bugs, bugs, bugs!

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journey137

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Ok, so I live in the country. Always have and hopefully always will, but I hate having creepy crawlies in the house that are dangerous to my family. The other day I grabbed a diaper for the baby and what do I see in my pile of diapers that I just folded and put away minutes before?? A HUGE brown recluse. We had a bunch of them earlier in the spring, but they went back to their usual hidey holes when I stopped moving furniture to do my spring cleaning. I guess this big guy didn’t get that memo.

And then suddenly today these flies show up. The word “fly” is not adequate for these abominations - they look like a regular housefly on steroids! Seriously, they’re almost an inch long, they are hairy and they have white stripes on them, and they’re all over our windows. By all over, I mean there are about 4 per window - multiply that by five windows and that’s a lot of big hairy flies buzzing around. Thankfully we have a good fly swatter, a cat and dog that enjoy killing bugs, and large healthy population of spiders in our windows so a bunch have been caught and disposed of nicely (one web I saw had three of these monsters in it). However, since they are so big and my nice window spiders are so small, unless it’s a web several spiders have built up (I don’t usually allow that to happen) the web is not strong enough to hold one of these flies. The trash has been taken out, the kitty litter was cleaned last night and will be cleaned again tonight, and I need to clean the ferret litter but it sure isn’t that bad! As far as I know nothing has died and none of the animals are wounded, but we have had mice recently (yea, we don’t have mice all winter, then it gets warm, the grass gets nice and tall, and the field mice come inside) so maybe I just can’t smell it but something is dead. I don’t know, but it’s gross for sure!!!:sad_yes:

ETA: I forgot to add, we had wasps and ladybugs winter over with us, as well as a huge influx of june bugs recently - 3 or 4 every night for a couple weeks would make their way inside somehow - and there’s always the occasional wood roach and ants wandering around so we are definitely used to sharing our living space with creepy crawlies… just not the dangerous kind.
 
Either that, or something really big took a dump in your yard.

If it weren’t for the baby, I’d be all for spraying them with large doses of DEET. A couple summers ago when I was out at the cabin, I sprayed down the whole cabin, and every soft surface, with bug-off stuff, and I set fly traps in every window and at both doors.

I also went through the yard with a rake and got rid of every dead thing and every bit of [that stuff] and gave it all a decent burial at the top end of the yard.

It worked. 🙂
 
*[SIGN]move to the city :D[/SIGN]

Seriously, I just read your thread to dd…we are deathly afraid of spiders…yikes, in the pile of diapers??? :eek: I might have fainted. The other night, we had a small cockroach in our master bedroom…I had no idea dd was keeping cat food bags underneath my bathroom sink for the cat we adopted (who stays in our bedroom, long story) So, with the dampness of the bathroom, and the food…yuck! She comes barreling out of the door, screaming her head off…I jump onto my bed…my dh is working. She yells for our son to take care of it. My son comes in, and he says, why do I have to deal with these bugs? I said, you’re the man of the house when your dad is not home. haha I can’t think up anything more fitting than that. 😊 My dd said, why did God have to make these bugs? I said, I don’t think He created disease ridden bugs…I think these are mutations of the fall of man. (I really do believe this, no way God created cockroaches :idtk:

Yikes…it was creepy. I can sympathize…so, what did you end up doing with the brown recluse??? :ehh:*
 
Hubby just got home - yay for having help! There will be a fly massacre the likes of which have never been known before evil laugh
 
whatevergirl said:
[SIGN]move to the city :D[/SIGN]
Yikes…it was creepy. I can sympthasize…so, what did you end up doing with the brown recluse??? :ehh:
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I wasn’t sure it was a brown recluse because it had some legs missing so I took the diaper outside to my husband who was starting the grill for supper and asked him. He said it was a brown recluse for sure and he burned it with the lighter he was using to start the coals 😃
 
journey137 said:
I wasn’t sure it was a brown recluse because it had some legs missing so I took the diaper outside to my husband who was starting the grill for supper and asked him. He said it was a brown recluse for sure and he burned it with the lighter he was using to start the coals 😃
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:eek::o I really like the country too…but the critters…eek, I could totally do without. 😉
 
Ok, I almost passed out with the brown recluse story and I’m still hyperventilating. One bit my ex and he had to have part of his shin removed. One bit a co-worker and she lost most of her inner thight. Even without all that, I’m terrified of spiders, even the little bitty ones. A couple of times I’ve found little ones on my pillows and came unglued. Ladybugs are fine; they don’t bother me even indoors. June bugs are silly but other than startling the crud out of me, are harmless. I keep a wasp-killer spray on the patio for target practise. It works fast. They drop like rocks. Very satisfying to watch. 😃
 
It sounds like the flies are horse flies. (or what I have seen as horse flies-inch long with white stripes.) I would definately go on a killing spree specially with the baby in the house. Thoses things bite and bite badly. The way flies bite is they slash open your skin with their mouth parts then lap up the blood. The cuts are usually little so you do always see blood, but it is then very easy for it to become infected. I hope they are not biting horse flies, and the brown recluse (scary)
I am the one that kills most of the bugs at our house. DH is terrified of spiders inside the house, and we had a centapeide on the wall the other day and I had to kill that too 😃

