Mosquitos, love bugs, moths, fire ants, roaches, fruit flies…
I pretty much hate all bugs. Since I live in the swamp (Florida) there’s lots of bugs to hate.
Bug spray is my friend. As long as I spray every few months, the bugs stay outside where they belong.
Roaches are the bug that creeps me out the most. Used to live in a condo that got infested. No matter how much spray, bug bombs, baits… My mom was neurotic about cleaning. All the food was in plastic containers or the fridge. They still stuck around. She used to joke that the neighbor was dumping them into the walls. Eventually we moved because we couldn’t take it anymore. My mom woke up in the middle of the night with one crawling across my dad’s chest. That was the last straw.
@RiotDemon All of the above, since I live in FL also. Add the 6" centipede that appeared in a patio flower pot last week. I flipped it out, chased it (they’re FAST) and squashed it dead, dead, dead- but they don’t live alone. This was an adult, and they have poison glands. Spectracide in every pot, and all around the house. http://www.insectidentification.org/centipedes.asp
@OldCatLady The house centipede that shows up as the big picture on the link is actually supposed to be great at getting rid of all the other bugs. Based on your description of your bug’s speed, I’d say that’s what it was.
Needless to say, they are one of the freakiest bugs I’ve encountered as well. There needs to be a sci-fi movie about giant house centipedes…
@thejackalope Nope, this was a bark centipede, and it was HUGE. House centipedes look like a spider gone very, very wrong, but exterminators take care of them. Your video above is pretty disturbing, too. http://www.insectidentification.org/centipedes.asp
@sammydog01, @f00l Yeah, I just had to stick with it for the disturbance. Not a house centipede though. @OldCatLady Those bark centipedes sound pretty nasty too!
@thejackalope Bark centipedes can live up to five years. Not the ones on my patio; I just dosed them with Spectracide. I had been content to use my numerous anoles as insect control. The centipede was as large as a few dozen baby anoles, so I suspect they were prey.
@thejackalope If I saw that centipede on vacation, vacation over. If I saw that closer to my home, I would be packing for a move to the desert right now.
@PocketBrain That is true. Granted, I’ve only seen a handful of mentions of true bugs in this whole thread, which asks what bugs we hate most. With that limit, I think we’d all be limited to bedbugs, stinkbugs, and kissing bugs for our hate…
/image hemiptera
@sammydog01@PlacidPenguin I despise gnats! I once (or twice?) had one go INTO my ear and buzzed around for a while until I had to drown the thing. Very annoying for golf as well!
Mosquitoes, flies, roaches, carpet beetles in that order. Mosquitoes are the only animal species I’d wish into extinction (other than humans), but the other three had better not catch me on a bad day. There are other bugs I don’t care for (ticks almost made the list) but living in the desert the bug population is never too bad, although it can be pretty unfriendly (scorpion, centipede, black widow, brown recluse, assassin bug, child of the earth).
I think deer ticks are my worst enemy. They carry Lyme and are so very tiny and hard to spot. My dogs have thick hair and it’s not easy doing a tick check on them. One of them had Lyme disease a few years ago and now he carries the markers. Vet has to do the more expensive test to make sure he doesn’t have it again rather than testing positive for the markers. Thankfully I haven’t gotten it yet.
/image deer tick
@f00l Yes - NJ. Even if I don’t go in the woods, I’ll still bring home ticks. The regular ones I don’t worry about since they are pretty easy to spot or feel. I picked one up at my Mom’s doctor’s office
@moondrake We don’t have a yard right now, but when we did, my husband sprayed something and kept most bugs out of the yard. I don’t take pups out in the woods for that reason alone even though they would love to go for a romp.
I spray diatomaceous earth on my potato plants to keep potato beetles away. Never tried it for ticks.
@looseneck For your home at least you could use diotomaceous earth. Some people even rub it into their pets’ coats to help protect them. I personally haven’t used it as it’s too dry here for fleas and ticks are rare in the higher elevation, more desert part of the city where I live (they are common in the lower lying, greener valleys). But I have heard great things about DE from people in green parts of the country. It’s natural and safe. http://www.absorbentproductsltd.com/diatomaceous-earth-for-fleas.html
Hatred for:
Mosquitos.
Fleas.
Fireants.
Ticks.
Africanized bees (a few local deaths).
Chiggers.
Bedbugs (have never encountered any tho).
Horseflies.
Don’t care for:
Regular bees, wasps, yellowjackets, etc, and any other flying stinging assholes.
The regular bees are fine to have around, they just need to not sting me.
Roaches and palmetto bugs are way gross, but also way down the list. If I lived in an infested place, I’d have to move, tho. Yuck.
Are we counting spiders? I hate the poisonous ones.
Hatred categories:
Anything that bites.
Anything that stings.
Anything in the house.
Anything that gets in my face.
Anything that makes me jump in fear or disgust.
Anything that’s extra scary.
Anything that gets into shoes or clothing, or other fabrics.
Anything that destroys plants when people want the plant not to be destroyed.
I like daddy-long-legs spiders.
When I was a little kid, I thought the outdoors was supposed to be “pretty”.
@f00l We had an infestation of tiger mosquitoes a couple years ago. Couldn’t step outside without getting a nasty and painful bite but the itch only lasts about 20 minutes. Apparently they have a a very small range. I’ve become vigilant about standing water and I haven’t seen any since that one summer.
Never encountered bed bugs or roaches. I think I live on a centipede nest. I leave them alone and they eat anything that comes in the house. I haven’t ever seen a spider here.
@looseneck My adolescent Great Dane like to lay jyst inside the French doors when I have them open and eat incoming flies. She probably eats 5-10 an hour. Any she misses are taken care of by the daddy longlegs I allow to live in various corners of the house. Their webs are very annoying, but they keep out other insect predators and eat mosquitoes, flies, and other pests.
