Bugs??? (Agoura Hills: apartment, home, job market)

[Mamato3BB's]

Hi! We currently live in Atlanta (originally from Minneapolis area and Chicago). My husband loves the warmer weather here (I don't really care either way). We need to leave Atlanta because the South just isn't for us. So we are shopping around for new locations. LA has a strong job market for him, and he is actually coming out for an interview on Monday. So I have to know do you all have those big huge roaches that Atlanta has? They call them Palmettos here and they are horrible! I keep a clean home and Terminex comes monthly but I still encounter these evil bugs regularly. I just cannot move someplace where I will keep seeing these things! Thanks!!!

[EscapeCalifornia]

SoCal isn't very buggy. I get a lot of spiders but that's about it.

[straight outta camden]

I agree. There are surprisingly few roaches and other bugs (of course some buildings are much worse than others). Mostly spiders and silverfish. The latter is an ancient insect--a prehistoric holdover. I like to think of that when I squish one.

Why aren't there more bugs here, by the way? New York has a foul climate, which you might think would make life difficult for insects, yet it has zillions of roaches. Sydney, Australia, which has a very similar climate to LA, has tons of roaches, flies etc. etc.--just about everything, in fact.

[wclac]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

SoCal isn't very buggy. I get a lot of spiders but that's about it.

What about ants? There's a great majority of them in SoCal.

[LaoTzuMindFu]

I find lots of bugs out in the yard and garden, but only seem to find spiders and crickets in the house. Never seen any roaches or silverfish. This could be due to Mrs. DaBeez being a neat/clean freak.

I grew up in LA and never saw any "cool" or "unique" bugs until I moved into my place in Sherman Oaks. Found a Preying Mantis on my balcony. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

[HotFudge]

I just hate bugs

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by LAFan

What about ants? There's a great majority of them in SoCal.

Not too bad where I am. I see them outside but not inside very often.

[Freebird]

I understand for sure about the palmetto bugs and wanting to avoid them - we've lived in Florida and Hawaii (there they were known as B-52s and they did fly) - we are also almost freaky, super clean and still encountered them way too much. It was a bit more understandable in Hawaii because it was tropical - we saw way more of them when it rained.

Since we moved here (Agoura Hills, CA) in July 2006 we have not seen a single palmetto bug, not even a single one of the smaller types of roaches, in our apartment (or outside). We mainly see small spiders and the occasional cricket but neither of them very often. Southern California does have ants - we had some of the very tiny sugar-seeking (?) kind in our apartment but we gave them a couple of feedings of Terro and they disappeared almost overnight.

Seriously, it would be hard to move away from here (even to move out of this apartment) now that we've lived without these things for a year and a half. It's definitely amazing, almost too good to be true for us, after being around them so much where we lived before.

[junkman18]

Originally Posted by Mamato3BB's

Hi! We currently live in Atlanta (originally from Minneapolis area and Chicago). My husband loves the warmer weather here (I don't really care either way). We need to leave Atlanta because the South just isn't for us. So we are shopping around for new locations. LA has a strong job market for him, and he is actually coming out for an interview on Monday. So I have to know do you all have those big huge roaches that Atlanta has? They call them Palmettos here and they are horrible! I keep a clean home and Terminex comes monthly but I still encounter these evil bugs regularly. I just cannot move someplace where I will keep seeing these things! Thanks!!!

I would be allot more worried about all the rattlesnakes than bugs.

[Winston Smith]

Ants and the occasional spider are my biggest problem on the coast, and those are quite rare. I thank the multitude of birds in the area for my relatively bug-free life!