Spiders, but that’s just because they’re the only thing that has ever gotten into my house. I’m sure if I had cockroaches, it’d be cockroaches.
I guess I kind of hate skunks more than spiders but only when they spray my dog. My dog got sprayed last year and it took about 9 months for the smell to go away, after almost a dozen separate treatments.
But I could also watch videos of skunks and baby skunks all day long. I don’t even want to look at pictures of spiders!
Other: Snails
Sometimes they’re just everywhere in the garden, EVERYWHERE. They’re so gross!
Cockroaches.
I dream of one day being a skilled genetic engineer, able to create a cockroach capable of feeling terror and dread. Then, when I smash a cockroach against the wall, I can leave it there, and the rest will take the hint and decide to go live in some other apartment.
It’s funny. When I think about it logically, of course it would be worse to have a plague of rats than a plague of cockroaches. They’re much harder to kill, they carry worse diseases, and they bite. But I still vote cockroaches, just based on my reflexive “ick” response.
Bedbugs. Just ewwww.
It’s funny - I voted cockroach as well, but I didn’t expect such an overwhelming amount of people to. I wonder why they freak us out so much. I mean, I bet a large percentage of people grossed out by cockroaches would be fine with another kind of beetle - so why that particular breed? They don’t even do anything bad - sure, they get in food, which can waste a lot, but in comparison to some of the others (especially rats, who way back when killed one half of Europe), they’re positively friendly. Maybe it’s how people are raised, with cockroaches symbolizing dirtiness and laziness. Whatever it is, yeah, they’re horrible.
The village I used to live in had invasions of Asian lady beetles. Hundreds and thousands of them, in everything, including the detergent (I switched to liquid just because of this).
But the fleas were worse. One year, everyone in town had fleas in the house. I don’t know what was going on, but it was flea paradise. Even though I gave my cats the monthly flea stuff, there were fleas everywhere. You couldn’t walk across the floor without getting fleas on your feet and ankles. That was misery.
Possums. Loathsome bloody things.
How ubiquitous are roaches in NYC? As so many people in the city live in apartment buildings there, are they literally everywhere? Do exterminators just kinda beat them back for awhile and they keep coming back, or are there really any nice, large apartment buildings where there really are no roaches at all?
I know this is kind of a stupid question, but I’ve never lived there and I envision this vast, damp, interconnected underground network of rats and roaches that invade every human dwelling in the city.
From what I have personal experience with, house centipedes. I have a phobia of them. I can’t even look at pictures of them, and just thinking about them right now has my heart rate up. Something about all the legs, and the way they move. My last apartment had a problem with them, and one dropped into my bed from the ceiling one night during a power outage and went up my leg. Just recalling it now makes me want to scream.
Centipedes and spiders (but especially centipedes) are utterly repulsive to me for some reason. If I see one in my home, its presence must be addressed immediately.
Stinkbugs. They make horrible hissing sounds, interrupt meals, go crashing around the house, and pester me mercilessly at far too many random times day and night.
Well, literally, it’s Mrs. Napier doing these things because she sees a stinkbug. The little animals themselves don’t seem to do anything, except smell mediciny when trod upon.
Did you see what you did there?
mmm
Moderator note
Antisemitism is not tolerated here, even if this is a really bad joke. Do not do this again.
April 15, 2014: Upgraded to a formal warning. TubaDiva
Snakes first because twice I’ve had them in my house… roaches are disgusting, but I have a regular exterminator for that.
Other than this, I fear flying stinging insects like wasps and yellow jackets like some people have a terror of spiders. Mostly because they fly so fast and nail me whereas anything that just crawls I have more control over. And I live in the south so wasps and all kinds of wood boring bees are building nest to due to warm weather. I found a hornet sitting beside my kitchen sink the other day , poised to attack. Thank God for wasp spray as much as I hate spraying poison inside especially…
Rats. I had a problem in an apartment that I rented in a old house. Until then, I wouldn’t have said I had a major issue with any pest - no, I don’t like them, but they don’t invade my space, fine.
But screw that. Those rats were dying and I was getting out of that apartment as fast as I could.
My second least favorite would have to be palmetto bugs (which are a variety of cockroach, I know).
Ticks. There isn’t much that is more disgusting than a fully engorged tick. Ugh.
At that level, it hardly matters: we’re calling a team of professional exterminators, and moving to a hotel until the fuckers* are all dead and not coming back.
At the level of everyday life? Ants. Force is no good against smaller, more numerous pests; you gotta go with chemicals instead, and I’d rather avoid chemicals as much as possible. But when there’s no choice, Terro works pretty damn good on the ants in our area.
*Not the exterminators, silly. The pests they’re trying to kill.
Groundhogs are fat, wretched, garden-eating vermin. There is one (or a family) living under my shed.
They must be vanquished.
Woodchucks. Once one took up residence near us, we could no longer grow a garden.