Ticks are taking over in VT. If I step off of our mowed lawn, I often end up with a tick on me. They are in the fields, on school playgrounds, etc. I have to check myself for ticks every day. It’s not a pretty sight. I have tickphobia now.
For me it’s definitely yellowjackets. Repeat stingers. As territorial and defensive as any other wasp (late in the season even grumpier than most), but they put their homes underground so you have no idea you’re disturbing them until they all decide to attack. Like nature’s angry ninjas.
Ants.
Tiny black ants that don’t care about people food, I never know what they’re after, they just wander around.
Ants coming out of the baseboards, ceiling light fixtures, plug receptacles. This year, they’re even trying to invade my car in the carport!
Maybe I should be glad they’re letting me live in their house.
@KDemo We’ve got them really bad in the house. Good thing I’m blind without my contacts. Woke up one night and the brown bathtub was black with ants. I pretended they weren’t there and let my husband shower with them
@KDemo have you tried Terro? It’s a bait station. We swear by them here.
/image terro bait station
Also there’s powder you can put in all your outlets.
/image hot shot boric acid
@RiotDemon I use Terro too- you have to be patient because it kills them slowly enough so they take it back to their little ant buddies. A day or two and no ants. Plus it’s not toxic to mammals so you can put it in your kitchen and around your pets.
@RiotDemon@sammydog01 - Yes, I went through 7 or more bottles of the Terro liquid last year, They feast for a few days, then slack off, then come back. I noticed they’re smaller when they come back, maybe they are new ants. There seem to be never-ending generations.
Thanks though.
I’m OK with most spiders, though I’d prefer if they were in some other part of the house than my bedroom. Most native bees are fine. Aphids aren’t great. Boxelder bugs are only mildly annoying. Tree Lice aren’t terrible.
Earwigs. I hate earwigs. I know they’re mostly harmless, but…
Also hate Ants and Yellow Jackets. Mosquitoes can all DIAF.
Mosquitoes. They all need to go away. Enemy #1.
Yellowjackets. They also ruin a nice picnic outside.
Deer flies. They bite! They suck!
Any spider in the house. They all die.
@daveinwarsh Deer flies and horse flies were a favorite part of pool time when I was younger. 2 or 3 of us would all grab noodles (big foam kind, not floppy pasta) as soon as they showed up at the pool and we’d spend the next 3 minutes trying to swat them to oblivion!
@legendornothing so suck them up in the vacuum cleaner using using the crevice tool or something just the hose with nothing on the end. Then immediately take the vac outside and liberate them (either by opening the dirt container or just let it sit there for a while and they will liberate themselves - yup found that out the hard way indoors LOL).
@legendornothing I’d trap them when no one is looking…
I actually catch & get rid of tons of damn fruit flies in the house. We bring in tomatoes & other stuff from the garden to fully ripen in late summer & the flies follow. At least they don’t bite!
I roll a piece of paper into a funnel shape, put over a jar with wine, wine vinegar or juice in it. Add a drop of soap. Put funnel on top, leave in corner of the room. Watch it fill up!
@daveinwarsh I think that’s actually a great idea, I’ll keep one under my table starting today. I left an orange peel on my desk earlier this week and I woke up to a hundred odd flies that were all over my room
@legendornothing
I did this bottle thing once - trapped flies - with a 2 liter coke bottle with fruit juice in it, and a funnel, as shown. A friend used to use a huge pickle bottle.
Worked pretty well.
I do try to not leave out in the open anything that attracts flies tho, or at least to cover it with cloth or a plastic bag.
@RiotDemon If you only add a piece of fruit to the jar (no juice or liquid), you could release the innocent fruit flies outside every once in a while, I assume…
I hate any bug that is indoors (and this dump has German cockroaches and the other day I caught an American one on the sticky paper; also flour moths). Outside I hate them if they bite, sting or crawl all over me, my food, or where I am trying to do something - then they are on my hit list. Otherwise they are allowed to live because other critters eat them and need food too.
@Kidsandliz This complex was infested when I moved here and never seemed to get rid of the roaches, then in march they had terminiix come in and eradicate the roaches and they did something to kill the pills, and I have not seen a roach around here since.
@cranky1950 Well theoretically the bug people come 2x a month (1x for each apartment).Things started to disappear once I started buying my own roach stuff. Prior to that all that would happen is the sticky sheets would fill but didn’t look like a dent was being made. Have gotten rid of most of the flour moths but can’t seem to get rid of the last few.
@heartny After one bit me on my arm in my sleep with a festering wound that remained for many months, ALL SPIDERS IN THE HOUSE NOW DIE. I have declared war.
@PlacidPenguin I got the pc version for free I think in a sale that someone posted here. Had played part of it on PS3 when I had access to someone else’s account.
Still haven’t finished it… But I think I’m farther along than I was on the PS3.
After almost no winter…the winner of my hatred? Fleas!! And not just the big biting ones you expect. This year we are covered in microscopic fleas that have a bite bigger than their big sisters!
Cats are miserable. Son and daughter want to move to Alaska. And me? 3 bombing sessions, 2 gallons of various pyrethrin blends, multiple boxes of borax, 2 pounds of diatomatious (sp?) earth - inside and under the house…and we are barely keeping ahead of the infestation.
/giphy flea hell
@sarahsandroid I remember the last time I was getting that flea stuff you put on your dog, my vet said the fleas are becoming resistant to the chemicals. They actually sent me home with pills as well.
@sarahsandroid I have indoor cats but it’s still a struggle. These do a great job, and they’re not toxic. You can look at them in the morning and gloat over how many carcasses you’ve collected overnight. I usually change the sticky part every month at least. The light bulbs stay on 24/7, and replacements are at any hardware store. Victor M230A Ultimate Flea Trap Safer https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000668Z96/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_E3SnzbE1WZGGT via @amazon
@RiotDemon Try DE. It isn’t a poison, it’s safe enough to eat. The tiny diatoms are scratchy on a minute level. The bugs pass thru the powder and get scratches on the waxy surface of their bodies which allows moisture to escape and they dehydrate.
