Texas bugs!!

[Chaucerfan]

I don't know why people would get offended by questions about bugs in Texas. We're from elsewhere and are INCREDIBLY offended at the landlords here who have rented us supposedly nice houses in supposedly nice areas, for a good deal of money, that are infested with multiple bugs -- roaches, fleas, gnats, silverfish (one place even had rats). News flash for Austinite landlords: SOME BUGS PRESENT HEALTH HAZARDS TO HUMANS. PEOPLE ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD DON'T LIKE LIVING WITH INSECTS CRAWLING ON THEM AT NIGHT AND BITING THEM DURING THE DAY!!!!!!!!!

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by Chaucerfan

I don't know why people would get offended by questions about bugs in Texas. We're from elsewhere and are INCREDIBLY offended at the landlords here who have rented us supposedly nice houses in supposedly nice areas, for a good deal of money, that are infested with multiple bugs -- roaches, fleas, gnats, silverfish (one place even had rats). News flash for Austinite landlords: SOME BUGS PRESENT HEALTH HAZARDS TO HUMANS. PEOPLE ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD DON'T LIKE LIVING WITH INSECTS CRAWLING ON THEM AT NIGHT AND BITING THEM DURING THE DAY!!!!!!!!!

Calm down, you are being hysterical.

[Chaucerfan]

anyone who wouldn't get hysterical about roaches in bed with them at night (yes that happened to me) after paying $2100 a month in rent must be about as human as.... a bug.

[jtur88]

Neither of the apartment buildings I've lived in in Victoria has ever had a single cockroach. I sit outside on the porch and read late on summer nights, and I think there was one stretch of a few days when there were a few mosquitoes, but otherwise, Ive never seen one, in the house or on the porch. A big green katydid wandered into my living room once, but that was more exciting then troublesome. My screens don't fit well, and I often leave the door wide open all evening, but I've never even had a housefly come in.

A colony of bats lives in the attic of my building, and the martin houses in the neighborhood are occupied, and I hear night hawks flying over at night that roost on flat roofs of commercial buildings nearby, so tthose probably kept the insect populations down. Whatever they are finding up there to eat certainly aren't a bother to us down here.

There's a time of the year when love bugs (Plecia nearctica) swarm for a few days, tbut the only problem they cause is trying to figure out how to get them scraped off the front of your car. They were unknown before 1940, and apparently expanded their range around the Gulf from Central America. They swarm twice a year, but did not come this spring, maybe too dry.

There's a species of chiggers down here, but they are nowhere near as bad as the ones that are such a menace in Missouri. Ticks and spiders are also a great deal less troublesome here than in Missouri (the epicenter of global nuisance arachnids), but you will pick up an occasional tick if you wander around in grassy or wooded areas. I do wild bird surveys a couple times a month, and I've never seen a single critter I wanted to avoid, except alligators. Never seen a snake, or a scorpion. Kinda disappointing, really, I'd hoped I'd encounter more of them

[CptnRn]

I am a landlord in Austin, TX and neither my rental house or my own home have more then an occasional small bug in them. I have the house and yard treated each year as needed to control them. But both of my properties have concrete foundations. None of the apartments I lived in before buying my own home had insect problems either, they were also on concrete foundations.

The type of residence most likely to have bug problems are like many of the old houses in Hyde Park, they have wood floors built over crawl spaces with pier foundations. It is much easier for bugs to get into those kinds of houses through the crawl space. But they can still be treated to minimize the problem.

You should demand that your landlord have your house treated for the bug infestations if they were there when you moved in.

P.S. IF YOU ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT AUSTIN, WHY AREN'T YOU POSTING IN THE AUSTIN FORUM?