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I'm hearing there is a bug and spider problem in the region. Is this accurate or overstated? Do most people have outdoor screening on their porches? Can you sit outside in the evening with a glass of your favorite beverage without swatting away the creepy crawlers and mosquitoes. If it's a major issue, what measures do people take?
I think it is overblown, generally. Screen porches are common here to enjoy sitting outside without worrying about mosquitoes. An alternative is to use a citronella candle, or just spray on some DEET.
I'm hearing there is a bug and spider problem in the region. Is this accurate or overstated? Do most people have outdoor screening on their porches? Can you sit outside in the evening with a glass of your favorite beverage without swatting away the creepy crawlers and mosquitoes. If it's a major issue, what measures do people take?
Thanks
I hate to fill this NC forum with hate, but....
Oh. My. God.
We lived in a suburb just outside of Durham for two years. The house we lived in was literally infested with what they call 'camel crickets'.
These things got into everything. They were in our clothes, our closets, in the drawers of our dressers and worst of all: In out bed. Now, I'm NOT a dirty person. I don't leave things sitting around, I don't attract bugs. In fact, I do everything I can to deter them. But, there was nothing we could do to stop these things. We'd pull down our sheets at night to get into bed and they'd jump out at us; we'd move a pillow we're about to put our head on and they'd crawl down your neck and back. It was unbearable. Needless to say, we moved.
We lived in Raleigh city limits for two years and there again had issues with bugs - huge cockroaches that come out at night and crawl around on your porch; spiders the size of malted milk balls that string huge, sprawling webs over your doorways, windows and patios. I've even, in the years I've been here, had multiple encounters with them inside of my car, spinning webs and crawling around. There's nothing quite like a spider crawling all over your lap to make you swerve wildly.
Now, we live just in Raleigh/Cary, but outside city limits. I've never seen so many spiders in my life. We have a big yard, which crawls with mosquitoes, grasshoppers and spiders of all sizes from the teeny-tiny red ones to the malted milk ball variety. All the bugs attract other things, though; like frogs (which are delightful, I'll admit), snakes, raccoons, opossums, stray cats, et cetera, et cetera.
In short, if you're squeamish, do not move here. I, personally, can't wait to get out of this state so I can go outside again and not worry about being swamped by crawling things.
I think that all the new construction has a lot to do with it. Essentially these instects, rodents, bugs live in the tall oaks of Raleigh. When you have such a grave number of trees falling all at once, these living creatures seek places to live too. I am not an environmentalist by any means, but I believe similar things have happened in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and the like.
Sorry to hear about your experiences, and that is definitely one uuuugly insect!
I've lived in either the Greensboro or Raleigh areas on and off for 27 years of my life. Have I seen many of these aforementioned critters? Yes Have they sometimes been a nuisance? Yes. Do I live in fear of them? No. Do I still walk around barefoot outside and eat dinner outside on an unscreened patio w/out being eaten alive? Yes.
There are critters everywhere. Some homes are infested while others are not. My vacation home in the mountains is overrun with ladybugs in the fall...thousands of them. The spiders were almost always an issue when I lived in northern Arizona. We had awful mosquitoes for a while in Colorado. If the bugs were as bad as the original poster has heard, there wouldn't be so many people living here.
These things got into everything. They were in our clothes, our closets, in the drawers of our dressers and worst of all: In out bed. Now, I'm NOT a dirty person. I don't leave things sitting around, I don't attract bugs. In fact, I do everything I can to deter them. But, there was nothing we could do to stop these things. We'd pull down our sheets at night to get into bed and they'd jump out at us; we'd move a pillow we're about to put our head on and they'd crawl down your neck and back. It was unbearable. Needless to say, we moved.
We lived in Raleigh city limits for two years and there again had issues with bugs - huge cockroaches that come out at night and crawl around on your porch; spiders the size of malted milk balls that string huge, sprawling webs over your doorways, windows and patios. I've even, in the years I've been here, had multiple encounters with them inside of my car, spinning webs and crawling around. There's nothing quite like a spider crawling all over your lap to make you swerve wildly.
Now, we live just in Raleigh/Cary, but outside city limits. I've never seen so many spiders in my life. We have a big yard, which crawls with mosquitoes, grasshoppers and spiders of all sizes from the teeny-tiny red ones to the malted milk ball variety. All the bugs attract other things, though; like frogs (which are delightful, I'll admit), snakes, raccoons, opossums, stray cats, et cetera, et cetera.
In short, if you're squeamish, do not move here. I, personally, can't wait to get out of this state so I can go outside again and not worry about being swamped by crawling things.
This post sounds like a scene from a horror movie...
Just an FYI...camel crickets tend to migrate to damp crawlspaces and then may enter the house(very rare) Cure the dampness in your crawl and you wont have them, at least in any significant numbers.
Sprinkle sevin dust around the exterior and interior of your crawlspace to kill the insects. Kill the food source and no more toads/frogs coming for meals....which means no more snakes coming for the frogs. It is basically a chain reaction.
I'm hearing there is a bug and spider problem in the region. Is this accurate or overstated? Do most people have outdoor screening on their porches? Can you sit outside in the evening with a glass of your favorite beverage without swatting away the creepy crawlers and mosquitoes. If it's a major issue, what measures do people take?
Thanks
I see fewer bugs down here then I did in Ohio. (We had Mayflies every spring....lol...those things would freak out some of the bug-a-phobes....even though they don't even have mouths)....anyway....
It's no worse here then most other places.
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