What kind of insects and animals do you deal with where you live?

[Wrex Brogan]

After doing my near-daily ritual of 'clear all the various spiders out of all my shit', I began to wonder, what kind of critters do people living elsewhere have to deal with on a daily basis, and how do they deal with them? Everywhere has some kind of pest, so I figure, hey, internet searches don't do much, let's field this question on the forums instead! That'll be fun!

For me, as a Suburban South Australian, I have Spiders. Lots and lots of Spiders (if the opening sentence couldn't give that away). There's two general kinds of spider around here - the 'active hunters' which tend to be big-fuck off spiders that roam around, but are generally pretty harmless (Huntsman Spiders, White Tips, Wolf Spiders), and the 'poisonous waiters' which hang around in webs and fuck your shit right up if they happen to bite you (Redback Spiders, Black House Spiders). While my typical approach to them is 'slap the shit out of them with a sandal', Huntsmans and Wolf Spiders happen to be just big enough that that would just piss them off, so I try to catch them and throw them over the fence instead. Also because they're big enough that they cause a hell of a mess if I do squish 'em, so saves me cleaning up more spider guts than I should.

So, denizens of the internet, what critters do you have to deal with where you live? Poisonous insects, common vermin, strangely pesky sheep? What pests do you have?

(PS: please put any pictures of spiders in spoiler tags, just in case anyone here's got Arachnophobia. Internet forums are the last place you really want to see 'suddenly spiders!'.)

 

[pookie101]

australian here as well. aparrt from the ones you have we also have ant.. jackjumpers whose bite a lot of people are allergic to and inchman which are ants literally an inch long and can sting you through jeans without any issue.

the armour on an inchman is so tough that unless you try and squash it on a hard surface like concrete you will just piss it off

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spiders of various sorts, but most of the are cool. Orb spiders are pretty. Apparently we have so many spiderwebs in our front yard that some Mormons were coming along door to door proselytizing, looked at them and decided against it. Too soft to preach in Australia!

Also, cicadas that like to ensure you can hear nothing other than cicadas.

The odd snake, often deadly venomous. But people make too much of a fuss about them. Australia has 7 different types of antivenins for snake bites, the next countries only have like 3. So, Australia is much safer, right?

Magpies that will attack anyone getting too close in nesting time. Apparently they also hold grudges and remember people, so will selectively target some people more next year.

Also, bats and possums and the odd echidna or goanna or wallaby.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I live in the Netherlands, so just birds and insects (including spiders). Only the latter causing the slightest annoyance. Not much going on here flora and fauna wise.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Also Netherlands, and we thankfully have no insects, spiders or snakes living here that are poisonous to the point of being any kind of danger to humans. Most dangerous animal living here are bloody deer, especially when they try and cross the road.

Your regular old house fly is my greatest annoyance. I hate them with a fiery passion and the only good fly is a dead fly.

 

[Dornedas]

Yeah we don't really have this here in Germany.
So I guess maybe mosquitoes? Or cats ,you know if you are allergic against them.
Oh and birds, nothing is more annoying than going to sleep at 5 AM after a productive night of gaming and have one of those shits start singing right next to your window. If only you could understand my pain and suffering.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Well, the Aussies have already 'won' the thread by default, but I guess I'll pitch in.

Belgium. Only vermin we generally have to deal with are mosquitos, houseflies, pidgeons and seagulls.

 

[Zhukov]

Australian #4 reporting with the customary spiders and snakes.

Mostly huntsmen spiders. I don't like killing things without cause so I'll generally herd them out with a long stick since I refuse to touch the creepy little beasts. Failing that I either let them be or kill them depending on which room of the house they're in. Bedroom is a death sentence.

Used to get snakes when I lived in the country. If it was only adults at home we'd just chase them off. They'll happily flee if given the chance. (Most bites happen when people step on them without seeing them.) However, sometimes we'd have to kill them because we couldn't risk them being near the little kids. Tried to keep it quick, pin them to the ground with a rake then take off the head with an axe. (We didn't own a gun.)

Where I live now we get a lot of possums. Not that they're a threat or anything, but I often have to resist the urge to pat them. Some of the local ones are sufficiently accustomed to people that they'll let you get within arm's reach.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Mosquitoes that can give you shit like dengue, zika, chikungunya, which I got early last year and it took me nearly a year to fully recover, since it's something that really messes with your joints. At one point I could barely walk, and I was desperately trying to "outrun" this old lady one day, who looked like she was well into her 70s. I lost, though.

This 2 inch bug that chews through wood and is incredibly annoying. When it "flies", it's buzzing all over the place because it can't fly at all and it's a nightmare trying to hit it with a magazine or some shit. That won't kill it, but it will probably land somewhere, then you can step on it.

Flying cockroaches. Fuck them too.

Snails. I have no idea where they come from. Everything is fine, then the next day I'll walk my dog in the morning and they're all over the garden, or in my mailbox, eating my mail.

There's a bunch of tiny spiders, but nothing compared to what you have there.

I guess that's about it.

