I love to watch House Hunters and look at decorating magazines and stuff, and it’s very picturesque to see people sitting out on their deck at sundown with their firepit going, holding their frosty glasses, and making artsy conversation. Sometimes the doors to the deck are standing wide open so the indoors can be outdoors and vice versa.
What about bugs?
Not just bugs, but mosquitos. At my house, grasshoppers by the thousands (although they aren’t all that active at night). At night on the outside of my house where there are lights are dozens of geckos and other lizards. Even though I don’t leave my doors open and I have screens on my windows, there are always plenty of generic bugs in my house. Right now it’s some kind of long beetle-ish thing. One year, every morning it was millipedes, dozens and dozens of them. Even had a centipedeonce. They are quite scary looking. Then there are the spiders. And scorpions. I’ve had a snake or two in the house also.
I used to leave my back door standing open so my dogs could come in and out at will, and one day I was sitting at the computer and saw what looked like the world’s biggest moth circling the dining room light fixture. It was a bat. I also had a bat in my bedroom a while back and had to get rabies shots.
I have a girlfriend who lives in the country (like I do) and doesn’t have screens on her windows. I don’t understand how she is comfortable with this.
What are y’all’s experiences with indoor-outdoor living and critters?
I’m not scared of anything, so I don’t give bugs much thought. I avoid going out on hot, damp mosquito-y nights, but I find most insects fascinating so I’m more likely to seek them out than the reverse.
One of the things I truly love about Southern California is that you can go camping or sit out on your deck in many areas and not have to concern yourself at all with mosquitos (or gnats or black flies or deer flies or…)
However, I have had other critters visit. A large alligator lizard fell on my head once, when I stepped out our front door. My theory is that he got chased up the wall by a cat and was resting and collecting his wits on the the top of the screen door.
Biggest problem was flying bugs – mainly swarms of little tiny moths. But other flying buggies too.
At night, to keep them from buzzing and fluttering around me as I lay in bed, I kept a light on in the living room area. So they all went there instead. That was pretty much all the bug management I really needed.
ETA: I suppose I should mention, that I really hate bug sprays, which I think are probably poisonous to me too. Or at least stinky and obnoxious anyway. Not that I care to have bugs around, but I’ve always felt that I prefer having the bugs over having bug poisons all over the everything.