@RiotDemon Yeah, we basically don’t have fleas as they require 50%+ humidity to live and we average about 12%. In fact, I am currently shopping for a vet and the one I test visited that gave me the hard sell on flea preventive claiming we are currently having an epidemic of them got a pass. They also gave me a hard sell on using veterinary glucosamine rather than the human type. I went home and researched and the only difference is that veterinary glucosamine has a bit of citric acid added to it to increase bio availability. I grind their tablets into their food, which has citric acid in it. Getting an up sell on every day items from a vet is a big red flag as it suggests a high likelihood of extra tests and meds when the pets are sick and you are not in a position to make informed decisions.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Stink Bugs! Started getting them here in Michigan a couple of years ago and they are getting worse every year. They’re one thing I wish they hadn’t imported from China!!
I have these little dinky bugs, I’m not positive what they are, though at one point I think I made a guess that they were some kind of grain beetle. But, they don’t eat my grain. That would be ok, I have lots of grain, guys! Instead they find the most expensive and cutest top I own and munch a few holes into that, then move on to the next cutest and/or expensivist, chompety chomp that one, repeat, repeat, repeat. Dang ol’ blouse bugs.
@daveinwarsh I can only say good luck with that. The only methods the internet seems to offer is to pack everything you own that is made out of fabric into plastic bags, and pull up any carpet you may have. Not much solution for things like curtains and bedding. It’s like pretty much nothing gets rid of these suckers. I’ve had an infestation for years, and they don’t really do much in the way of harm, except damaging clothes, but they are quite a nuisance.
@moondrake I’ve (luckily) never had those bugs, though we had clothing moths for a while.
It made me wonder what those bugs were mentioned & looked them up. They appear to be difficult to get rid of.
I hate bugs. They are so nasty. I had ants problem. I used many methods to get rid of them:pure lemon juice, mint oil, piece of chalk and even Terro ant baits. As a result I hired a few guys from {the internet} service in New Zealand. I hate summer time 'cause of bugs invasion.
There is another kind of “bug” I hate. That would be the kind that lives at home, gets bored and then bugs you that there is nothing to do. The best kind of repellent for that kind of bug is offer up chores to do. Then those kind of bugs scatter, escaping the house as quickly as possible. Slamming, and then locking, the door after them is a fairly reasonable deterrent as long as your phone is off and no whacko calls DHS because they are now free range bugs.
The second week of July usually, though I’m worried because July 8th is a Saturday, and I won’t be here at midnight then (obviously).
I mean, 2015 had the Fuko on July 9th, so there’s a chance that it won’t be the 8th. Maybe the 10th. That would be a nice date. The 11th would have been better, but that’s a Tuesday…
Just did the weekly lawn-mowing on Sunday, which means I walked around the house with a carton of Amdro to feed the fire ants. I am careful not to poison indigenous species. I can tell by the shape of their mounds.
@PocketBrain Good ol’ fire ants! My first encounter with these was with an aged great aunt in AL I only met once. As a 8-9 year old, I remember very distinctly walking with her around the yard, poking holes in the mound and then pouring kerosene in the holes. Not eco-friendly at all, but it worked!
Fast forward to post high-school, working with a landscaping crew. Fire ants have made it to TN by now, and we had a massive mound in a flower bed we were supposed to be working in. I told the previous story. So, my redneck co-workers poured probably 1/2 a gallon of gas into the mound… and then decided that lighting it was an even better idea. Sounded like a small bomb went off in the ground, as the fumes had been able to seep throughout the whole nest.
TL;DR–Fire ants faced trial by fire that became a fire bomb.
@thejackalope
I knew someone who was trying to do all the fire ants in a pasture. On a small farm somewhere SW of Austin.
She went around pouring gasoline into the mounds.
Then she lit a match, intending to go mound to mound. She lit the first mound.
The other mounds went up too. Quite spectacular and set small parts of the pasture to smouldering. She called the fire dept, but she was way out in the boonies and alone. She wound up smothering the bad areas with wet blankets and wet horse blankets until the fire dept showed up to take care of it.
The fire head of the fire department crew gave her quite a lecture.
@f00l When I was a teen in Aubrey we had to move all the people, pets and livestock off the property overnight and they came in planes and dusted the whole area for fire ants. We were worried about our stock pond and the grass the horses ate, but they assured us it would be all right and it was. Moving 17 horses, one dog and a family of 7 away overnight was quite a production. There was no catching the semi feral farm cats, so we just lured them into the grain shed and locked them in.
@f00l That seriously had me rolling! Like she expected a peaceful walk through the pasture lighting large candles, but ended up frantically playing a game of fiery whack-a-mole!
/giphy fiery whack-a-mole
My latest effort in insect deterrents is lining my deck with mosquito repelling plants. Citronella, rosemary, basil, and oregano. I tried mint, but the sun was too strong for it. Someone with a green thumb that I know told me I needed to move it to the shade. But so far everybody else seems to be doing okay and it’s been up over 100 all week this week. I got lucky today and found the 4-inch $8 pots of herbs at Home Depot on sale for $4 because they were all overgrown and trying to climb out of their pots, so I splurged.
@moondrake Wow, good deal. You might want to add a couple of pots of rose geranium. The flowers are minimal, but its foliage is gorgeous, cold hardy, drought hardy, and nothing eats it. It also smells lovely, and is a good insect repellent. It will grow as large as you let it. Full sun all day is fine.
@OldCatLady thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it but I don’t look very much at flowers. Not many of them can take the full sun here.
