pest control!!

[Notaro]

im going to vent about insects and spiders, man. i keep finding and killing garden, black widows, and now, BROWN SPIDER in my house. i hate spiders. i have some bugs keep coming into my basement. does anyone here run a extermination business here? i need a really good one to come and investigate my house. one freakin brown spider in my bedroom.

[fishaholic18]

Get a pet Snake!!!

[Raven]

just vacume more often.... and use a desicant powder to kill the bugs...

try boric acid powder.... easy on people ...tough on bugs.

[Notaro]

Originally Posted by fishaholic18

Get a pet Snake!!!

perhaps i should smugle some indonesian bug-eating geckos or lizards in my house and they are perfectly harmless.

raven, thanks.

[spence]

Don't need to smuggle, just go to the local herp store and pick up a dozen Tokay Geckos. They might hiss at you a lot, but you won't have any bugs

-spence

[BrianS]

I hate spiders with a passion too

We have a CRAPLOAD of them in my basement in the summer

I have two suggestions

1. Get a cat.. cats love spiders.. I have two of them.. they sometimes try to crawl on the ceiling to get bugs

2. GECKOS! I used to have over two dozen snakes and all kinds of lizards.. occasionally geckos would escape.. had two of them run all over the house.. I also had a trash can filled with crickets to feed my babies..

The gecko's lived for well over a year just running around.. they had to be eating something other than escapee crickets.

--------
addition: Tokay geckos are the DEVIL...
The ones I had contact with were more angry than the monitors I have owned

[FishermanTim]

On the flip side, spiders are our friends.
They will eat any other bugs, as well as each other.
Growing up, the theory was that if you had spiders in your house, it was good luck. Typical "house" spiders are harmless, and spend most of their life being unseen by humans. If you have house plants, then you would more than likly have spiders, because any bugs that might infest the plants are food for spiders.
As far as Black Widows, and possibly Brown Recluse spiders are concerned, they are poisonous and need to be dealt with.
(Keep in mind that they aren't there to attack you, but more likely they were brought in with something else, like firewood, or something that had been left outside for an extended period.)
If you want to get rid of some REAL pests, there are always the squirrels, pigeons, canadian geese, comorants, and soon the ticks and mosquitos.

[Raven]

i used to have what are called fence lizards in my 25 gallon aquarium...
they are native to the west coast......they did extremely well in captivity....
because i fed them quite well by walking the grassy fields at dawn on coyote patrol.....................
and had to shoot any rabbit munching on our young grape vines and by using a butterfly net , because it was still so cool in the early morning....

i could NET like 30 big ole grasshoppers into a peanut butter jar in about twenty minutes. when i 'd get back home and enter the house with all those grasshoppers
jumping like mad hitting the metal cover from the inside.....going plink plink

plinkity plink plink.... those fense lizards would go insane knowing they were just about to be fed....and you could hold a grasshopper by its tail sorta and offer it to an anxious lizard....but instead of just taking it...they'd just HAVE to hypnotize it first! by slowly swaying back and forth in a very rythmic manner....kinda like swinging the old timers watch back and forth... and then strike hard and eatem....so they are cool LIZARDS to have,,,

but one day they all escaped into the house and i just thought "so what"
and left the door open....so they could get out...but a big one stayed indoors and was about 13 inches long from nose to tail,,,, they have very long tails... that can break off to fool predators... anyways: this one big lizard got very dehydrated and was seeking out water,,,and travelled to the bathroom , climbed up on the toilet tank and found some leftover available water in my wifes shower cap hanging on the wall...next to the shower...see....and climbs inside it to bathe in it and to absorb the water.......

so later ...that afternoon, my wife goes into the shower with her hair in sort of a bun and she throws on the shower cap... ok and takes a complete shower
with the lizard sitting on top of her head....
afterwards: shes standing in the sink area now looking at herself in the mirror and having taken off the shower cap... she notices what appears to be a pheasant feather going acrosss her head and curious, she goes to grab it....
well i'll tell ya....i've never heard "anyone" SCREAM SO LOUD in my LIFE...
and not being even that close by ...i go running as fast as i can....thinking she just got bit by a rattlesnake....(we had tons of em ) or something similar... and shes practically on FIRE shes so MAD....

saying to me: G E T this friggan damn LIZZARD >>> OUT OF MY HAIR !!!!

by then it was extremely entangled... it took almost a half hour
and i ended up in the DOGHOUSE BIGTIME

[spence]

That's excellent

I remember when my mother opened the medicine cabinet and a Tokay Gecko was on the door, upside down, mouth wide open and hissing. As BJS will tell you, they are the

Another time she was teaching piano and my 4' eastern water snake slithered out of a nearby plant and went under the bench.

