I stepped in a yellow jacket nest when I was around 8. Something like 50 stings up my legs. Yeeesh, I’m still squicked out by the memory.
When I moved to San Diego, I had set up renting a room from a friend who’d was going to be out of town for a couple of weeks on a gig. He’d converted the, fortunately, detached garage into a studio. When he got back and opened it back up, there was a little crack in the concrete floor with a cockroach crawling out. So he got some Raid and squirted it into the crack. The resulting eruption of cockroaches out of the crack was horrifying. Thousands. I never wet back into that garage.
When I first moved to Georgia, I discovered bug bombs. Roaches haven’t been a squick factor for me since. Although, through not reading the instructions carefully enough, we did kill the fish with that first one(didn’t turn off the airpump)
A lot of bugs don’t bother me. I don’t mind spiders at all, for example.
On there other hand, I’m not a big fan of beetles in general. Cockroaches and ticks both squick me out big time.
The only reason I am alive today is because of nighttime laziness: when I woke up thirsty in the middle of the night and realized that my glass of water was not next to me, but would require me to get up and go get it on the nearby dresser, I decided I wasn’t THAT thirsty and went back to sleep. In the morning light, I saw that the glass of water had a roach floating in it.
Had I taken a sip of water in the dark and imbibed a roach, I’d have had a heart attack and died. Of if I didn’t die, I’d wish I had, because the way it feels to drink in a roach is not a sensation I would like to have eternal knowledge of.
(This has actually happened to me twice, years apart. Second time was a glass of wine, and there were two drunk roaches scrabbling around trying to get out. GAAaaAAAahhHH!!)
Having narrowly avoided death twice, I’ve learned my lesson. The only think I will drink from in the dark now is a closed-up water bottle that I open to take a sip from, then close up again.
Cockroaches definitely, but a bug I deal with more often is house centipedes. Hate those things, too many long creepy legs! They range from tiny to 3 or 4 inches long.
Pinching bugs. Pseudolucanus placidus
Not native to where I now live in Michigan, they were widespread along the Lake Michigan shoreline city where I grew up. Terrifying. One time one crawled in my shoe and got me in the toe.
I once worked with a guy who told this story…He and his wife lived in New Mexico. They’re in bed, early one morning, and she starts screaming. Something bit her or stung her. They get up and they’re looking through the bedding, pulling the sheets off, can’t find anything. Yes there’s a red spot on her but what caused it? “I guess whatever it was, it’s gone. It’s safe now,” he said and went to take his morning shower. He turns on the water, steps in, pulls down his boxers, and THUNK. The scorpion had stung his wife, hidden in his shorts, fell on the tile, and ambled away.
I’m with you on centipedes. In particular thousand leggers (aka the house centipede). Very common in Chicago (where I live).
Sad thing is they are actually beneficial in killing other insects in a home but if I see one…not happy.
Spiders freak me out but I leave them be outside. Inside my place I will have problems. Little ones not so bad but when I lived in Arizona and had a wolf spider in my place I absolutely freaked out.
Thing is, I knew it was (mostly) harmless to me and beneficial overall in killing other creepy crawlies. But it is hard to keep your cool seeing a spider the size of the palm of your hand on the wall next to you. Just no way we are co-existing.
I also found a scorpion in my place in Arizona…kinda big one. Also a big nope. Like a spider on steroids.
I guess most of that is scaring me though.
To be squicked out I guess it is a cockroach. They don’t scare me but I get an “eww” factor few other things give me.
Fuckin’ hell, I just moved to the shoreline! Thanks for the heads up.
I’ve already seen a house centipede for the first time in my life, since coming up here.
However, I’m told cockroaches aren’t as numerous here as in the South, because the winters kill them off.
(If this is not true, do me a solid & leave me to my comforting fantasy.)
Living in Fl, it goes without saying those giant flying roaches are at the top of my list.Calling them the nicer name of “Palmetto Bug” helps not at all.
A close second is grasshoppers. Aside from their destructive nature, the way the long hingeg legs move and those eyes! I can detect a grasshopper in my yard as if I were wearing grasshopper detecting glasses and they immediately get the broom. I don’t generally kill them; just get them to hop over the fence. Ickickickickick.
Spiders and centipedes. No way, not in my house.
I don’t bother them if they are living peacefully outside.
These days I have a “Bug-a-Salt” gun that I keep handy, and it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It looks like a kid’s Nerf gun, but is built of sterner stuff. This weapon shoots salt, like a shotgun, to an effective distance of about a foot. I tested it by shooting my palm, and got quite a sting out of it.
So I run for my “Bug-a-Salt” whenever spiders, flies, or centipedes make an appearance. My wife finds humor in this, but it works. It is especially good when you have spiders in hard-to-reach places, where a shoe can’t go.
We’re pretty used to them now. There is a rubber mallet in every room of the house, and I do mean every room. I smushed one in the bathroom the other nite with the bathroom rubber mallet.I got stung pulling laundry out of the laundry basket, the fucker. Now I pull the laundry out with a landscape grabber like guys cleaning up the parks use. Actually had one in bed one morning, half asleep I felt like a tickling in my hair, grabbed the “tickle” and threw it and the CAME AWAKE FAST AND SCREAMING. That one didn’t get me. We have glue traps down and diatomaceous earth on the thresholds and window sills. They still get in, did you know they can flatten to the size of a credit card?
wait a minute, she said she has a rubber mallet in every room(double checks, yep thats what she said). Purple, I’m tellin ya, there CAN’T be anything more satisfying than smashing a bug…with a HAMMER…INSIDE the house…I’m getting emotional therapy just from the thought😁
Uh, on review that sounds a little creepy or something, but its not meant to be