@OldCatLady Pretty. But it takes a lot of water. I laughed when I read an inch a week. We can go months without rain, then it’s flash floods for an hour and gone again. We rarely get the kind of nourishing rain plants need. In fact it’s illegal to plant mulberry trees here, due to their water needs. In the first half of the century mulberries were the main shade tree in neighborhoods but these older trees are aging out and dying and we’re not allowed to replant them. I’m still mourning the loss of my big mulberry tree that shaded my whole yard, we had a catastrophic freeze about 8 years ago that killed lots of cactus, palms. mulberries and lemon trees. I don’t know whether these bushes would fall into the same category as far as being legal to plant. What I’m reading says these are large bushes 6 or 8 feet tall, do they make good container patio plants?
@moondrake My beautyberry shrubs live happily on minimal water in large (20") patio pots; they stay about 4 feet tall. The only other things that survive that western exposure are rosemary and African daisies. I can go a month without watering them, and in fact in August I usually do. In winter the leaves fall, but the sprays of berries stay until birds get hungry enough to eat them; apparently they’re not first choice. Freezing doesn’t bother them at all. Actually I dug mine out of the yard near a long-gone house, probably from the 1900s.
@OldCatLady Cool. If I can find one I’ll try it in a pot on the deck. The deck faces south, gets sun from both east and west. Fortunately I enjoy long twilight here as the sun drops behind the mountain at the end of the street about 2 hours before actual sunset. The berries sticking around after the leaves are gone sounds like my pistache tree, the only tree that I have successfully planted. Wow big thunder just now hope we get some rain. It’s been raining in other parts of the city but it’s skipped my neighborhood entirely. I put 8 bags of mulch down in my teeny little backyard and have been watering it every other day in an effort to keep the romping and wrestling dogs from turning the yard entirely back to sand. To my surprise this week baby grass started poking its head through. If I could get some of this rain, maybe it would actually grow.
@RiotDemon So far I have been lucky and mosquitoes have not put in an appearance at my place. Other people I know are complaining about them but they seem to be sticking to the lower lying, greener areas for now. The article was disheartening and recommending deet is kind of a moot point. Deet is perfectly fine for a walk in the woods, but for trying to live your life in your home and in your own yard all day and night all summer it’s not a practical solution.
Mosquitos, love bugs, moths, fire ants, roaches, fruit flies…
I pretty much hate all bugs. Since I live in the swamp (Florida) there’s lots of bugs to hate.
Bug spray is my friend. As long as I spray every few months, the bugs stay outside where they belong.
Roaches are the bug that creeps me out the most. Used to live in a condo that got infested. No matter how much spray, bug bombs, baits… My mom was neurotic about cleaning. All the food was in plastic containers or the fridge. They still stuck around. She used to joke that the neighbor was dumping them into the walls. Eventually we moved because we couldn’t take it anymore. My mom woke up in the middle of the night with one crawling across my dad’s chest. That was the last straw.
@RiotDemon All of the above, since I live in FL also. Add the 6" centipede that appeared in a patio flower pot last week. I flipped it out, chased it (they’re FAST) and squashed it dead, dead, dead- but they don’t live alone. This was an adult, and they have poison glands. Spectracide in every pot, and all around the house. http://www.insectidentification.org/centipedes.asp
@OldCatLady The house centipede that shows up as the big picture on the link is actually supposed to be great at getting rid of all the other bugs. Based on your description of your bug’s speed, I’d say that’s what it was.
Needless to say, they are one of the freakiest bugs I’ve encountered as well. There needs to be a sci-fi movie about giant house centipedes…
/giphy house centipede
@thejackalope Nope, this was a bark centipede, and it was HUGE. House centipedes look like a spider gone very, very wrong, but exterminators take care of them. Your video above is pretty disturbing, too. http://www.insectidentification.org/centipedes.asp
@thejackalope
Oh, thanks for the warning on that vid.
@thejackalope Someone needs to revoke your giphy privileges.
@sammydog01, @f00l Yeah, I just had to stick with it for the disturbance. Not a house centipede though.
@OldCatLady Those bark centipedes sound pretty nasty too!
/image house centipede gif
@thejackalope Boom! That’s what I was looking for! Up to 2-3 inches long in real life.
And yes, like a spider and a centipede made scary, freaky love at Satan’s swinger’s party.
@thejackalope Bark centipedes can live up to five years. Not the ones on my patio; I just dosed them with Spectracide. I had been content to use my numerous anoles as insect control. The centipede was as large as a few dozen baby anoles, so I suspect they were prey.
@OldCatLady so this might be appropriate then
/giphy house centipede
@thejackalope I really hate you. Nothing personal, you understand.
@thejackalope If I saw that centipede on vacation, vacation over. If I saw that closer to my home, I would be packing for a move to the desert right now.
@PocketBrain for the desert insects?
/image desert insect gif
@thejackalope south pole. Also, your giphy shows a spider, which is an arachnid. Google broken, apparently.
@PocketBrain That is true. Granted, I’ve only seen a handful of mentions of true bugs in this whole thread, which asks what bugs we hate most. With that limit, I think we’d all be limited to bedbugs, stinkbugs, and kissing bugs for our hate…
/image hemiptera
(Title: The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age.)
https://xkcd.com/376
@PlacidPenguin But uh, 1970 was 47 years ago.
@cinoclav
It’s an older comic.
@PlacidPenguin iPhone Easter egg!
http://www.snopes.com/apples-blast-from-the-past/
@PlacidPenguin
My personal brain encoding usually crashes when given pre 1970 dates also.
This is a serious PITA when I am asked to give my birthdate for security reasons (the insurance co always asks for it.)
Typical sequence:
“Rationality BSOD” —> “more than usual gibberish” —> “profuse apologies” —> “lame attempt to accomplish something” —> “dinosaur jokes”.
@PlacidPenguin Don’t you just love the Random button? Such an easy way to waste time.
It’s gnat season here. They look like smoke in places. I would be thrilled if I never accidentally inhaled another gnat as long as I lived.
@sammydog01
What’s wrong with lots of goats? (Note to self: Don’t ping @TaRDy or @Lotsofgoats.)
Oh wait… You said gnats.
Want bug spray or fly ribbons?
