The Gaming Den

So there I was, trying to get some sleep, when I'm woken up by a housefly just buzzing over my ear.

I of course had to spend the next 45 minutes chasing it down and trying to kill it, otherwise I wouldn't be able to sleep what with the knowledge that that filthy bug could be flying over my ear again, vomiting over my things while I try to sleep.

I swear, nothing quite fills me with the urge TO MURDER EVERY MOTHERFUCKING THING IN THIS GODDAMNED GALAXY quite like those little bastards.

So, you got visited by Beelzebug, the insect demon which visits at night and cannot be cast out.

is that why I've never gotten immense arcane power in exchange for my soul? I keep swatting or pushing the messenger out of my room?

45min to kill a fly? It's time to clean up the house.

mean_liar wrote:45min to kill a fly? It's time to clean up the house.

Well, see, it'll buzz for a bit, and you'll chase it into an area, but you don't know what plant or lamp it's hiding in, and then five minutes later it flies past the other way... Open plan houses are fun to live in, until you're chasing a fly.

-Crissa

I always had really good luck with electric tennis rackets. And mirin.

I really want to figure out if low level white noise really keys insects away.

I've never had problems with bugs. Then again, I let Spiders move in and don't bother them if they are considerate enough to not build webs where I need to get to.

Besides, you can't move inside spiders outside any more than you can make your children live outside; they're so adapted to living inside of houses that they tend to die of exposure if moved outside.

I have some reason to believe that at least certain types of spiders are willing to bite people's exposed skin while they sleep. This gives me a fairly strong incentive to eliminate them when they present themselves. Also, they are easier to hit than most flies.

Also: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2 ... fraid.html

So evict the biting spiders and kill the poisonous ones. It's not like they're hard to tell apart.

Yes, hunting spiders and recluses will bite you while you sleep, but I've only seen evidence it's self-defense.

I say this, having been bitten by scary spiders before.

-Crissa

It is all about Raid.

I do not care how bad it is for the environment. It works.

Game On,
fbmf

Certainly. Put down a nice barrier of that stuff, and nothing that crawls can walk through that area for several months.

When we were in a duplex with ants, barriers like that were all we really had - no number of spiders would've been enough.

-Crissa

I've had interesting success(?) with traps... when I was a kid and had a serious ant problem in my room, we put the typical raid ant trap in there. At some later point, there was a solid line of ants moving toward it. As I get closer, I notice one ten to twenty times the size of all the others.

...the trap was so enticing, they wanted to move the whole damned colony. Raid spray then did a hell of a number on that colony.

I've had that happen. But I've never had traps actually kill the ants. And the ants in Sunnyvale seemed pretty immune to any number of traps. They just wouldn't touch the bait.

It was horrible.

-Crissa

I know my mom has a huge ant problem in her house. I lived a block away from her current location about 5-6 years ago, and I had similar ant problems.

I might suggest some Raid. She'd have to clear the house because the ant problem literally is that bad and she's have to coat every wall, every cabinet, every door, every outlet, etc.

We pretty much had to. Eventually you can get it down to specific walls, but at first where they'd coming in can seem really random, because ants are just... random pattern searchers.

-Crissa

Where I live, we have clouds of gnats that hover around your head and randomly try to dart into your eyes (to get a drink from them, I guess). I'd take the occasional fly over that anytime.

Of course... it could be worse. At least they don't bite.

The last couple years my area (or at least our lot) has had a plague of flies. They'll literally carpet the ground, and there's nothing nearby that you'd think they'd be feeding on.

Naturally they get inside the house and, for some reason that escapes me, they all fly downstairs to my room in the basement. Several times I'd have somewhere around 50 flies buzzing around my lights like a cloud from a cartoon. Flystrips were the only way to fight them.

Fucking flies. The only thing I hate more are maggots.

It's mosquitoes that get on my nerves.

Around summer, they can be really heavy. Insane, depending on the area. People who live near ponds or other kinds of water can be identified by either the faint whiff of bugspray that's always around them, or the mosquito bite marks.

Maxus wrote:It's mosquitoes that get on my nerves.

Around summer, they can be really heavy. Insane, depending on the area. People who live near ponds or other kinds of water can be identified by either the faint whiff of bugspray that's always around them, or the mosquito bite marks.

Yeah... I'm constantly covered in mosquito bites... I wish I could move back to the fucking desert. At least there aren't many bugs there...

Eat lots of spicy food. You won't be bothered by mosquitoes anymore.

Yeah. Lots of garlic, etc. Of course, that works better for some people than others.

Of course, Sammi called them 'little robin hoods' stealing from the rich humans and giving back to the forest.

-Crissa

I hate all arthropods. My old apartment was relatively bare (I think I saw maybe 10 total in 2 years) but my new place has me killing spiders constantly, on top of ants, pillbugs, earwigs, and other things.

We have a drainage easement in my back yard, which, depending on the time of year, will have standing water in it.

Mosquito breeding ground!