Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Out To Get You

[the_other_sandy]

Anybody who knows me knows just how very much I hate bugs. For the last year or so, I've had three house centipedes patrolling my apartment. I think they're hideous, but they eat spiders, so I put up with the house centipedes because I hate spiders more. About once a month, I find a house centipede on my bedroom ceiling and feel compelled to sleep on the couch. I feel really stupid, but I have this fear that one of them will trip over one of its entirely too many legs and land on my face at 3:00 a.m. It turns out that my paranoia was not misplaced.

Yesterday, I was in the bathroom doing what one commonly does in the bathroom, when a house centipede I didn't even know was there fell off the ceiling right in front of my face and landed between my feet, where it proceeded to run around in many directions at a high rate of speed in its panic. I let out a shriek that I'm surprised didn't have the neighbors calling the police. Brave soul that I am, I spent the rest of the day terrified to go to the bathroom for fear that it would start raining house centipedes again. ::blushes::

I will never second guess myself about spending the night on the couch again.

Comments

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Wow, that centipede picture is cool! However, I share your dislike of bugs on the face. I had a daddy-long-legs go across my face once. Shudder.

Of course, you could get a cat. That would take of the bugs ;)

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

The article that went with the picture was pretty cool. I didn't know house centipedes also ate silverfish (good to know, since I have a lot of books), and I didn't know they were poisonous.

I once had a spider lower itself in front of my face from the raised hood of my raincoat at Girl Scout camp. I was traumatized for life.

None of my cats have ever really eaten bugs. They just play with the bugs until the bugs fall apart, and the vacuum can never quite get all the bug bits. Seriously, have you ever tried to vacuum up an individual cricket leg from carpet? The spines on their legs get all caught up in the carpet fibers. ::shudders::

[libra-traveller.livejournal.com]

Eeek. Scary. Poor you. Since we've started getting the house sprayed we haven't seen many spiders.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Building management has a major blitz by the exterminator once a year. One goes through the building and hoses down the inside, while another sprays the outside for bees and wasps. It's worked out pretty well. I don't have any of the bugs that normally plague apartment dwellers (touch wood), but so far the house centipedes and spiders have remained unimpressed.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Nope, never had the pleasure of vacuuming up dismembered crickets, probably because if I find 'em alive, I put them outside or back in the basement, or the cat ate 'em ;)

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

One of our cats would go out into the utility room that connected to the garage and click like a cricket to lure them in. Then she'd carry them into the living room and play with them until they fell apart. Getting cricket legs out of an oriental rug is not a job for the faint of heart (or phobic of bugs).

[lunarennui.livejournal.com]

it's the large spiders that get me. you keep vacuuming, and the legs just keep segmenting...

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I hate spiders more than anything. When I was a kid, we used to get these big wolf spiders at our house. I will never forget the night my mom tried to pull one off the wall with a Kleenex and couldn't do it. The first try with the vacuum didn't get it off the wall either. ::shudders::

[lunarennui.livejournal.com]

where i grew up they had crab spiders, which are EXTREMELY aggressive. they don't bother with webs, they just hunt down their prey. and they will and do attack and bite humans, and damn but those bites sucked. seriously, you could go after one and it would FACE YOU DOWN, making threatening lunges. eep!

between those and the very large cat-faced spiders that liked to build their webs at face-level in walkways...and of course i wasn't going to stop going outside just because it was dusk...and GAH.

ick. spiders. ick ick ick.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

Where did you live that had these spiders? Just to make sure, you know, that I never ever move there?

[lunarennui.livejournal.com]

evanston, wyoming. black widows aside, i have never run across such icky and mean spiders as are found in wyoming. like velvet ants. they're not really ants, but they look like ants, covered in a lush red velvet. those ARE poisonous, so if you see a really pretty ant while hanging out in wyoming or utah or idaho or colorado, DON'T TOUCH IT. actually, run. i recommend the running.

[the-other-sandy.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I didn't know about this when I was at Girl Scout camp in Ten Sleep, Wyoming.