@sammydog01 @PlacidPenguin I despise gnats! I once (or twice?) had one go INTO my ear and buzzed around for a while until I had to drown the thing. Very annoying for golf as well!
Mosquitoes, flies, roaches, carpet beetles in that order. Mosquitoes are the only animal species I’d wish into extinction (other than humans), but the other three had better not catch me on a bad day. There are other bugs I don’t care for (ticks almost made the list) but living in the desert the bug population is never too bad, although it can be pretty unfriendly (scorpion, centipede, black widow, brown recluse, assassin bug, child of the earth).
hantavirus
I think deer ticks are my worst enemy. They carry Lyme and are so very tiny and hard to spot. My dogs have thick hair and it’s not easy doing a tick check on them. One of them had Lyme disease a few years ago and now he carries the markers. Vet has to do the more expensive test to make sure he doesn’t have it again rather than testing positive for the markers. Thankfully I haven’t gotten it yet.
/image deer tick
@looseneck
Ate you in the NE?
@looseneck Does your dog pick them up at home or out in the world? If at home, have you tried diotomaceous earth?
@f00l Oh my god they eat people?
@f00l Yes - NJ. Even if I don’t go in the woods, I’ll still bring home ticks. The regular ones I don’t worry about since they are pretty easy to spot or feel. I picked one up at my Mom’s doctor’s office
@moondrake We don’t have a yard right now, but when we did, my husband sprayed something and kept most bugs out of the yard. I don’t take pups out in the woods for that reason alone even though they would love to go for a romp.
I spray diatomaceous earth on my potato plants to keep potato beetles away. Never tried it for ticks.
@sammydog01
By “they”, do you mean deer ticks?
They bite people. You can get Lyme disease that way. It’s not great fun.
I think the infected ticks are more common in the NE?
They’re tiny, and hard to spot when they’re on a human or animal. Real PITA.
There are other nasty disease carrying insects for other areas.
The outdoors can give you hantavirus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and stuff.
@looseneck For your home at least you could use diotomaceous earth. Some people even rub it into their pets’ coats to help protect them. I personally haven’t used it as it’s too dry here for fleas and ticks are rare in the higher elevation, more desert part of the city where I live (they are common in the lower lying, greener valleys). But I have heard great things about DE from people in green parts of the country. It’s natural and safe.
http://www.absorbentproductsltd.com/diatomaceous-earth-for-fleas.html
10lbs food grade DE free shipping $22
@f00l (Take a close look at your post.)
@moondrake We use Frontline. Doggie occasionally has a tick in his fur but never embedded.
@f00l Just down the road in NM you can get bubonic plague from them. My ex sister in law contracted the Black Death from a tick bite while camping.
@sammydog01
; )
Another win.
@moondrake
The plague. That must have been pure joy.
Sorry to hear.
@sammydog01 I use it year-round now. I’ve seen ticks fall down dead so I’m assuming it works.
I need Frontline for people
Spraying myself with bug repellent would work but I think it’s poisonous for dogs and Shadow likes to ‘clean’ me.
Hatred for:
Mosquitos.
Fleas.
Fireants.
Ticks.
Africanized bees (a few local deaths).
Chiggers.
Bedbugs (have never encountered any tho).
Horseflies.
Don’t care for:
Regular bees, wasps, yellowjackets, etc, and any other flying stinging assholes.
The regular bees are fine to have around, they just need to not sting me.
Roaches and palmetto bugs are way gross, but also way down the list. If I lived in an infested place, I’d have to move, tho. Yuck.
Are we counting spiders? I hate the poisonous ones.
Hatred categories:
Anything that bites.
Anything that stings.
Anything in the house.
Anything that gets in my face.
Anything that makes me jump in fear or disgust.
Anything that’s extra scary.
Anything that gets into shoes or clothing, or other fabrics.
Anything that destroys plants when people want the plant not to be destroyed.
I like daddy-long-legs spiders.
When I was a little kid, I thought the outdoors was supposed to be “pretty”.
Uh huh. Not so much, after I discovered ticks.
@f00l
Hmmm…
@f00l We had an infestation of tiger mosquitoes a couple years ago. Couldn’t step outside without getting a nasty and painful bite but the itch only lasts about 20 minutes. Apparently they have a a very small range. I’ve become vigilant about standing water and I haven’t seen any since that one summer.
Never encountered bed bugs or roaches. I think I live on a centipede nest. I leave them alone and they eat anything that comes in the house. I haven’t ever seen a spider here.
@looseneck My adolescent Great Dane like to lay jyst inside the French doors when I have them open and eat incoming flies. She probably eats 5-10 an hour. Any she misses are taken care of by the daddy longlegs I allow to live in various corners of the house. Their webs are very annoying, but they keep out other insect predators and eat mosquitoes, flies, and other pests.
@moondrake
I discovered I like Daddy-Long-Legs at summer camp.
The camp encouraged them to live in all the no a/c places, which was about everyplace you ever saw as a kid.
Maybe that’s why the camp had a minimum of other bug problems in the mowed areas.
The Zika PSA’s have been going on for a month or so, here.
Are those year-round in Fl?
@f00l Just in flamingo and the 10000 islands, everywhere else they seem to die off after the first frost.
Ticks are taking over in VT. If I step off of our mowed lawn, I often end up with a tick on me. They are in the fields, on school playgrounds, etc. I have to check myself for ticks every day. It’s not a pretty sight. I have tickphobia now.
@sligett gives you a good reason to sparkup a doobie. Zika and lyme preventive marijuana.
@cranky1950 Interesting, but I don’t think I want my dog to take up smoking.
@sligett Getting ticks off the dog was the only time I ever lit up cigarettes. So cool the way they shrivel up.
For me it’s definitely yellowjackets. Repeat stingers. As territorial and defensive as any other wasp (late in the season even grumpier than most), but they put their homes underground so you have no idea you’re disturbing them until they all decide to attack. Like nature’s angry ninjas.
