Tocky on 25/7/2010 at 04:49

---

As long as they are wiggley enough. Centipedes? Pish. I once had a brown recluse crawl out of a shirt sleeve I had just put on and plop on the floor. Not only did I not give him the courtesy of returning the favor of not harming him, I called the exterminater after I stomped him. Ants? Please. Kill them. Kill them all.

PeeperStorm on 25/7/2010 at 18:25

---

It's not quite Australia, but my little rural corner of the northern part of California (as opposed to "Northern California" which is in the middle of the state. Yes, the geography here is just as stupid as the majority of the population) has given me lovely encounters with all of the following pests:


* Small ants that like grease and sugar. They periodically set up housekeeping in the ceiling crawlspace. Bug-bombs take care of that. They also smell like ammonia window-cleaner if you squash one. I imagine that's the formic acid.
* Large ants that like plant material and wood. They bite. Luckily they only nest outdoors (so far). Their nests are easy to find because they leave their anty garbage around their ant holes, forming a big whiteish bullseye.
* Wasps. The fuckers build little mud honeycomb nests just about on any vertical surface that's out of the sun, and they frequently get sucked into the house via the swamp cooler.
* Skunks. They often cross the back of our property to get to the neighbor's orchard and garden. The neighbor pays me either $5 or a bag of veggies for every one that I shoot.
* Rattlesnakes. I shoot them and keep the rattles.
* Coyotes. They don't bother the cats because the area is infested with rabbits, so the only damage they do is waking me up sometimes with their yipping. Not to be confused with their yiffing, which I don't want to know about. I leave them alone.
* Mountain lions. Only seen 'em twice on our road. Just passing through, I guess.
* Black Bears. Every now and then one gets into the neighborhood and knocks over some garbage cans, and then leaves. Damn oversized rats.
* Black Widow spiders.
* Big brown bastards that look like Brown Recluse spiders, but aren't.
* Various other spiders that bite. The main reason that I deploy bug-bombs inside the house every spring.
* Frogs. Yes, frogs. They get into the house and seem to have a penchant for hopping onto my bare feet, usually while I'm on the computer and playing a video game that has me all keyed up. Nothing like unexpectedly being hit with something cold and slimy when you're in the middle of "The Shalebridge Cradle".
* Ground Squirrels. What could be so bad about them? Well, they undermine house foundations, making them potentially even more damaging than termites. Used to shoot them, but they've avoided our property ever since I got my goddamn gigantical cat.


So what do I do with the critters that I shoot? I leave them in a big open area that's convenient for viewing from the living room and front deck, and let the vultures do the cleanup and put on a show for me. I should take pictures one of these days.

jimjack on 25/7/2010 at 19:10

---

I had a similiar run in with an ant nest at work, we were trying to uproot a rhodie tree and we opened up a massive ants's nest, eggs larva and huge black carpenters all milling about. We went from landscapers to pest control, only it will be reminding you that you're pouring toxic crap into a garden/ yard and you'd like to just get rid of the bugs without potentially killing everything within 100yards....and there is nothing but to handle hostile insect invasions with proper chemical agents. Leaving thecarcasses to rot for a few days before starting the cleanup porcedures helps toconfuse secondary invasion forces as most species, I've read can't stand the stench of their own dead.

If all else fails, fire usually works, but can be hazardous to the indigenous environment.

Bottom line. Kill your enemies rather than let them return another day..because, yes they will.


Ladybugs are good, if you've got aphids in your house.

june gloom on 25/7/2010 at 20:57

---

rofl

you win, sir

We have a small squirrel problem in that last year a few of them got into the space under our roof. Why the fuck they'd want to hang out in there is beyond me because it's hot as a nuke in there during the summer.

PeeperStorm on 25/7/2010 at 23:45

---

Here's a DIY ant bait recipe that I've used in the past. It works well on ants that like sweet stuff if you can't locate their nest:

4 teaspoons boric acid
3 cups water
1 cup sugar

Combine the above in a small pot and heat while stirring until the boric acid is all dissolved. Put small containers of the stuff (bottle caps work nicely) near the ant trails. Top off the containers every day for as long as you have ants. Store the stuff in a jar in the refrigerator.

The way this stuff works is that the ants eat it, go back to their nest, and die. Then the other ants eat them and they die. It's safe for humans and pets, so you don't need to call in a hazmat team if you spill some.

You can get boric acid at most pharmacies or in the eye care section of some large grocery stores. It's used to make eye wash.

You can substitute other sweet things like molasses or apple juice for the sugar if the ants seem to have a preference.