Bugs (Portland, Redwood: houses, scorpions, to live in)

[SpringsF6B]

I’ve lived in several cities and problems with bugs tends to go with the prevailing climate. I have never lived in an area with a moderate climate like Portland. For example, I lived in Houston for a year and the standard joke was... there are two types of people who live in Houston, people with roaches in their houses and liars. Actually there was a third category, people who spray their homes monthly with toxic chemicals. Are there any issues in Portland?

[cooky01]

We used to live in western Pennsylvania, where the cold winter naturally killed the bugs.
Took us some time getting used to the fact that it's not the same here in Portland area.
We use the third option you described earlier, and I'm curious to see how others cope w/ it here.

[EasyBeezy]

There are just far less bugs here in general than area's east of the Mississippi. Nighttime is virtually silent here, even during the summer. Aside from easily controlled little ants, I have never had any issues with insects inside my house.

[texasdiver]

About 100x less insects and flying pests here than we experienced in Texas.

We leave our upstairs patio door wide open for the cats much of the summer (they like to go out and lay on the deck) and rarely ever get a fly or mosquito entering. We get a few Daddy Longlegs spiders around our front entrance. And occasionally yellow jackets around in summer. Sometimes those tiny sugar ants in the kitchen if we don't keep the counters clean. But that's about it.

I've never seen a roach or silverfish here. No scorpions or giant centipedes like in TX. No fire ants. Even termites are less of a problem, although we can still get termites here if you aren't careful.

I think it is partly due to the reverse rainfall patterns compared to the eastern US. In the east and the south, most of the rainfall and humidity happens in the summer and warmer months when insects are more active. So the conditions for insect breeding are better due to the higher humidity and more frequent rains. In the Northwest the winter is the rainy season (when insects are mostly dormant) and the summers are quite dry. So the summers are less conducive to big insect population explosions.

At least that's my theory.

[dottie55]

Far fewer bugs here then Northern California. The ants here are not only smaller but less aggressive too.

[cornsnicker3]

I see a decent number of Cellar Spiders and small little black spiders, but they go away in November.

[Nell Plotts]

Stink bugs

[texasdiver]

What we get a LOT more here than in other parts of the country is slugs. Especially after mild winters such as this one, that aren't cold enough to kill off the dormant egg clusters. Unless we get some severe freezes in the next month or so we are likely to be overrun by slugs this spring.

But at least they stay outdoors and don't invade the house.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

Stink bugs

and Boxelder bugs
'non-biting / poisonous'

There are a few Spiders in some warm attic spaces in PNW and very few Black Widows.
https://nobuggy.com/top-3-venomous-spiders-in-oregon/

Wasps... Yellow Jackets have their BAD years.
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/erry...iders-tha.html

Mosquitoes may be bad next yr (no deep freezes yet in 2019 / 20 winter)

and... slugs, pretty big and squishy, but they usually don't get in your house or on your sofa.
The largest slugs I have seen are in Redwoods in NoCA, but there are some mammoth ones on the coast... ~6"+. Portland area is ~3" is a big slug.

Texas... ugh. Chiggers, Scorpions, fire ants, and bunches of other 'troublesome, friendly (no place is off limits to find them), and numerous other creatures. Shake out your shoes !!!