Ants.
Tiny black ants that don’t care about people food, I never know what they’re after, they just wander around.
Ants coming out of the baseboards, ceiling light fixtures, plug receptacles. This year, they’re even trying to invade my car in the carport!
Maybe I should be glad they’re letting me live in their house.
Does anyone remember that marching ant font in early MSWord?
@KDemo We’ve got them really bad in the house. Good thing I’m blind without my contacts. Woke up one night and the brown bathtub was black with ants. I pretended they weren’t there and let my husband shower with them
PS I don’t believe in spraying poison. Doesn’t help anyway.
@looseneck - My sympathies.
@KDemo You are evil incarnate.
@KDemo Nope, not visiting this thread again.
@KDemo
One year we had ladybugs which pretty much did something similar (or so I would imagine).
@PlacidPenguin
/image ladybug
@KDemo have you tried Terro? It’s a bait station. We swear by them here.
/image terro bait station
Also there’s powder you can put in all your outlets.
/image hot shot boric acid
@RiotDemon I use Terro too- you have to be patient because it kills them slowly enough so they take it back to their little ant buddies. A day or two and no ants. Plus it’s not toxic to mammals so you can put it in your kitchen and around your pets.
@f00l
Had a better screenshot, but it vanished.
@sammydog01 between Terro and Home Defense spray, I haven’t seen ants in about a year. Knock on wood.
@RiotDemon @sammydog01 - Yes, I went through 7 or more bottles of the Terro liquid last year, They feast for a few days, then slack off, then come back. I noticed they’re smaller when they come back, maybe they are new ants. There seem to be never-ending generations.
Thanks though.
Time to make popcorn and hang the bug zapper. The best in backyard entertainment.
@cranky1950
Any chance you could set up a webcam and stream it?
@PlacidPenguin eventually, got enough of those damn foscams
@cranky1950
My fav part is the sound effect.
I’m OK with most spiders, though I’d prefer if they were in some other part of the house than my bedroom. Most native bees are fine. Aphids aren’t great. Boxelder bugs are only mildly annoying. Tree Lice aren’t terrible.
Earwigs. I hate earwigs. I know they’re mostly harmless, but…
Also hate Ants and Yellow Jackets. Mosquitoes can all DIAF.
Mosquitoes. They all need to go away. Enemy #1.
Yellowjackets. They also ruin a nice picnic outside.
Deer flies. They bite! They suck!
Any spider in the house. They all die.
@daveinwarsh Burgess fogger!
kerosene and a little malathon and fog the shit out of the shrubs and under any decks
@daveinwarsh Deer flies and horse flies were a favorite part of pool time when I was younger. 2 or 3 of us would all grab noodles (big foam kind, not floppy pasta) as soon as they showed up at the pool and we’d spend the next 3 minutes trying to swat them to oblivion!
Have so many fruit flies
so many goddamn fruit flies
My mother won’t kill them though because we’re a brahmin (Hindu) family and I found a dead one in some food i left in the fridge for a couple hours
I’m scared to eat anything here anymore
@legendornothing so suck them up in the vacuum cleaner using using the crevice tool or something just the hose with nothing on the end. Then immediately take the vac outside and liberate them (either by opening the dirt container or just let it sit there for a while and they will liberate themselves - yup found that out the hard way indoors LOL).
@legendornothing
Can I ask about traditional Brahmin/Hindu approaches to the problems of bugs?
What about a bug that is dangerous and bites or stings, or transmits disease? How do you handle those?
Do you consume any animal-sourced foods or products? Eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc?
If this is too personal, and you don’t wish to go into it, please don’t.
@legendornothing I’d trap them when no one is looking…
I actually catch & get rid of tons of damn fruit flies in the house. We bring in tomatoes & other stuff from the garden to fully ripen in late summer & the flies follow. At least they don’t bite!
I roll a piece of paper into a funnel shape, put over a jar with wine, wine vinegar or juice in it. Add a drop of soap. Put funnel on top, leave in corner of the room. Watch it fill up!
@f00l we just don’t kill innocent beings
Fruit flies qualify as this because they don’t actually affect any food in our house
We do eat animal product (we’re just vegetarian), but my mom won’t allow eggs into the house because she hates the smell
@daveinwarsh I think that’s actually a great idea, I’ll keep one under my table starting today. I left an orange peel on my desk earlier this week and I woke up to a hundred odd flies that were all over my room
@legendornothing
I did this bottle thing once - trapped flies - with a 2 liter coke bottle with fruit juice in it, and a funnel, as shown. A friend used to use a huge pickle bottle.
Worked pretty well.
I do try to not leave out in the open anything that attracts flies tho, or at least to cover it with cloth or a plastic bag.
@legendornothing the trap will kill them. Eventually they can’t figure out how to get out, and they fall into the liquid and die.
@legendornothing Fruit flies also breed in the soil around potted plants.
@RiotDemon If you only add a piece of fruit to the jar (no juice or liquid), you could release the innocent fruit flies outside every once in a while, I assume…
@daveinwarsh
Or put something in the jar the fruit flies can land on. Then take the jar outside once a day to empty it.
I hate any bug that is indoors (and this dump has German cockroaches and the other day I caught an American one on the sticky paper; also flour moths). Outside I hate them if they bite, sting or crawl all over me, my food, or where I am trying to do something - then they are on my hit list. Otherwise they are allowed to live because other critters eat them and need food too.
@Kidsandliz This complex was infested when I moved here and never seemed to get rid of the roaches, then in march they had terminiix come in and eradicate the roaches and they did something to kill the pills, and I have not seen a roach around here since.
@cranky1950 Well theoretically the bug people come 2x a month (1x for each apartment).Things started to disappear once I started buying my own roach stuff. Prior to that all that would happen is the sticky sheets would fill but didn’t look like a dent was being made. Have gotten rid of most of the flour moths but can’t seem to get rid of the last few.
