Killing Bugs

[iKwick7]

I don't like killing bugs; I feel guilty every time I have to kill one. Where I live, there are ants everywhere. Ants like to travel in straight lines, so they use whatever they can find that's straight for navigation; whether it be the edge of a side walk or the bottom of a fence. That's where I come in: I like to stretch my garden hoses out straight across the lawn; they either have to be coiled up neatly, or completely straight; nothing in between. Well, the ants see my nice straight garden hoses and use them as the ultimate high speed freeway.

Later on in the evening when I go outside to water the front and back yards, the ant's freeway is interrupted by my hands holding onto the hose, so they subsequently start crawling all over me. I don't mind them crawling on me, but when they get caught between my T-shirt collar and my neck, they get upset and commence biting; that's when I instinctively kill them.

Self defense! You would get off the hook in bug court- they started it.

I usually don't kill bugs unless they pick a fight with me. A mouse or a cricket in my parents house (silly basement, always attracting crickets!) years ago and I would catch them, bring them out into the woods, and set them free.

 

[Foxglove9]

for the bug smashers

Great. Thanks. See what you have made me do!

I don't feel great about killing bugs, but I do what I have to do because I don't want my apartment getting infested. See, the problem is insects don't know how to share a living space with a human. They come in, eat your food, hang out whever they please and the next thing you know these degenerates multiply into the hundreds..and all that without even paying rent!

So bottle of raid for me, but I prefer a good smash with the old shoe. It's quicker and (I hope) more painless. I do wish I wasn't so afraid of bugs. I've tried very hard to overcome the intense fear, but I can't do it for some reason.

 

[Queso]

See, the problem is insects don't know how to share a living space with a human. They come in, eat your food, hang out whever they please and the next thing you know these degenerates multiply into the hundreds..and all that without even paying rent!

Sounds like humans with most other species to me.

 

[Stridder44]

I'm a vegetarian, so I usually don't kill stuff.

 

[Foxglove9]

That has to be the funniest thing I've seen all week. Mind if I steal that image?

 

[floriflee]

I don't kill bugs. I make the hubby do it.

If they're in my place of habitation or in my car they're invaders and as such are susceptible to my (er, the hubby's) wrath. I just... I just don't like the creepy crawliness! Eww!

 

[MacNut]

I like the rolled up newspaper myself.

 

[MACDRIVE]

They come in, eat your food, hang out whever they please and the next thing you know these degenerates multiply into the hundreds..and all that without even paying rent!

We have these spiders called "Daddy Long Legs" that are pretty much everywhere. They are completely harmless to humans, but very lethal to other bugs. I get a big kick out of them because they'll set up a web and just hang out there and wait for a bug to fly into it. Then they'll either eat the bug or wrap it up for storage. I've never seen them eat a bug, but I've seen them wrap up the bugs.

There have been times when I've rescued a bug from their web if they're still alive. June bugs will get caught in their web and I'll have to gently pull them out and then carefully pull the sticky webs off of them. Daddy long legs are such a stark contrast to ants because by comparison, they don't have to work very hard for their food; they are the laziest bugs I've ever seen.

 

[Iscariot]

We have these spiders called "Daddy Long Legs" that are pretty much everywhere. They are completely harmless to humans, but very lethal to other bugs. I get a big kick out of them because they'll set up a web and just hang out there and wait for a bug to fly into it. Then they'll either eat the bug or wrap it up for storage. I've never seen them eat a bug, but I've seen them wrap up the bugs.

There have been times when I've rescued a bug from their web if they're still alive. June bugs will get caught in their web and I'll have to gently pull them out and then carefully pull the sticky webs off of them. Daddy long legs are such a stark contrast to ants because by comparison, they don't have to work very hard for their food; they are the laziest bugs I've ever seen.

I saved a dragonfly from a spider's web once. But he was absolutely covered in webbing, so I very slowly started clearing away the webs. Sadly, the dragonfly overestimated it's cleanliness and tried to fly off before I could finish -- only to have the strength of the webbing rip one of his wings clean off

 

[smokeyrabbit]

You city dwellers don't really have bugs, except maybe cockroaches and ants.

I was bitten on the back of the neck by a horsefly. Besides being almost as painful as a kidney stone for a few minutes, I got a huge golf-ball sized hard lump from it that lasted for weeks and made my fingers all tingly while it pinched the nearby nerves.

Every day I kill about 50 flies in the house, and that's even with using fly predators and feed through fly killer in the summer.

My mom, myself, and my pony have suffered Lyme disease from freaking deer ticks.

We've pulled 3 deer ticks in 4 months off of our newborn.

My son was stung on more than one occasion by a wasp on the forehead and had his eye swell shut for a few days because he's sensitive.

My daughter got a spider bite at age 1.5 that caused her finger to swell so much she couldn't move it for a day or two.

My mom has been bitten twice by brown recluse spiders and has these huge pits on her skin where it just melts away from the bite.

Anyone who has been riding a horse while it's being stung by yellow jackets can understand why i hate wasps of all kinds.

In the spring and the fall, in spite of using frontline every month, we pull off an average of one dog tick/day from each of the 3 cats + 1 dog. Then in the morning we get to find the ones we miss crawling around the floor in their engorged state. That's gross.

I wish we had more preying mantises, dragonflies, or anything that eats pest bugs. Or butterflies, I like them. Bees I'm OK with since they are so beneficial and never sting you unless you squish them by accident.

Edit: remembered my favorite: all the wasps in the northeast US come from my house, which was built with five million little hidey holes for them. I have to spray them out at least once a week. None of those "goes 20 feet" sprays actually do, especially 20 feet up!