apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

hahaha. i also am not fond of creepy crawlies, but i have had to put up with quite a few in my apartment this summer. I leave my windows cracked open all the time for my cat and for cooling the place down at night. i really should invest in some screens i guess. Tuesday night a very pretty bright green grasshopper got in and perched on the blinds. it was actually very cool to watch him preen and then chirp and whir with his wings. (he was about 3 inches long) It was not so cool when i was ready for bed and he was crawling all over the walls and ceiling. i ended up using my fly fishing rod to poke him in hopes of getting him to fly out the window... no luck. i ended up cowering behind my bathroom door shreiking every time he flew around. i finally knocked him to the floor in front of the window and before he could get out my cat pounced and ATE HIM! i could hear the crunch and the wings were hanging out of her mouth. it was gross and i felt bad for the bug, but man my cat was my hero right then! hahahah

Word on "Shoop"... Beastie Boys' "Paul Revere" is another one for me... but I can't, for the life of me, remember names.

I saw a huge spider last night on the clothesline pole and it scurried inside the pole before I could gather the inner strength to even consider getting close to it again. My burly husband is on spider-killing duty tonight.

Carried - thanks. It's so rare that I laugh, literally, out loud at work.

Why ya gotta always bring up "Shoop"?! Now I've got that darn song stuck in my head.

Black widows are definitely dangerous, but you can easily use a cup and paper to transfer them to a location safe away from you, but also safe for the spider. No need to kill everything that frightens us...they're just looking for somewhere safe themselves :)

I looove creepy crawlies. Be nice to spiders...they do a lot of good for you.

I like the suggestion of safely transfering the spider to a safer location (not a playground).

I used to toss insects into spiderwebs around my house as a wee lad. I remember imagining what it would be like to be a spider balancing on a web--it would be like floating on air.

Spiders and creepy crawlies are nice reminders that we live in an amazing universe. I can't stand cats, though---little evil things that are more toxic than black widow venom.

I garden and run into black widows quite a bit. They like to hang out in dark places and under the rims of pots and things. They usually seem very quick to run and hide when encountered. However, be careful when you stick your hand into a dark pot, cup, bucket etc. that's been left out in the garden. A guy I know got bit by sticking his hand into an old pot without looking. My grandmother also was bitten on her leg and was bed ridden for a year. Be careful!

I like spiders but Black Widows are currently pissing me off. They're all over my garden. In my roses. They like dark places and some of my plants are in large pots in partial shade. Once I accidentally squeezed one between my fingers while deadheading. Yech. Makes me want to pave over the yard and move far, far away.

They don't seem to care that the area is full of Eucalyptus but I never find them near my scented pellies. Maybe I should trade the roses in for pellies...

Good things about them: Unlike most of the spiders in my yard, Black Widows don't charge at you. They run away. Bless them. Those super strong and oddly shaped webs are easy to spot. I can see them while looking out a window onto the yard.

I'd hate to call in an exterminator since I have a chemical free yard full of other interesting creatures (including those giant lime green grasshoppers).

Sigh.

I was picking dead Queen Anne's lace alongside a country road the road the other day when I came across one of the most beautiful spiders I've ever seen. My windowsills are full of spiders this time of year, but they're boring--small, brown, & fuzzy--while this one was as big as my thumb and sleek as a race car, with a smooth black body slashed with diagonal yellow slashes and long, elegant black-&-tan legs.

My window spiders run away or curl up in a ball if I try to move them outside, but this one refused to cower when I touched him with a piece of grass. He barely deigned to acknowledge my presence, and only moved over a half an inch. At any rate, he was so exotic looking that I wanted to take him home so I could figure out what he was, but I didn't have any way to carry him safely without hurting him, so I left him where he was. But I memorized his markings--pretty easy, since they were so distinctive--and as soon as I got home, I looked him up online. I clicked on the first spider identification site, prepared to conduct some major research on my rare discovery.

Instead, there he was on the very first page, as big as life, right above the caption Common Garden Spider. I guess I need to get out more.

I made a deal with all the creepy crawlies in my house. I said to a centipede once "All I ask is that I don't see you. You can live here. I just don't want to know about it." He got away, and must have told his friends, because I see them much less frequently now. :)

Christine: my girlfriend once made a similar pact with a roving swarm of bees that tried to take nest in the walls of our apartment. I kid you not...a few hours later, they all left after being politely asked to leave. She's the darn bee whisperer, and I'm left scratching my head bewildered as a rational gent. But if it works, that's all that matters :)

lol christine! i think i feel the same way. outta sight is outta mind!

I am exactly the same way about spiders. Completely phobic to the point I can't even kill them myself! It's really only embarassing when I have to climb out of the car via the passenger seat because I'm convinced there is a spider somewhere on the driver's side of the car. My boyfriend was kind enough to neglect to mention even once during the two years we spent planning our move to San Diego that the city plays host to not just great weather but Black Widows....

Unbeknown to me...I was bitten by one of these little black babies a few weeks ago. And even though I thought for sure I would die or my leg would fall off - looking down at the baseball sized welt on my leg - I was relieved to find out that 1 week of gnarly steroid/antibiotic pills (4 times a day mind you!) would be the cure.....I guess if you could call the yet to fade "bruise mark" on my leg a cure....I digress, the rumor of insta-death upon bite is untrue.

But don't second guess yourself if you "think" it might be a bad bite, just go and risk embarrassment at your Dr. Office. Trust me.

I even hate looking at that picture of the spider. However, if they are in the garden I don't kill them, in the house, they've got to go.

Unless you pay rent, you can not live in or near my house!!!

NO BUGS!!!