I keep these on hand all summer long.
@thismyusername these are more popular here:
/image mosquito dunks
@RiotDemon I use those! For small areas, I break one into quarters.
@heartny
Reminds me of this:
@heartny
/image gif limbo spider
@RiotDemon
Fun game. (Got it originally through the Play Store for $0.99.)
(Then I got another copy through last month’s Mobile Humble Bundle.)
@heartny After one bit me on my arm in my sleep with a festering wound that remained for many months, ALL SPIDERS IN THE HOUSE NOW DIE. I have declared war.
@PlacidPenguin I got the pc version for free I think in a sale that someone posted here. Had played part of it on PS3 when I had access to someone else’s account.
Still haven’t finished it… But I think I’m farther along than I was on the PS3.
@RiotDemon
On June 21st 2016, you said you hadn’t finished it.
In honor of the (almost) year, you should probably finish the game.
@PlacidPenguin geez, I’m slow!
After almost no winter…the winner of my hatred? Fleas!! And not just the big biting ones you expect. This year we are covered in microscopic fleas that have a bite bigger than their big sisters!
Cats are miserable. Son and daughter want to move to Alaska. And me? 3 bombing sessions, 2 gallons of various pyrethrin blends, multiple boxes of borax, 2 pounds of diatomatious (sp?) earth - inside and under the house…and we are barely keeping ahead of the infestation.
/giphy flea hell
@sarahsandroid I remember the last time I was getting that flea stuff you put on your dog, my vet said the fleas are becoming resistant to the chemicals. They actually sent me home with pills as well.
Guess it is getting worse.
@sarahsandroid I have indoor cats but it’s still a struggle. These do a great job, and they’re not toxic. You can look at them in the morning and gloat over how many carcasses you’ve collected overnight. I usually change the sticky part every month at least. The light bulbs stay on 24/7, and replacements are at any hardware store. Victor M230A Ultimate Flea Trap Safer https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000668Z96/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_E3SnzbE1WZGGT via @amazon
@RiotDemon Try DE. It isn’t a poison, it’s safe enough to eat. The tiny diatoms are scratchy on a minute level. The bugs pass thru the powder and get scratches on the waxy surface of their bodies which allows moisture to escape and they dehydrate.
@moondrake thanks. Luckily no fleas in years now. I don’t even give my dog the preventative anymore.
@RiotDemon Yeah, we basically don’t have fleas as they require 50%+ humidity to live and we average about 12%. In fact, I am currently shopping for a vet and the one I test visited that gave me the hard sell on flea preventive claiming we are currently having an epidemic of them got a pass. They also gave me a hard sell on using veterinary glucosamine rather than the human type. I went home and researched and the only difference is that veterinary glucosamine has a bit of citric acid added to it to increase bio availability. I grind their tablets into their food, which has citric acid in it. Getting an up sell on every day items from a vet is a big red flag as it suggests a high likelihood of extra tests and meds when the pets are sick and you are not in a position to make informed decisions.
You guys…YOU GUYS!!! Reading about roaches and centipedes is one thing, but did you have to post the GIFs???
UGH! :::shudder:::
@LaVikinga You’re welcome!
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Stink Bugs! Started getting them here in Michigan a couple of years ago and they are getting worse every year. They’re one thing I wish they hadn’t imported from China!!
I have these little dinky bugs, I’m not positive what they are, though at one point I think I made a guess that they were some kind of grain beetle. But, they don’t eat my grain. That would be ok, I have lots of grain, guys! Instead they find the most expensive and cutest top I own and munch a few holes into that, then move on to the next cutest and/or expensivist, chompety chomp that one, repeat, repeat, repeat. Dang ol’ blouse bugs.
@brhfl Could be carpet beetles? You need to get rid of them. Google “How to Get Rid of Carpet Beetles”.
Good luck
@daveinwarsh I can only say good luck with that. The only methods the internet seems to offer is to pack everything you own that is made out of fabric into plastic bags, and pull up any carpet you may have. Not much solution for things like curtains and bedding. It’s like pretty much nothing gets rid of these suckers. I’ve had an infestation for years, and they don’t really do much in the way of harm, except damaging clothes, but they are quite a nuisance.
@moondrake I’ve (luckily) never had those bugs, though we had clothing moths for a while.
It made me wonder what those bugs were mentioned & looked them up. They appear to be difficult to get rid of.
I hate bugs. They are so nasty. I had ants problem. I used many methods to get rid of them:pure lemon juice, mint oil, piece of chalk and even Terro ant baits. As a result I hired a few guys from {the internet} service in New Zealand. I hate summer time 'cause of bugs invasion.
{ಠ_ಠ}
There is another kind of “bug” I hate. That would be the kind that lives at home, gets bored and then bugs you that there is nothing to do. The best kind of repellent for that kind of bug is offer up chores to do. Then those kind of bugs scatter, escaping the house as quickly as possible. Slamming, and then locking, the door after them is a fairly reasonable deterrent as long as your phone is off and no whacko calls DHS because they are now free range bugs.
@Kidsandliz The bathtubs and toilets always need cleaning.
@OldCatLady or in my house cat dirt boxes, scooped, washed, dried, re-filled, floor under them cleaned… oh how my daughter hated that. LOL
@Kidsandliz
Uh… I’m not familiar with that term.
@PlacidPenguin What? You have a house full of servants? LOL
@Kidsandliz
Is it time yet for me to nudge you again about the Mehxchange?
@PlacidPenguin I think now this would overlap the next fuko… isn’t there usually one around July 1?
@Kidsandliz
The second week of July usually, though I’m worried because July 8th is a Saturday, and I won’t be here at midnight then (obviously).
I mean, 2015 had the Fuko on July 9th, so there’s a chance that it won’t be the 8th. Maybe the 10th. That would be a nice date. The 11th would have been better, but that’s a Tuesday…
@PlacidPenguin That is why I am hesitating… I think our reveal would overlap the fuko shipping thread…
@Kidsandliz
You’ll have the same issue in September/October.