I got in trouble a lot when I was young

-spence

[BrianS]

ive had corn snakes sneak over to my grandmothers apartment (in my old apartment)

ive had a dumerils boa disappear for 7 months only to be found under a board in the basement after the winter.. died a few days later

ive had iguana's and 7' boas take over the xmas tree.

ive had 100lb 12' pythons bite my best man in the face.

ive had 3 tiny 11" baby redtails corner my wife in the floor because she smelt like cat

i loved owning reptiles.

[Notaro]

damn, y'all are crazy. i need friendly geckos or lizards and are expert at exterminating insects and spiders in the house. i want them to be gone. i once found a spider under my blanket while i was sleeping...

[fishaholic18]

Originally Posted by Notaro

damn, y'all are crazy. i need friendly geckos or lizards and are expert at exterminating insects and spiders in the house. i want them to be gone. i once found a spider under my blanket while i was sleeping...

You need to sleep with a lizard under your pillow.

[Raven]

Originally Posted by Notaro

damn, y'all are crazy. i once found a spider under my blanket while i was sleeping...

Notaro ...i've lived all over the USA....in many houses...
i have some gypsy blood i guess....

one night at a house that had many a mouse....

one got in my bed.... and it woke me up....

because it was running up my back under a t-shirt i had on...

needless to say..... i was airborne.... bouncing off the walls

[BrianS]

My parents house was like 100 years old
It had bats in the attic

I awoke one night to "something" crawl across my neck and chin

I jumped up, hit the light, and the bat went APE...

I started yellin, my Dad came over and started swearing asking what I was yelling about.. Then when I told him he told me I better not open the !@$%@#$% door.

I pinned it down with a pair of jeans and was released... *most unpleasant*

[Raven]

about two weeks ago...i went down cella.. and decided to turn on the old lathe and see if it was STILL ok after being stored outside my last house outside....its a huge delta lathe...
and so i plugged it in ....and squatted down next to the motor and got real close so i could listen as i flipped the switch....well a mouse had moved into my motor and when i flipped that switch it came flying outta there like a bullet and bounced off my face knocking me right on my ass from sheer FRIGHT,
the little bastage... now i wish i owned a cat or a cat owned me.....

[Iwannakeeper]

My last house in Nashua NH, we constantly had bats in the house. The girlfriend would freak out - I would catch it, and release it.

After like 20 times in one summer - I was pissed and end up killing the bat - and I never had another one - I am thinking it was probably the same one.

I got a cat and a few dogs - I have few spiders and even less bugs. The cat seem particularly fond of moths. She likes to pin them down and lick them, so they powder is off their wings and they can't fly. then she tortures them for awhile until you hear the inevitiable ........CRUNCH!

[Raven]

we had a house with one of those prop up attic windows in the roof for star gazing... there was a cool old telescope up there...and even a thomas edison cylindrical record player with the rca dog like speaker...

i used to forget to close that freakin window a bit to often and bats were getting in every night...

well one day a bat gets loose in the house and was flying around on the first floor...and found its way to the kitchen sink....my mother had a particular habbit of always leaving a dish rag towel folded over the faucet so it could drip dry....and thats where the bat went....because it was dark cool and damp...just how they like it......so the next morning my mother grabs the dish rag to wipe something and the BAT hissed at her baring its teeth viciously
and SHE nearly had a heart attack.... so then my brother and i had the time of our lives chasing that sucka up and down three floors until we finally netted it....then we held it by its wing tips and streched them wide....making it hiss at us....more and more....SUCH FUN THAT WAS.
then we lettem go...out the window.

[thefishingfreak]

my house is infested with ants.
"huge black ants" and they have pinchers too. way too big for the ant traps. they won't even go into them. some say they fall off the trees but it's like a forest here so cutting the trees is not an option.
i ran the "loose gheckos" option bye the wife and it's a NO-WAY!

any ideas for those humungus black ants?
i try to keep a close eye on food/trash but they still are everywhear.
i asked at home depot but they are clueless three kids running arround so chemicals in the house are not an option.

spiders are kool. ants suck! and the cat could care less unless they fly.
mike

[Raven]

on ants///

i had a deck that was constructed wrong.....as it had an extra floor joist
sistered on the outside of another (it couldnt dry) so that there was constantly WET wood
and it was on the north corner of the house where you get the least amount of sun
thats a perfect environment for CARPENTER ANTS. eliminate any wet wood on the house. end of food. end of ants. the sign of their eating looks like tiny little grape nuts cereal underneath where the COLONY is. WHEN i ripped off that stupid extra joist ..i exposed thousands ....brood chambers and all the ant larva (white babies). there are natural ant repellants such as mint.

thats of course....if they are carpenter ants... boric acid powder is harmless to humans. but read the directions ...i'm sleepy- its 4:37 am
http://alsnetbiz.com/homeimprovement...irections.html