Not sure where that puts doodle bugs.
Doodle bugs are sketchy.
Tee hee. Very clever!
I think it is mostly people thinking they are creepy-looking. The real issue is that they eat your stuff. The eat glues (like the bindings of your books or holding up your wallpaper), carpets, clothes, paper and certain foodstuffs that contain starch/sugar. Basically they like cellulose and other complex sugars. Sugars in the broad sense are in just about everything we use, including a lot of manufactured products like adhesives. They’re otherwise pretty harmless unless you develop an allergy - no biting, no disease.
I basically have two kinds of bugs in my place. Silverfish and the house centipedes that eat them. I do crush silverfish when I see them, I always leave the centipedes alone because they’re helping me out.
Unfortunately the good free AI video options are going away, so you’ll have to settle for photographic evidence.
A wolf spider and a house centipede facing off in a bathroom shower. A Celt is standing by, horrified.
ChatGPT
Copilot
Gemini
That’s clearly not a @TruCelt.
Doodlebops are worse.
Oh, the humanity!
I used to be phobic of house centipedes, until a close encounter similar to what @Beckdawrek described abruptly and completely broke the phobia (that’s a known thing that can happen with phobias).
Silverfish, though, have never inspired any particular feelings in me. I guess that, in the abstract, I’d prefer them gone, but I don’t find them any more gross or repulsive than, say, house flies.
But spiders? Mom taught me well, to actively like them.
I remember when Sam Neill posted a picture of an enormous spider next to his toilet and wrote “decisions, decisions…”
Me, I’d move to a different continent maybe.
Of course…
I’ve spent nearly all of my adult life living in the tropics, which is another way of saying, “I’ve spent most of my adult life in close proximity to insects, lizards, and fungi that can be … disturbing.”
You get used to it. Mostly.
One of my favorite things about Hawai’i is “house lizards” 
. But then I’m fond of lizards, even if they are all non-native species out your way.
I have a very simple view of insects, with the exception of honeybees, which I’m prepared to regard as beneficial until and unless I get stung by one, and then to hell with them!
My view is well exemplified by Dave Barry, who shuns entomologists and defines “insect” simply as any creature “with way more legs than necessary”, to which I might add, “and with an alien, disgusting appearance, especially under magnification”.
Thus, a spider is an “insect” despite the so-called “scientific” claims of entomologists, and deserves to be stepped on and flushed down the toilet along with all its other many-legged brethren.
Again, I am a simple pup who regards insects as creepy-crawly things with too many legs that can sting you. And many of them can fly, so in addition to ground forces they have an air force, too. My motto is “Raid™ is your friend”, although I much prefer the more ecological fly swatter as the weapon of choice. Much less stinky
Absolutely! The current species of gecko that is prevalent is the Gold Dust Day Gecko. Our house is not particularly well sealed off from the outside (on purpose - it’s for air circulation), so we see them constantly. In fact I am currently reclining on the living room couch, and took a gander around the room to see if I could see any right now. I didn’t, but I easily could have.
Interestingly, these geckos are newish invasives. When we first bought our house here in 2002, the geckos were all boring tan ones. They were kinda gross, because when they laid eggs, they secreted an adhesive to hold them in place. And they really liked laying eggs in furniture. The adhesive was really hard to remove.
Then, the Gold Dust Day Gecko appeared. It ate all the tan geckos. I haven’t seen one of those in several years. It’s a nice change, because the new species is far better behaved, egg-wise: they don’t lay eggs in the house much, and when they do, they eggs are clean, not covered with disgusting goo.
There is now yet another invasive gecko species that is vying for supremacy with the gold dust ones. They have gained a foothold, but the gold dust ones are winning for sure.
It’s quite an education in ecology to live here.
Also, no one minds the gold dusters. Yes, they are invasive. But they don’t carry disease, they aren’t particularly wreaking havoc, and they are just so damn cute. Even websites and organizations devoted to raging against invasives admit that the gold dusters are pretty harmless.
“And over here, weighing in at just under half an ounce, and coming to us from parts unknown, Wolfgang Spider!”
“And his opponent, weighing in at less than a tenth of an ounce, coming to us from the garden, Cent-i-Pete!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this match is scheduled for one fall, and is for the championship of the shower!”
I dunno … have some friends over and start taking bets?
The Gold Dust Day geckos make that cute little chirping/kissing noise, right?
The first time I took my eight year old son to Hawaii, he was fascinated by the geckos and wanted to catch one. He spent some time stalking them around the house and finally managed to grab one by the tail. The tail detached and the gecko ran away, leaving my son holding the squirming tail. He screamed and dropped it, and lost all interest in catching a gecko after that.
Squirmy zombie Gecko tail is almost worse than that *centipede icky wriggling in my palm. I understand the scream from your child. Honestly, I feel it in my back brain.
I wanted to scream for him. In solidarity.
Gah! Here’s hoping he’s not dangerously scarred.
- @Chronos my encounter today didn’t relieve my many leggedy creature phobia. No, in fact it may have increased it. I only turned the light on twice when I got in bed. There’s still hope.
Oh and when I was brushing my teeth glanced out my window and a face was looking at me. Look I’m already nervy tonight.
I saw one big eye wink. Oh, it’s an owl. Big noise when he got enough of being a peeper(heh) and flew off.
Now just what could that portend?
I’ll never sleep tonight.
I love house centipedes. I used to keep one as a lab pet in grad school.
If I find them in the house I put them outside though, as my cats love them too…
our cats seem to love Geckos … or Largartijas (I assume there is a difference - we just get lagartijas) …
the olive drab ones and the Las Vegas variety:
