Creepy Crawlies...Ick!

[Heidi]

This morning I went into the downstairs bathroom to find a VERY large, MOSTLY dead cockroach on its back on the floor! (it's still sort of kicking its legs) Now, before you think I live in some slum or am a rotten housekeeper, we just moved into this very well-kept apartment complex, and a very clean apartment! They spray each apt once a month, which is I'm sure why that nasty thing is doing the kickin' chicken on my bathroom floor instead of scuttling around.

We don't have a vacuum yet (just married, just moved cross-country) and DH is still asleep (got home at 6:30 am after an all-night exercise) and all the wadded Kleenex in the world won't make me touch the thing, so it is just going to have to lay there in its death throes until DH gets up. I mean, what the heck did I get married for if not for someone to do the Critter Removal jobs for me?

My question is...where do these things come from? I swear, that thing in there looks like something from The Land That Time Forgot. It's 2 inches long, more like 4 if you count the antennae! How does something like that slip in your house? That sucker could have just about reached up and knocked on my door and asked to be let in! :eek:

I know I'm exaggerating here, but you have to understand that this is maybe the third cockroach I've seen in my life...I grew up in Utah and we don't have them there. I just moved to the South and my MIL told me I'd be experiencing all kinds of new creepy crawlies. She was right!

[aggie94]

Heidi,

Welcome to the South. :rolleyes: I'm dealing with this too. My apartment is really nice and clean, too, but the bugs don't seem to discriminate. After living in Oregon for 6 years, where there are NO bugs to speak of, I've already encountered a SCORPION :eek: crawling across my living room carpet. There have been countless other footed things that I don't recognize. If they don't look really scary, I shoo them outside (the scorpion was an exception). I've picked up bug spray and need to spray all the cracks and seams of my apartment; hopefully that will keep them away for a few weeks.

Other than that, not really sure what to tell you. At least the ones you're encountering are dead. ;)

[Natasha]

Ohhhhhhhhh...ick is right!!

Don't have anything constructive to add but I just wanted to pass on my sympathies. I'd be freaked too!! :o

GOOD LUCK!
Natasha

P.S. Congratulations on your wedding and move, BTW! I hope all goes well (bugs aside, of course) and that you enjoy your new home and city!

[lhall]

*hehehe* I'm sorry, but I thought that was funny too. My mom was from Macon so I know EXACLTY what kind of bug you are talking about. We don't get them that big up here in Atlanta. BTW, I don't do bugs either! Not even with a vacuum!

That's a Palmetto Bug! Basically a very large cockroach, BUT THEY FLY! :D

Something that big has obviously come in from outside. I have my exterminator just do an exterior treatment once a month. This (most of the time) keeps the creepy crawlies out. I did have a very dark red (burgundy) scorpion in my kitchen one morning. Fortunatley that was before I had kids.

Leigh

[Heidi]

Well, DH has taken care of the critter. Even he said "Wow!" when he saw it. So I'm not just a wimpy girl. :)

Eva and Leigh: Up until about 3 weeks ago I lived in El Paso, TX while DH was actually here in GA looking for a house. One night I went up to bed to find a scorpion on my bedroom wall, apparently poised to swan dive (scorpion dive?) right into my laundry basket. I wasn't about to smash the thing, so I got out the vacuum, put every single attachment I could find on the hose to increase the distance between me and it, and sucked it up. I could feel it get sucked up the tube and it actually made me sick to my stomach! I left the vacuum running for like 5 minutes to make sure nothing was crawling back out, then I put it in a downstairs closet. Then I had to get out a flashlight and do a scorpion check in all the corners and under things...I mean, what if those things are pack animals? Didn't want any of his buddies plotting revenge on me in the middle of the night. The thing that really scared me was that if I hadn't walked in at that precise moment, I don't know if I would have ever seen it, and then it would have still been crawling around, or worse, in my laundry basket when I did wash the next morning! Ew, it gives me the willies just thinking about it....