Pax,
 
jilly4ski said:
It sounds like the flies are horse flies. (or what I have seen as horse flies-inch long with white stripes.) I would definately go on a killing spree specially with the baby in the house. Thoses things bite and bite badly. The way flies bite is they slash open your skin with their mouth parts then lap up the blood. The cuts are usually little so you do always see blood, but it is then very easy for it to become infected. I hope they are not biting horse flies, and the brown recluse (scary)
I am the one that kills most of the bugs at our house. DH is terrified of spiders inside the house, and we had a centapeide on the wall the other day and I had to kill that too 😃

Pax,
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Oh we have centipedes sometimes in the fall when it’s cool enough to leave the door open. They come in under the screen door; the dog loves to chase them actually. Those flies were definitely not horse flies. I’ve seen (and been bitten) enough times to recognize them. These guys were bigger and hairier than any horsefly I’ve ever seen.
 
It sounds like you guys should invest in an electric bug zapper. The brown recluse is too scary, try having your carpets steam cleaned, maybe that will take care of 'em. :nunchuk:
 
“journey” This thread reminds me of the story about St. Therese of Lisieux. In her autobiography… “The Story of a Soul”… she tells how during her postulancy… at age 15… she was instructed to sweep the cloister. On doing so, she found a BIG spider. Well, she was deathly afraid of spiders… so she didn’t sweep it away. The Mistress of Postulants reprimanded her sharply, for her oversight… saying… “It is clear to see that our cloister is swept by a CHILD of 15!” :rolleyes:

I share your revulsion of the “creepy crawlies”. We get wood roaches that are big enough to throw a saddle on and RIDE. :rotfl: Just the sight of one of these monsters will usually send me scrambling to the highest chair or table I can find. Eeew, and they HISS too! But, since I’m the only one in the house, who can “do battle” with these intruders… I’ve had to overcome my fear. I keep a big can of RAID handy and a long handled broom and dust pan (for pick-up).

We also have a wasp problem in the hot months. I purchased these great little gadgets… called “Fatal Funnels”. You just poke one through an empty liter size soda bottle… fill the bottle with fruit juice and place it in the problem area. The wasps will climb inside to get the juice… but then, they can’t climb out. When it’s full (ICKY!!!) just toss it in the trash!

God bless you, fellow bug-fearer. 😃
 
On a Catholic singles web site, I was exchanging messages with a lady who insisted she would love to go camping as I am an avid camper. She actualy ask this question with sincerity.

“Are their still bug in the woods?” (Emphasis hers.) 🤷
 
:rotfl:

rpp,
Did you tell her yes, but that they’re polite, know their place and don’t bother the campers?
 
Ooooh, PETA would not be happy if they knew about all your bug killing!!😃
 
PETA needs a good squirt of my super-duper wasp spray right in the kisser…
 
Catholic90 said:
Ooooh, PETA would not be happy if they knew about all your bug killing!!😃
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When PETA teaches us how to reason with germy, dangerous, venomous, stinging beasties… which move in, uninvited… and shows me how I can convince them to move OUT… I shall toss away my can of RAID forever. 😃
 
HAHA with the PETA jokes and bugs “knowing their place”.

rpp, you should totally take that person camping in a very buggy place just to see the reaction.

Fickle, I glanced at that site and did not see the flies, but I will look again when I have more than a few minutes because it is quite likely that I just missed it.

A few more showed up the next day, but I have not seen any today. Our window spiders sure had a feast! I should probably clarify that “window spider” is not a variety of spider. It is just the location of these particular spiders. Since they are out of the way and catch the occasional bug for us, we leave them alone until they make egg sacks. The eggs get squished.
 
journey137 said:
Our window spiders sure had a feast! I should probably clarify that “window spider” is not a variety of spider. It is just the location of these particular spiders. Since they are out of the way and catch the occasional bug for us, we leave them alone until they make egg sacks. The eggs get squished.
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There’s an interesting, similar discussion in the Spirituality Forum… about loving all of God’s Creatures.

In that thread, I owned up to the fact… that I don’t “love” them, when they’re in my house! 😃 However, I do make every attempt to respect their right to live… while they are outside. We recently had a “porch spider”… (maybe related to your “window spiders”, journey). lol. Anyway… we named her CHARLOTTE. (Most spiders sitting in webs are females). She sat there for several weeks, in her web. And we would check on her, each time we passed. She laid eggs, which we didn’t squash… since she was very respectful of our dwelling, and opted to raise her children OUTDOORS. :rotfl:

She is gone now. So I’m assuming, that since spiders don’t live long… she has gone to “spidey-Heaven”. 😃 I just hope the KIDS don’t move in to our house! :rolleyes:
 
Spiders don’t live long but they have progeny, and THEY have progeny…I say nuke everything that has 8 legs.

BTW, my super-duper wasp spray kills spiders, too. And it has a really long projectile squirt so you don’t have to even get close. Like a water gun. I don’t mind spiders in theory - when they stay away from me and out of sight. But if they come on the patio or anywhere near doors, that’s it. Dead spiders.
 
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