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 buggers! (Page 3)
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| Author | Topic: buggers! |
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briddy Housemate |
posted 08-12-2002 09:42 AM
   
See, bats DO bite! Aghhhhhh! http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_1320346,00.html IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 08-12-2002 11:42 AM
Briddy you crack me up! I think the important lesson here is "If you see a bat in the daytime or on the ground, it's behavior is strange and it is probably sick,". So leave the bat rescue to the professionals. Oops, there's the bat signal, gotta go! 
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 08-13-2002 10:34 AM
quote: Ditto that! IP: Logged |
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skr Housemate |
posted 08-16-2002 01:30 PM
so anybody got any tips for getting rid of roaches, once we've used these links to identify them? thanks! IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 08-16-2002 01:31 PM
Nuclear war? Oh wait, that doesn't work! IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 08-16-2002 02:35 PM
Oh, the roachistas are practically indestuctible. Did you know that a roach can live without it's head for six hours? Yeah, so what are your chances right? Here's the thing, the bait that they are supposed to take back to their bug family does not work. Roaches have no friends, and will not share the bait. A professional is the best bet, and then you need to keep all food in closed containers, and make sure your garbage is taken out, the crumbs are swept up, etc. Or you can do what I do...give them a chore list and tell them they don't get to raid the pantry until the place is spotless! IP: Logged |
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skr Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 08:02 AM
i'm posting this in the hope that breana, that talented bug woman, sees it. i've been wiping everything in my kitchen down with a solution of white vinegar and water to disinfect and keep things clean. do roaches like vinegar? is it food to them? am i inadvertantly feeding them? thanks for your help. maybe i'll absorb your cool vibe toward bugs... IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 11:10 AM
I use vinegar too. I hate the smell of bleach, and tend to get it on my clothes, so vinegar is my cleanser of choice. Vinegar dissapates quickly, so you won't have to worry about attracting them. But a word about vinegar: Don't use cloudy vinegar, as it most likely contains vinegar eels. Vinegar eels swim around in the solution, making it appear murky. I always check to make sure that my cleaning solution is clear. There is no sense in wiping nematodes all over my countertops! They won't hurt you, and you've probably eaten them on a salad (vinegar and oil dressing?), but it creeps me out a tiny bit. Sending out the bug loving vibes... IP: Logged |
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skr Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 11:34 AM
But a word about vinegar: Don't use cloudy vinegar, as it most likely contains vinegar eels. Vinegar eels swim around in the solution, making it appear murky. VINEGAR EELS? sigh. like i didn't have enough to worry about with the roaches. i like predatory nematodes for the important ecological role they play, but i don't nemes on my countertops either. thanks for the warning and all the help. IP: Logged |
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yam Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 11:41 AM
Vinegar eels, bwahaha! That's the greatest thing ever. It's like "whee! I've had seamonkeys in my kitchen all this time!" I'll spare you all from the "CULTIVATE VINEGAR EELS - THE EASY WAY!" webpage I just found. IP: Logged |
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suzette Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 11:44 AM
Breana - did you have to tell us about vinegar eels? I could have lived my whole life without knowing about vinegar eels! *shudder* IP: Logged |
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kellyrae Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 11:47 AM
When will I learn to stop reading this thread?! Vinegar EELS?! EEK! IP: Logged |
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hermia Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 12:09 PM
quote: Yam, you never fail to crack me up. in fact, you are amusing me in several threads simultaneously right now. IP: Logged |
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yam Housemate |
posted 08-26-2002 12:12 PM
Hee! Yeah, I've been feeling pretty silly lately. IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 08-27-2002 10:31 AM
Oh but I had to tell you about the vinegar eels, otherwise, I would have never gotten such a hearty laugh out of this crappy crappy fire ants don't make me happy morning! Seriously, Mitch just left the office cuz I was lauging so loud I was disrupting his reading...and I'm not gonna stop. "Wheee! Sea Monkeys!" I can almost hear yam placing her ad in the Archie comics. Haahahahahahahaaaa!! IP: Logged |
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yam Housemate |
posted 08-27-2002 11:14 AM
I told my boyfriend about the vinegar eels, and here is why I love him: he immediately replies "Vinegar EELS? Do you think the cats would eat them? We could sell tickets." and then goes on about how we should buy a microscope to project images of single celled organisms on the wall for the cats to chase. [This message has been edited by yam (edited 08-27-2002).] IP: Logged |
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Epicurus Housemate |
