What the heck are camel crickets (Raleigh: apartment, rental, house)

[Annieproductions]

I just took a look at the post "10 reasons not to move to Raleigh" and saw something about CAMEL CRICKETS...sure being from NYC and living in the burbs...I have seen bugs...and I hate them. I have seen huge roaches in NYC at certain places BUT what the HECK ARE CAMEL CRICKETS?! And they jump? What else can I expect (bug/snake) down in NC? Shall I carry a can of RAID on my waist? Thanks!

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

Originally Posted by Annieproductions

I just took a look at the post "10 reasons not to move to Raleigh" and saw something about CAMEL CRICKETS...sure being from NYC and living in the burbs...I have seen bugs...and I hate them. I have seen huge roaches in NYC at certain places BUT what the HECK ARE CAMEL CRICKETS?! And they jump? What else can I expect (bug/snake) down in NC? Shall I carry a can of RAID on my waist? Thanks!

We had these in the crawl space of my rental house in Richmond, Va. I remember opening up the small door to the crawl space once when we first moved in and peering into the darkness under the house and all I heard was a light *hop* *hop* *hop* sound. I turned on my flashlight and saw a bunch of camel crickets jumping around in the dark crawl space.

I closed the door......and never opened it again!



Cave Cricket aka "Camel Cricket" ~ Wikipedia

[Annieproductions]

Thanks for the input, a can of raid in each hand it is!!!

[travelmate38]

That is one ugly looking creepy crawler. No thanks.

And by the way, did you know the average person eats 13 spiders per year? This happens while we sleep, as our mouths are wide open the spider crawl inside, we half wake, closing our mouths, thus swallowing the spider. Just a pleasant thought for today

[tee-tee]

NRG, we must have inhabited parallel universes! I never saw one of those until I moved to Richmond, VA in 1990. We bought a house in a historic district in North Richmond, first time I went into the basement one of those things jumped right onto my chest. I dropped whatever was in my hands, and ran upstairs screaming like a little girl.

I still hate them probably more than any other insect, but thankfully I've only seen a handful of them here in the Triangle.

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

FWIW I have only come across these buggers once while living in Raleigh and that was when I was renting an apartment right next to a lake. You can't live next to a lake without expecting a certain level of insect problems. Now that I am in a more suburban setting I am relatively pest free with the exception of some pesty mosquitos in the summer. They aren't too bad, but annoyinh enough to convince me that my next house will have a screened in porch.

Insects aren't really a big issue IMO.

Originally Posted by tee-tee

NRG, we must have inhabited parallel universes! I never saw one of those until I moved to Richmond, VA in 1990. We bought a house in a historic district in North Richmond, first time I went into the basement one of those things jumped right onto my chest. I dropped whatever was in my hands, and ran upstairs screaming like a little girl.

I still hate them probably more than any other insect, but thankfully I've only seen a handful of them here in the Triangle.

Very funny. I agree...out of all the creatures in the insect world, I despise the camel cricket the most!!!!!!!

[KGRW]

Just so you know, camel crickets might be freaky but they are COMPLETELY harmless. Yes, they jump high, but usually they are jumping to get away from you.

[mdp_az]

Originally Posted by KGRW

Just so you know, camel crickets might be freaky but they are COMPLETELY harmless. Yes, they jump high, but usually they are jumping to get away from you.

They're also crunchy, have gobs of protein, and taste like chicken

[ch123]

Originally Posted by mdp_az

They're also crunchy, have gobs of protein, and taste like chicken

But they generally taste better if they are deep fried and then covered in Chocolate.

[Annieproductions]

Thanks for the somewhat scary info. I had read what the previous poster said about eating spiders while we sleep. I pull the covers up to my ears just in case of that...no thanks! I have always been paranoid about bugs crawling on my while I sleep. Must have been a movie I saw in the 70's called "The bug" (thanks to the babysitter for bringing me to see it, I think I was 6 yrs old at the time).