And then people are busy in November…
And you can’t do it December/January for the same reason you can’t do it now.
@PlacidPenguin so when then to do it?
@Kidsandliz
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just did the weekly lawn-mowing on Sunday, which means I walked around the house with a carton of Amdro to feed the fire ants. I am careful not to poison indigenous species. I can tell by the shape of their mounds.
@PocketBrain Good ol’ fire ants! My first encounter with these was with an aged great aunt in AL I only met once. As a 8-9 year old, I remember very distinctly walking with her around the yard, poking holes in the mound and then pouring kerosene in the holes. Not eco-friendly at all, but it worked!
Fast forward to post high-school, working with a landscaping crew. Fire ants have made it to TN by now, and we had a massive mound in a flower bed we were supposed to be working in. I told the previous story. So, my redneck co-workers poured probably 1/2 a gallon of gas into the mound… and then decided that lighting it was an even better idea. Sounded like a small bomb went off in the ground, as the fumes had been able to seep throughout the whole nest.
TL;DR–Fire ants faced trial by fire that became a fire bomb.
@thejackalope
I knew someone who was trying to do all the fire ants in a pasture. On a small farm somewhere SW of Austin.
She went around pouring gasoline into the mounds.
Then she lit a match, intending to go mound to mound. She lit the first mound.
The other mounds went up too. Quite spectacular and set small parts of the pasture to smouldering. She called the fire dept, but she was way out in the boonies and alone. She wound up smothering the bad areas with wet blankets and wet horse blankets until the fire dept showed up to take care of it.
The fire head of the fire department crew gave her quite a lecture.
@f00l Knew her well, did you?
@OldCatLady
Not that well. Co-worker once. On the long list of equally stupid things I have done, that particular item does not appear.
@f00l When I was a teen in Aubrey we had to move all the people, pets and livestock off the property overnight and they came in planes and dusted the whole area for fire ants. We were worried about our stock pond and the grass the horses ate, but they assured us it would be all right and it was. Moving 17 horses, one dog and a family of 7 away overnight was quite a production. There was no catching the semi feral farm cats, so we just lured them into the grain shed and locked them in.
@f00l That seriously had me rolling! Like she expected a peaceful walk through the pasture lighting large candles, but ended up frantically playing a game of fiery whack-a-mole!
/giphy fiery whack-a-mole
Mosquitoes. Hands down. Hate the little sons of bitches.
My latest effort in insect deterrents is lining my deck with mosquito repelling plants. Citronella, rosemary, basil, and oregano. I tried mint, but the sun was too strong for it. Someone with a green thumb that I know told me I needed to move it to the shade. But so far everybody else seems to be doing okay and it’s been up over 100 all week this week. I got lucky today and found the 4-inch $8 pots of herbs at Home Depot on sale for $4 because they were all overgrown and trying to climb out of their pots, so I splurged.
@moondrake Wow, good deal. You might want to add a couple of pots of rose geranium. The flowers are minimal, but its foliage is gorgeous, cold hardy, drought hardy, and nothing eats it. It also smells lovely, and is a good insect repellent. It will grow as large as you let it. Full sun all day is fine.
@OldCatLady thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it but I don’t look very much at flowers. Not many of them can take the full sun here.
@moondrake And the best of all is beautyberry, a native shrub. It has lovely purple berries in fall and winter, and is super easy to grow and propagate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3059459/
@OldCatLady Pretty. But it takes a lot of water. I laughed when I read an inch a week. We can go months without rain, then it’s flash floods for an hour and gone again. We rarely get the kind of nourishing rain plants need. In fact it’s illegal to plant mulberry trees here, due to their water needs. In the first half of the century mulberries were the main shade tree in neighborhoods but these older trees are aging out and dying and we’re not allowed to replant them. I’m still mourning the loss of my big mulberry tree that shaded my whole yard, we had a catastrophic freeze about 8 years ago that killed lots of cactus, palms. mulberries and lemon trees. I don’t know whether these bushes would fall into the same category as far as being legal to plant. What I’m reading says these are large bushes 6 or 8 feet tall, do they make good container patio plants?
@moondrake My beautyberry shrubs live happily on minimal water in large (20") patio pots; they stay about 4 feet tall. The only other things that survive that western exposure are rosemary and African daisies. I can go a month without watering them, and in fact in August I usually do. In winter the leaves fall, but the sprays of berries stay until birds get hungry enough to eat them; apparently they’re not first choice. Freezing doesn’t bother them at all. Actually I dug mine out of the yard near a long-gone house, probably from the 1900s.
@OldCatLady Cool. If I can find one I’ll try it in a pot on the deck. The deck faces south, gets sun from both east and west. Fortunately I enjoy long twilight here as the sun drops behind the mountain at the end of the street about 2 hours before actual sunset. The berries sticking around after the leaves are gone sounds like my pistache tree, the only tree that I have successfully planted. Wow big thunder just now hope we get some rain. It’s been raining in other parts of the city but it’s skipped my neighborhood entirely. I put 8 bags of mulch down in my teeny little backyard and have been watering it every other day in an effort to keep the romping and wrestling dogs from turning the yard entirely back to sand. To my surprise this week baby grass started poking its head through. If I could get some of this rain, maybe it would actually grow.
@moondrake I’ve read a few articles that say the citronella plant does nothing. Here’s one:
http://www.gardenmyths.com/citronella-plant-keeps-mosquitoes-away/
Let us know if the herbs help?
@RiotDemon So far I have been lucky and mosquitoes have not put in an appearance at my place. Other people I know are complaining about them but they seem to be sticking to the lower lying, greener areas for now. The article was disheartening and recommending deet is kind of a moot point. Deet is perfectly fine for a walk in the woods, but for trying to live your life in your home and in your own yard all day and night all summer it’s not a practical solution.