posted 08-27-2002 11:22 AM
quote: Fire ants suck my nut. As a kid I had to keep auto-injector with me wherever I went because I was so damn allergic to those things. One bite and I would swell up and look like Ali after his last fight. Of course, the damned things are ALL OVER South Florida. IP: Logged |
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journeygirl Housemate |
posted 08-27-2002 03:00 PM
Anyone know about silverfish? I hear they eat fabric or something...and they've invaded my new house. [This message has been edited by journeygirl (edited 08-27-2002).] IP: Logged |
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skr Housemate |
posted 08-27-2002 03:19 PM
in my exhaustive research on non-toxic (to humans) ways to kill roaches, i came across the following bits of advice on silverfish: -- sprinkle boric acid in cracks, crevices, along baseboards, etc. silverfish crawl through it, then they dry out and die. heh heh heh -- wet a newspaper, roll it up, and leave it on the floor. apparently, this is some sort of silverfish magnet and you can capture a bunch of them at once. FYI: the boric acid seems to be working on the roaches in my house... IP: Logged |
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Sic Housemate |
posted 08-28-2002 10:26 PM
quote: Ok, what are these and where do I buy them? Would my pets try to eat them? Thanks I hate the bugs in my apartment and I would rather keep them away then kill them. IP: Logged |
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Sic Housemate |
posted 08-31-2002 05:45 AM
Should I be worried because I have seen two very large centipedes in my third floor apartment? I read a description: www.betterpestcontrol.com/centipede and it indicated that they usually live in basements, in dark, damp areas with rotting wood, vegetation, etc. If you go to the link it was the picture on the right. I have goosebumps all over! IP: Logged |
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daisy Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 12:17 PM
Ugh, has anyone ever found little tiny brownish bugs in their flour? It was an open bag that I had closed by just rolling down the top a few times and then put in a canister (not air tight) on my counter. When I lifted up the canister, there were these bugs on the counter and then I found them inside in the bag of flour. IP: Logged |
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BionicGirl Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 12:26 PM
A weevil! Were they alive or dead? They will actually gourge themselves to death. The best way to prevent them is to store flour and grains (like cornmeal, etc.) in the fridge. If you've got it in a nice canister on the cabinet and want to keep it there, you can try keeping it in a large ziploc bag inside the canister. IP: Logged |
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yam Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 12:26 PM
Sigh. Yeah, flour weevils. SO ANNOYING! Throw out the flour right now, and ANYTHING else in your pantry that was open, or they'll keep reappearing. Wash any reusable cannisters really well - like in a dishwasher or pour boiling water on them. Now that they're finally gone, I always freeze my flour overnight before I put it away when I buy it just in case it has weevil eggs in it. Freezing it keeps 'em from hatching. IP: Logged |
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lesliele Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 12:28 PM
ewww... but then you eat the eggs... Is there anyway to keep your flour from having them in the first place? Or is that just something that they get into anyway? IP: Logged |
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yam Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 12:31 PM
It just happens. They ain't poisonnous. It's just that the actual weevils are gross and creepy to have in your food. So uh.. try not to think about it. Like vinegar eels. IP: Logged |
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hermia Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 01:13 PM
*gag* why do I EVER open this thread??? IP: Logged |
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daisy Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 02:16 PM
Wow, thanks Yam. I appreciate the info. We were trying to figure out if they are in the flour when you buy it or if they appear after a certain amount of time after the bag is open. Now I am paranoid about flour. They were alive by the way and they had gotten into the sea salt and corn starch too so everything ended up in the garbage and we cleaned out the containers. IP: Logged |
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fittergal Subletter |
posted 10-22-2002 03:05 PM
Okay, I have to add to this totally repulsive thread. I work for the UW in the steam tunnel systems and there are MONSTER roaches in there. Now, I currently don't have roaches at my house and I would like to not get any. The guys have told me, to never stomp on a roach because you'll bring her eggs home in the treads of your shoes and they'll hatch there. Any truth to that?? IP: Logged |
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ginsu classic Head of the House |
posted 10-22-2002 06:26 PM