[beacooker]

I was just about to warn you about the flying thing, but I see Leigh already did. Now that you're living in the South, all kinds of exciting bug adventures await you.

[Melman]

lhall beat me to it. Palmetto bug. They are definitely your basic roach on steroids. I lived in a rental house for about 6 months before I bought my house (14 years ago). I SWEAR...there was evidently a flashing neon sign about crawl-space level that must have flagged all the palmetto bugs from miles around to 'enter here'. We had them the whole 6 months we lived in that house. I hated that house! The yard was full of pine trees, and someone told me those trees attracted them. Let me just say that my yard doesn't have a single pine tree in it!!! EEEewwww!!!

I understand not being able to pick it up "with all the Kleenex in the world". I can't do that either. Just the fact that I can ALMOST feel it is too much for me to handle. I've had to use a dust pan and a broom to scoop them up and toss them outside. PS...don't try that trick if they're still moving.

[dulcecoeur]

Well, I guess I shall never move South then! Every other bug in the world is fine by me - the only one that I cannot stand are COCKROACHES! I would of freaked out too!:eek: :eek:

[lhall]

Heidi,

I would have done the same thing with the scorpion and the vacuum, except I would have put the vacuum OUTSIDE!!

Palmetto bugs are very very icky. I've never seen ones bigger than the ones you get in South Georgia.

Leigh

[Peggy C.]

Thanks for giving me a good case of the heebee jeebees! I've got the chills!

[Jewel]

Since DH and I are still trying to figure out where we'd like to live in the USA, and where he would like to put his name in for a transfer, I'm listening intently to all geographical statistics. Well I thank all of you for helping me 'narrow it down' by a few states. :eek: I mean, I knew there were bugs in the south, but scorpions??? :eek:

So basically the job opening he saw in the Atlanta bureau should not be on my list now, huh?

[Melman]

I don't THINK you'd have problems with scorpions in Atlanta!!! Palmetto bugs, yes. If you pick Atlanta, just be sure the place where you decide to live is NOT surrounded by white pines!

[Marian]

Originally posted by lhall
*hehehe* I'm sorry, but I thought that was funny too. My mom was from Macon so I know EXACLTY what kind of bug you are talking about. We don't get them that big up here in Atlanta. BTW, I don't do bugs either! Not even with a vacuum!


Leigh

Leigh, My parents and my sister lived in Macon for quite a while. My father taught at Mercer University. Small world.

[aggie94]

Originally posted by Jewel
Well I thank all of you for helping me 'narrow it down' by a few states. :eek: I mean, I knew there were bugs in the south, but scorpions??? :eek:

Did I say SCORPION? I meant PILLBUG. There are no scorpions in Austin, or anywhere else in Texas for that matter. Really. :p

[lhall]

Originally posted by Marian


Leigh, My parents and my sister lived in Macon for quite a while. My father taught at Mercer University. Small world.

May I ask when?

My grandfather was an architect, my uncle a lawyer (Seaborn Gustavus Jones sp?, ran for office a few times), cousin was a vet (Ben O'Kelley, but much older than me!), gradmother taught for Bibb County schools, and my mom went to Mercer for 1 year (late 50's, it was all her sister could pay for).

The lived on Hardaman Avenue until the Interstate was built.

Leigh

Oh, and Jewel, I've only seen 1 scorpion and it was little and we don't get palmetto bugs in Atlanta I've only seen those in South Georgia.

[Marian]

Originally posted by lhall


May I ask when?

Leigh



Hmmmm, they moved there right after I got married - so I guess in July of 1985 and lived there for about 12 years. I never lived there myself, so am not really that familiar with Macon. Bad me, I can't even remember what street they lived on.

[lhall]

Well, that would have been after just about everyone left. After my grandfather died we moved my grandmother up near us in the early eighties.

I haven't been back in a long time, but I do have two distant cousins still there.

Leigh