually I enjoyed the stories, even if they were horrible. Tell more gross stories! IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 02:06 PM
quote: Even grosser, those mealworms are totally edible. Bwahhahahahahaa!!! IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 06-24-2002 02:14 PM
quote: That's not very much. I've probably eaten more than that on purpose, even if I was a toddler. IP: Logged |
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Lis Housemate |
posted 06-25-2002 12:51 PM
Ugh, do you think they wash the bugs for the contestants on Fear Factor? IP: Logged |
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ginsu classic Head of the House |
posted 06-25-2002 09:41 PM
ok, found these cool nasty images of people with brown recluse spider bites! actually a friend of mine works on spider venom (she's an expert on the venoms of species of brown recluse, in fact). IP: Logged |
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kellyrae Housemate |
posted 06-26-2002 04:46 AM
Woah, Ginsu, that site is really gross! Especially the pictures of Dale with his skin hanging off. EW! Man, I got totally sucked into reading the bite victims stories! Isn't nature fascinating? One little spider can cause so much damage!! IP: Logged |
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suzette Housemate |
posted 06-26-2002 06:12 AM
I'm not looking. Yuck. While my little brother was studying to be an EMT he helped treat a man who had a brown recluse bite on his fanny. He said it was pretty nasty. IP: Logged |
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bookworm Housemate |
posted 06-26-2002 06:36 AM
Poor Dale. I guess my mom's pretty lucky hers never got that bad. Her leg looked like "Dale - Day 1," but it never got worse than that, and nothing ever rotted off. Which just confirms my theory that my mother is Super Woman. IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 06-26-2002 10:49 AM
Oh man, ginsu, that web site even made ME go green in the face. Ick. Oh blech! This is why I am not training to be a doctor of people. I get a lot of people asking me about brown recluse spiders and luckily most of them have misidentified other types of spiders for a recluse and are not in any danger. The brown recluse is why I never clean behind cabinets or under things without thoroughly checking for spiders first. They don't typically live here, but I always check, just in case. Normally I let spiders do their spider thing, but I once found a northern black widow in my basemet and had to stomp it flat or my mom would have killed me. IP: Logged |
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SmallBladder Housemate |
posted 07-08-2002 12:20 PM
ewww...last night, I was coming upstairs from watching TV and I saw a brown spider that was measured about 4 inches in diameter, including legs. I got kinda squeamish until Jello vacuumed it up! eww! IP: Logged |
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Lis Housemate |
posted 07-08-2002 12:26 PM
Eeewww! That reminds me of the time I was in the bathroom of my old apt. and saw a huge wolf spider just laying there on the bath mat. I freaked and yelled for my bf to come dispose of it. He rolled his eyes as he went to pick it up, acting like I was being a big baby about it. Suddenly, he drops it back on the floor and freaked out too. I guess it was dead, but tons of little babies were crawling all over the body. IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 07-08-2002 12:27 PM
quote: Uh-oh! Bad luck for you little missy! IP: Logged |
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Dewgirl Housesitter |
posted 07-08-2002 12:29 PM
I had a bug in my apartment the other day that I'm pretty sure wanted to kill me (aside from the fact that it never moved once while I searched endlessly for a shoe to kill it with.) It was about an inch long and very thin, but it had pincer-y things on the end that I was quite assured would kill me if they touched me. Anyone know what this was? It was damn hard to kill, by the way. IP: Logged |
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giamaria Housemate |
posted 07-09-2002 12:46 PM
maybe an earwig? They are ugleee buggers with pinchers. IP: Logged |
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Dewgirl Housesitter |
posted 07-09-2002 01:09 PM
quote: I did some searching for a picture, and EWWWWWW!!!!!!! That's definitely what it was. I really hope it was the only one. Yuck yuck yuck IP: Logged |
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Lis Housemate |
posted 07-10-2002 06:37 AM
Eeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww! I didn't sleep well at all last night. I had my first waterbug/Oriental cockroach siting in MY ROOM! Up until now, they've been content in the bathroom, but I moved something to open a window and out he popped. In true girlie fashion, I grabbed the Scrubbing Bubbles from the bathroom, and sprayed him a few times, but lost track of where he ran. I only hope he's dying a slow, agonizing death. IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 07-10-2002 11:10 AM
quote: Nah, now he's the cleanest cockroach ever!!! In defense of the earwigs, they are great moms. My uncle has launched a full scale war against the earwigs. As far as I can tell, General Pincher and his buggy troops are not surrendering to my crazy uncle and his newspaper of death. IP: Logged |
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Dewgirl Housesitter |
posted 07-10-2002 01:04 PM
Newspaper?? Man, I had to use a boot, and at that it took about 4 good whacks. IP: Logged |
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briddy Housemate |
posted 07-10-2002 04:18 PM
I was eating edamame yesterday at my desk at work and one popped out of the pod and onto the floor and I distractedly went to grab it (seeing it--or what I thought was it-- out of the corner of my eye). The next thing I knew, I had a big black smushed roly poly in my hand, and my precious edamame was still on the floor. I almost puked. Hey, it felt like edamame when I grabbed it. IP: Logged |
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BellaDonna Housemate |
posted 07-10-2002 06:38 PM
BG, sprinkle white rice where you find your ants. They carry it back to their homes, the entire ant clan will eat it, bloat up and die. My cheating bastard boyfriend (couldn't resist) just told me a few days ago that exterminators (ms?) use this method. IP: Logged |
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kena Housesitter |
posted 07-10-2002 07:48 PM
For ants, the kind of Raid that comes in a tiny red and yellow bottle works great. It's just borax mixed with some sugary sirup, so I guess it could be very cheap to make. There are recipes for it on www.stretcher.com, but my mom gave me a bottle so I didn't bother making my own. We got rid of the little troups of ants who had decided to invade our kitchen and bathroom garbage cans in just a few days. IP: Logged |
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bookworm Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 06:16 AM
The best thing I have ever found for ants are the Raid ant traps. I've used them on both the tiny, swarmy ants and the larger, more solo carpenter ants, and they're usually gone within a day. Just make sure that if you have carpenter ants, you get the baits with larger holes (I believe they're the black ones, as opposed to the smaller white ones). IP: Logged |
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SmallBladder Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 06:38 AM
BellaDonna, is the rice cooked when you sprinkle it, or uncooked? we have ants-but also lots of white rice, as well, and i might want to try out your jerky, low-down, idiot, selfish, cheating bastard of an ex-boyfriend's suggestion (heh heh. I don't know the guy but I couldn't resist either). IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 07:44 AM
quote: Thanks, I'll try that. Although I'm not sure the rice will fit through whatever hole they are coming through. It must be miniscule. I can see where it looks like they're coming in, but I've caulked over it and still they come... and I can't see a hole anywhere. But I'll give it a try. They have now invaded my yard too. I think I am going to have to treat it which ticks me off. I hate having to do that because of the dogs... they like to eat grass. So I've got to figure how to play that one. IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 08:32 AM
quote: From the secret files of the Earwig War: Wet a newspaper and fold it in thirds like a paperboy would do before chucking it into your bushes. Put it outside at night. Bright and early the next morning, stomp the crap out of it. Earwigs will be looking for a damp cool place to spend the night, and you can kill several hundred in one newspaper. It is important to note that this DOES NOT get rid of the earwig problem, but it makes my uncle feel better. IP: Logged |
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domesticdiva Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 08:33 AM
i have heard that ants don't like the smell of mint. they also don't like baby powder. if you can find one, a hedge apple (also called a bodark apple, horse apple, osage orange...) will repel crickets, spiders, ants, and roaches. you just put one under your cabinet or where ever you need it. IP: Logged |
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suzette Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 08:36 AM
quote: Do earwigs actually do any harm though? I mean besides looking really gross? [This message has been edited by suzette (edited 07-11-2002).] IP: Logged |
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bookworm Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 09:12 AM
quote: They crawl into your ears and burrow through to your brain!!! :P IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 07-11-2002 01:04 PM
Earwigs are harmless, they don't even pinch very hard. They eat decomposing materials, like rotting wood or organic matter, but they also have a garden tooth, and can be found politely munching on flower petals or grinding through summer vegetables, which is why my uncle hates them. Myth: Earwigs crawl into your brain . Sorry bookworm, I know you were just kidding. No idea how this started. It reminds me of that Australian cartoon, Dot and the Keeto, where the cockroaches sing, "Cockroaches nibbling in your ear!" IP: Logged |
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suzette Housemate |
posted 07-15-2002 06:11 AM
Breana - HELP!!! We've had and are continuing to have torrential rain here in Texas. We are also being plagued by swarms of mosquitos. I can not go outside without 50 of them trying to eat me alive. Besides making sure there is no standing water in my yard anywhere - what non-poisonous thing can I do to keep them away? IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 07-15-2002 06:41 AM
quote: Researchers are spending millions of dollars to figure this out. Bug zappers do not work. Mosquitos cannot see UV light, so you zap the wrong bugs. Save your money. As far as I can tell, citronella candles only marginally work. For self bug protection, I used Burt's Bees Lemongrass oil on myself AND my cats, and it keeps everything away, although it makes you slightly, er, slippery. Off! just came out with a botanicals lotion that's pretty good, but I'm assuming you want to get them away from your house. Check here for bug repellent plants. This site has a lot of options as well, but options are pricey. Mosquitos are atracted to the CO2 emmisions that all mammals produce. Fire produces the same thing, so those citronella tiki torches actually do double duty, if you can stand the smell. More links here, here and here. IP: Logged |
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