Regarding flour, there are lots of "stored product pests"...mostly beetles that like to eat flour and cornmeal and rice and whatnot. We've only had weevils in rice (weevils usually have a long anteater-style snout-like mouthpart on their head). We've had flour beetles (Tribolium...I used to do mating behavior work on them when I was in college) in flour. Anyway, the things people mentioned are pretty much right. Freeze the flour, then throw it out. If it was a bad infestation, you should probably scrub down the cabinet or countertop with ethanol or something similar. As for roaches, females of some species do carry around their egg mass for a while ("ootheca"...here's a picture...they look kind of like a cocoon sticking out of the roach's butt). I've heard that old wive's tale about stomping them and getting the eggs in your shoe treads, too, but I don't know if it's really true. You could always scrub your shoes with alcohol to kill 'em off. IP: Logged |
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Merimoo Housemate |
posted 10-22-2002 06:49 PM
I had flour bugs this summer! I found them in the cabinet of my old house after I'd already packed my bags of food and taken them to the new apt. That was mid-July and I haven't seen any for 2 or 3 weeks. what a nightmare... IP: Logged |
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breana Housemate |
posted 10-23-2002 12:08 PM
Hmmm...flour beetles...disturbing, yes, but... were they flamboyant?? Okay, little play on words there. Little insect humor, that's all. I am an entomologist after all, I literally have a liscence to be dorky. Anyway, flour beetle are annoying, that's for sure. Even I don't like to cook with them, and I eat bugs on purpose. If I'm poor, I put the infested flour in the freezer, then sift out the dead guys. If I've got 2 bucks to spare, I buy new flour and put it in a Ziploc. They have those great free-standing ones now. Working in the steam tunnels eh? I rasied five different species of roach for the MSU Bug House, and they NEVER got as big as the ones in the building did. So jealous. But there is a tiny bit of truth to that old wives tale. As ginsu already pointed out, female roaches have an ootheca that they drop somewhere. The babies crawl out of it, and hopefully (a relative term, I guess) make it past becoming the main course for other roaches. So when you step on a femal carrying her ootheca, you run the risk of getting some roach babies on your hoofer. But, the risk is small, so very small, and hosing the soles of your shoes off should be adequate. Be more worried about transpoting adult roaches home in pockets, bookbags, or extra clothing. I once brought a roach home in my overalls. It was so tickly! IP: Logged |
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hermia Housemate |
posted 10-23-2002 12:18 PM
I know you do it on purpose, but you manage to take this thread from gross to TRULY REPULSIVE, my darling Breana!!!  ackackack [This message has been edited by hermia (edited 10-23-2002).] IP: Logged |
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ralphyr Housemate |
posted 10-23-2002 08:35 PM
I'm not even tempted to look at any of the links in this thread. IP: Logged |
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Diana Housemate |
posted 10-23-2002 09:25 PM
Eeeeek, looking in this thread reminded me of the many parasites one can become a host to by eating infested food. Ick, Bre, any thoughts on the whole tapeworm thing? GAG I feel icky now. IP: Logged |
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fittergal Subletter |
posted 10-24-2002 02:38 AM
Thank you for the input on the old shoe wive's tale. Breana, yes, there is definitely that caution about carrying the roaches in extra clothing; we have hooks up near the ceiling lights and we hang our coats and jackets right under the lightbulb. Seems to help. We shake the jackets out before we put them on. These things are IP: Logged |
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Dewgirl Housesitter |
posted 10-24-2002 07:35 AM
Eek... I can completely back up what Fittergal was talking about... I don't know if you work in Madison or Milwaukee, but there are some very scary things that come out of those steam tunnels! I don't remember if I told my roach story here or not, but I too saw a 3 or 4 inch one in the basement of my old apartment building, which was connected to the steam tunnels. Brought terrified to a whole new level. One of the maintenance guys where I work told me once about working in some of the really old buildings in Milwaukee, the ones with several sub-basements that have been abandoned, and many of which open right up into the steam tunnels... he said that he'd seen bugs and rodents of absolutely sickening size in there. I shiver to think how close I lived to that!!! IP: Logged |
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suzette Housemate |
posted 10-24-2002 07:39 AM
What's a steam tunnel? IP: Logged |
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winterlight Housemate |
posted 10-24-2002 08:32 AM
I wonder if the flying things we always had in our food were weevils...we called them mohicans (OK, that's an anglified German spelling...Mohawk, yes?)..probably because every time we killed one we thought it was the last. No luck. Eventually we did what we could have done right at the beginning - we threw all the starchy food in the compost and bought new stuff. No more mohicans. Funnily enough, about 3 days into my living in my first ever apartment, one of the phucks showed up again. Turned out that some food-donor's rice had been contaminated...I yelled at the bastard, and took him outside. And removed the rice. He was my last mohawk (knock, knock). And as for cockroaches IP: Logged |
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BlueDandy Subletter |
posted 10-24-2002 09:03 AM
I think if I saw a roach that even *slightly* resembled a lion (tiger, bear..etc), I'd probably have a heart attack... Then again, I still kinda freak if an ant sneaks up on me..
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