What the hell is goin’ on here?! Did I put up a sign that says all bugs welcome inside? NO. I don’t think so. :mad:
I found a centipede, or was it a millipede, taking a shower with me today. Now there are daddy long legs running around here on the floor. Just the other day a raccoon climbed up three floors to get to my balcony, and today I saw some other critter–I don’t know what the hell it was–chomping on grass in my backyard. Why are these critters hanging around my house? I don’t have any food for any of them. I don’t have any food for the centipedes, millipedes, or spiders for that matter. Hell, I don’t even know what it is that they like to eat.
They need to go somewhere else because they are not welcome here. I pay the bills around here so I get to decide who stays and who goes. I don’t care if Shnuggy Kitty is having a blast chasing and stalking the bugs and hissing at the raccoons and things.
Good lord. You don’t think they’re after Shnuggy Kitty, do you? Are centipedes, millipedes, or daddy long legs poisonous to kitties?
I’m scared, y’all. I don’t know what else I’m going to find creepin’ around here.
[celestina high tailin’ it to the store to get some Raid]
[giggle] Yea. I must admit that some of my critters at least do try to keep clean. Strange that. I don’t have any rules posted anywhere about critters being clean in my house. It’s a mystery I’m not sure I’ll ever solve. Even Shnuggy Kitty is constantly at it grooming herself.
LOL! Yes. It was far smaller than a cow. I don’t know if it was a beaver, a badger, a bear cub, another one of them damn raccoons, or something else I just don’t have a name for. [shudder]
What’s the matter with Shnuggy Kitty’s name. She likes it just fine, and so do I because she’s soft and warm to shnuggle up with.
At least you don’t have mice :eek:
Right now they’ve started to make a meal of our electrical cables and my monitors flickering.
Not to mention crawling around in the wall right near my head. I can hear them plotting against us as I lie awake at night.
And we can’t get it fixed up till Monday… so if I don’t come back, they started a fire and I am now dead.
Q.E.D., well I do let the non-poisounous spiders stay in my house because you’re right, they do eat up the other bugs. But, I’m not sure if daddy long legs are poisonous or not, and the ones that are running around here have got attitude problems. They actin’ like they own this place or something.
** Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor**, that’s a good question. Last time I looked, no it ain’t floodin’ here. So bugs decide to come inside when there’s a flood, huh? Well, you learn somethin’ new everyday.
** Go You Big Red Fire Engine **, I like your name. Poor thing. I do empathize with you and your mouse problem. I used to have a mouse scurrying around in my house, but I’m not sure how I scared him away. I’m just happy to say he’s long gone and good riddance. I certainly do hope that your mouse problem clears up soon and that they don’t burn your house down.
I’ve got Spiders I’d rather have the other bugs thank you. The expert who built that Hobo site left a interveiw on a radio station, walked across a parking lot, and vanished 5 years ago. I think the spiders got him.
Well, there are not lot of millipedes in the U.S. (note that each body segment has four legs–two per side), but they are harmless except for an ability to give off a stinky substance if they are handled too much. (I presume you did not handle it.)
There are a few centipedes in the U.S., mostly in the South and West, and they can bite, although such bites are rare.
Silverfish like moist, dark areas, so they are liable to hang out near drains. They eat foodstuffs, but are strictly vegetarian, so you are safe from them (aside from the shriek factor).
My best bet for your critter grazing on the lawn would be a groundhog or woodchuck. Aside from burrowing into places you might want them to leave alone, they are not a threat to you or yours. (Unlike some “mostly” vegetarian critters, I don’t think they’ll even eat the occasional millipede, centipede, or silverfish if they go on a protein binge.)
When I saw that title, my first thought was, “If you don’t want your house invaded by small crawling things, don’t breed” but then I read the OP.
I’ve heard (though I don’t recall where) that daddy long legs are some of the most poisonous spiders in existence BUT their jaws are too small to allow them to bite humans or most animals. Daddy long legs feed on other spiders, so at least if you have them, you might not have any other spiders around!
Truthfully though, they have always creeped me out and I really hate the buggers. Silverfish freak me out too. (Thanks Tom! Now I’ll be worrying about those stupid things all night long.
Basically, what I said in my first statement has been disputed as a myth. The poison of the spider is very strong, but its potential effect on humans and other mammals is undetermined.
The daddy-long-legs with which I am most familiar is the harvestman mentioned first in Jaade’s link. Contrary to the linked article, I see them all over the place. (On the other hand, both my mom’s house and my yard have a lot of leaf litter, so they may be more common where I have lived than in other places.) We used to love to play with them, as kids, because we knew that they would not bite and they always seemed really gentle (to say nothing of fragile). Getting one to walk across our arms and hands was a periodic childhood passtime. I cannot imagine being bothered by such critters.
I live in Brisbane so in my house we’ve got lizards everywhere (big and small), possums, bush turkeys, ants, roaches, spiders (again, big and small), centipedes, moths, and for a few months a year giant hissing rhinoceros beetles. And this is all in the middle of a fair sized city!
Fortunately we’ve got a large cat that takes care of most of the big spiders (not all unfortunately), any mice or rats, the occasional snake and has a liking for possum that keeps live ones away from our house.
I used to live in Brissy, but never (thank God) saw anything more than a tiny spider in our apartment. We were on the seventh floor though, so maybe that helped. The thought of giant hissing rhinoceros beetles inhabiting my house is enough to send me screaming into the night. Except for the fact that if those are IN the house, God only knows what’s outside.
We don’t usually see too much in the way of bugs here, 'cuz it’s so dry. We get lots of spiders, though. And once a year the miller moths roll into town on their way to Cali… (detouring under every piece of dirty laundry they can find)
Srangely, though, it’s rained here about every day for the past week, and I have found several earwigs, and even more spiders wandering the house… I hate earwigs! Maybe lots of water does drive out the creepy crawlies.
It hasn’t rained here in weeks, and we’ve been invaded by pincher-bugs. They seem to show up everywhere - in my bedroom, in the bathroom, in the kitchen… shudders I don’t like bugs.
emekthian, I quite agree. What have we come to when we can’t even take showers without the prying, voyeuristic eyes of insects!
tomndebb, thank you for your as always helpful post. Though I must admit when I clicked onto those pictures of bugs, I almost fainted. [shudder] I hate bugs! Why is it that looking at pictures of bugs makes me think they’re crawlin’ all over me. But, you’re welcome to continue to play with bugs all you like and let them run all over you.
I think you’re right. I actually got a good look at that grass-chompin’ critter the other day, and it is a woodchuck. He’s kind of cute, when he’s not so close to my house. He’d make an ideal lawnmower if he’d just learn to chop the whole lawn uniformly. Now as to this breedin’ thought, surely you didn’t first assume I meant human kids crawlin’ around here. :eek: Perish the thought. Jaade, I thought the same as you about daddy longlegs. Thank you for postin’ that website, though I got the willies lookin’ at them pictures of spiders. I tell you. Dopers are so reliable for educatin’ folks. Silentgoldfish, goodness, y’all are overrun down there in Brisbane. I don’t know what’s the matter with Shnuggy Kitty. She’s lazy I guess. She just looks at the bugs and tries battin’ at them a little bit, but that’s it. I guess she got burned one time when she tried to eat a beetle or something. I saw her lick it and then spit and move away in disgust. Maybe now she’s scared the bugs will all taste nasty or something. Anyway, she’s not much help with keepin’ the bugs at bay. Phèdre nó Delaunay, I know what you mean. I really don’t want to know what’s crawlin’ and creepin’ outside. [shudder]
I may regret askin’ this question, but emacularius, what are earwigs and teleute12, what are pincher-bugs? I do hope your bug problems clear up soon.
