You know, my favorite thing about this board is that you can get a book recommendation from just about any thread! 
RindaRinda, your first link made me yelp EEEEEK! and roll my chair away from the computer.
I HATE earwigs, centipedes and things that move QUICKLY. Some spiders are okay if they’re small, like those almost see-through green tree spiders that always get in the house. I’ve co-habitated with a handful or two in my day. But if they’re largeish, or I can see fur, they gots to go.
My real fear is of stinging things. Wasps, yellow jackets, etc. Oh MAN I can’t even handle it if one gets in the house. Outside, it’s easier for me to just nonchalantly move away until it moves along. But I still cuss while I’m doing it.
Heh, I used to do this as a child. My folks would often come home to an inverted tupperware bowl in the middle of the living room. Then my mother would kill the roach and hold it up to me by the antennae to show me there was nothing to be afraid of. Gee, thanks, mom. {shudders}
TRUE THAT. i hate wasps, bees, horseflies, roaches, scorpions (yes, there are scoprions in MS) and spiders. even butterflies creep me out
by the way, i have seen a big spider (possibly a banana spider) in a web in the woods behind my house. yes i DID shoot it form 2 inches away with a 20 gauge shotgun.
The HOUSE CENTIPEDE is by far the most disgusting bug I have ever seen!
More links:
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin/housece.html
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2067.html
Well, since Dung Beetle liked my book recommendation, here’s another literary reference:
Funnel-web spiders are Peter Jackson’s nightmare, too…which is why he made a GIGANTIC 10-FOOT one, for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Seen it?
Yep, seen that. I think one of these would be appropriate.
Here in Chicago, it’s house centipedes every spring and summer. I hate them I hate them I hate them. I hate how they love to run toward me. Or suddenly they’re just there on the wall in front of me. I used to be scared of waking up to find a spider on me, but that was before I lived in Chicago, where now I fear waking up to find a centipede on the bed with me. The good thing though is having cats because they are great for dealing with insects. Millipedes and pill bugs are okay. I used to play with pill bugs all the time as a kid. They don’t move so fast and they’re more compact so they don’t bother me.
I’m not fond of earwigs. I think it’s the whole pincer thing.
I also am very bothered by scorpions. I don’t ever want anything to do with them.
And there’s a horrible thing called a solifugae that I saw once on I think it was National Geographic. It’s somewhere in between a scorpion and a spider and apparently it will eat just about anything, and worse, chase it down. It will even bite people just to see if you’re edible. What a nightmare. I pray I never meet one.
I’m glad to know my fear of grasshoppers is not uncommon.
My fears are the following and some have been stated before:
- Appearance. The way the back legs stick up so high bother me
- Random movement. They can fly. They can jump.
- Childhood trauma. Grasshoppers bugged me as a kid and my father tried to “cure” me of it, by chasing me around the house with one.
- The Children’s Illustrated Bible. Had a big illustration of the Plague of Locusts.
I am not scared of bugs. I leave them alone, they usually leave me alone, I’m fine with bugs. Moths, spiders (well, as long as they aren’t the hairy kind), you name it. But those damned flying cockroaches.
My mom insists they aren’t cockroaches, they’re Palmetto bugs. Bullshit. She just dosen’t want to admit there are giant flying cockroaches inside the house. They have breached the perimeter! Sound the penetration klaxon! Alert, alert! And this time of year no amount of work the bug man does will keep them out, because they come in from the outside. Urrrgh.
I try hard to be all brave in front of the male of the species (er, the human species, that is - I don’t care to get personal enough with the roaches to tell the difference) and not squeak or scream or jump on a chair when the roaches appear, but I tell you, it’s a struggle. There’s just something hardwired in me to just be amazingly grossed out by the things. I think it’s the way they move or something. And there’s something extra-awful about them when they’re on the ceiling. I just try very hard to deny the fact that if I see one, there’s gotta be a thousand in the kitchen cabinets eating like kings.
But honestly, how can you people squish the things?! I don’t want ex-cockroach on my floor any more than I wanted the live kind! 
Cockroaches, waterbugs, and spiders but I haven’t seen many centipedes in person except at a small zoo behind glass. Those things are huge.
I’d have to say cockroaches, mainly because of the incident with one about two weeks back.
I was going to sleep at about 2 a.m. and noticed a cockroach crawling across my calendar. I was trying to muster up the courage to squash it into cockroachy oblivion and had readied my copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (It was hardcover, falling apart and I’m sure that JK Rowling would have agreed that the sacrifice was for a good cause.)
Then I noticed that the cockroach had a pair of wings to match its body, and was definitely over the average size for cockroaches. It was probably the heavyweight of cockroaches.
That was when I decided that a giant cockroach crawling around in my room was infinitely preferable to a giant cockroach flying onto my face and crawling on my body because of a failed attempt to kill it, so I sprayed my entire room with bug spray and slept on the couch instead.
Yes, I’m a wimp.
I don’t mind most bugs too much, but when I was in Fiji I was startled by what appeared to be a small helicopter flying towards me at head height. It turned out to be a coconut beetle. The Longest Beetle In The World[sup]TM[/sup], no less. Believe me when I say this sucker was six inches long on the body, with half that again in antennae. :eek: And it was LOUD. When that one copped a shoe, the mess covered most of a table top.
Nothing on this planet is as gross as a spider.
::shudder::
In my youth, I would dispatch them with an aerosol can and a lighter. Now that I’m an adult…I still* want * to.
Taking out bugs with a home-made flame-thrower: I like the way you think, spooje. Have you seen Them ?
This has made me start to wonder, who do people hate spiders so much? They eat all the pesky bugs and most don’t pose any threat to humans. So why do we hate them so much?
Speaking of spiders, there is this big scary looking spider (a smaller version of the big spider from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). Well she has set up her home in my bedroom above the window. She has a big web and seems to catch a lot of little flying bugs (I have my windows open so there are some little flyers about). She is way too big and scary for me to capture…and I would feel bad evicting her. I don’t mind her as long as she stays where she is and doesn’t wander into my territory. So I guess I have a new pet spider. :eek:
This thread has also made me appreciate living in California (where I’ve lived all my life) which appears to be free of all gross, oversized and many biting/stinging insects. I spent a fair amount of time playing in the dirt as a child, and still go camping every year, and the number of June bugs, potato bugs, oversized beetles and centipedes I’ve seen can be counted on both hands. No stinging ants or flies either, in any of the places I’ve been. Never seen a praying mantis or large hairy spider.
At Lake Tahoe they have these inch-long flying beetles that come out at night and crash into your lantern. But that’s about it.
(On the other hand, I’ve never seen a firefly. :sniff:)
We had an albino version of these living in our crawl space at our old house in Virginia. White with a few brown spots. They never bothered me at all, but I know some people thought they were creepy.
For me, ticks are the hands-down ickiest bug I ever have had the displeasure of dealing with. Not only are they disgusting when they plump up with blood, they can carry diseases which are potentially fatal. That is more than enough for me to put them on my #1 grossest-stay-away-from-me-and-my-dogs-forever list.
I don’t much care for wasps or hornets either, but they are more just a pain in the ass (sometimes literally) than anything else.