 

[Remus]

Pygmy rattlesnakes, copperheads, brown recluses, the occasional black widow, water moccasins, and snapping turtles of all shapes and sizes. Of the non-life threatening variety, deer, deer, opossums and armadillos. Did I mention deer? I remember seeing one alligator snapper on the side of the highway that buzzards were trying to flip. Had to be at least 150-200lbs. He survived the encounter. Coming back the opposite direction, there were three dead birds and the turtle was gone. Had a baby one, maybe 5 in. across, show up by my front porch last spring. My dogs were not happy with it. It kept nipping at their toes when they got close. The monsters breed in the pond across the street so for an endangered species, they're almost a nuisance. Had this ichneumon wasp with an extended ovipostor freak my family out. It looked like a 4 inch stinger when it was actually looking for a spot to lay eggs.

 

[lionsprey]

spiders, wasps, mosquitos, snails and fly's i guess ya know the common stuff.
although just about everything dies when winter comes rolling in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipera_berus is the only venomous creature we have

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Well, the Aussies have already 'won' the thread by default, but I guess I'll pitch in.

Belgium. Only vermin we generally have to deal with are mosquitos, houseflies, pidgeons and seagulls.

...so, listen, how expensive is it to live in Belgium? Not saying Australia is bad, but if there's a distinct lack of poisonous spiders there, well...

Australian #4 reporting with the customary spiders and snakes.

Mostly huntsmen spiders. I don't like killing things without cause so I'll generally herd them out with a long stick since I refuse to touch the creepy little beasts. Failing that I either let them be or kill them depending on which room of the house they're in. Bedroom is a death sentence.

Used to get snakes when I lived in the country. If it was only adults at home we'd just chase them off. They'll happily flee if given the chance. (Most bites happen when people step on them without seeing them.) However, sometimes we'd have to kill them because we couldn't risk them being near the little kids. Tried to keep it quick, pin them to the ground with a rake then take off the head with an axe. (We didn't own a gun.)

Where I live now we get a lot of possums. Not that they're a threat or anything, but I often have to resist the urge to pat them. Some of the local ones are sufficiently accustomed to people that they'll let you get within arm's reach.

Not gonna lie, the lack of snakes here is kinda why I'm thankful I've never lived out in the country - spiders I can at least step on if need be. Snakes? Not so much. I've already had a Brown take a chunk out of a boot while on a field trip, don't really feel like dealing with that shit on a semi-regular basis. I only have so many boots.

(we used to have Possums - now we have owls. On the bright side, they don't try to get into my roof. On the down side, petting them is a terrible idea. They are... surprisingly vicious.)

 

[Zhukov]

On the down side, petting them is a terrible idea. They are... surprisingly vicious.)

I know! That's what makes it so hard. There's something cute and furry sitting on a fence two feet away twitching its adorable little nose at me and I can't pat it because I know that it's still a wild animal and will probably bite the shit out of me.

It's a cruel world.

 

[09philj]

Britain's native species are all pretty benign. Flying insects are an irritation though, especially if they get into the house. Midges are also unpleasant if you walk into a swarm of them accidentally. You can also damage your car by crashing into roe deer or pheasants.

 

[renegade7]

My setting can best be described as a very dense college town surrounded by either farmland or undeveloped wilderness for at least fifty miles in all directions. So we get raccoons, stray cats, and the unnervingly friendly squirrels that are always found on campuses. If you go into the natural areas you can run into deer, and if you get far enough from civilization you'll be in bear and mountain lion country.

But the worst are the freshmen. At least bears don't show up to class hungover and make you grade their barely intelligible papers.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I've got very little to worry about where I live. Nothing poisonous, no enormous bugs, no dangerous predators. Just ants, really. If they get indoors they die in the corners and leave big piles of corpses. And last fall a colony of some kind of red flying beetle infested one side of my apartment building, which was gross. And I get the occasional cricket or earwig invading my peaceful home. But otherwise not much to complain about. Even the spiders here are small and inconspicuous.

The worst thing around here I guess is the occasional coyote killing a house cat or yappy little dog, but they definitely don't bother people.

 

[Ryotknife]

...so, listen, how expensive is it to live in Belgium? Not saying Australia is bad, but if there's a distinct lack of poisonous spiders there, well...

There is a distinct lack of poisonous spiders in most of the western world. Australia and the US are the only two countries i can think of in the western world with poisonous animals.

Northeast American here. All i have to deal with are rats and deer. Although the rats can get....quite big (like the size of a cat). Oh, and rabbits. Rabbits everywhere.

 

[maninahat]

Just got back from India, where animals are every goddamn place. Starting with the bedroom, small lizards get everywhere around the house whilst you sleep. I like them a lot, but my missus (who is far more used to them) kills them on sight. Then there are mosquitoes that bite you, packs of dogs that form outside the house and howl at all hours of the night, cows that block traffic, giant rats that jump in through the windows, goats that eat everything, and some mystery bird that keeps making this "OOooOOOOOooooo!!" noise all day, like it is sarcastically pretending to be scared of you. The only thing I haven't seen is a snake, which makes me furious because everyone there says they keep bumping into them all the time and I always somehow miss it.

In England, there are practically no animals where I live, save for the cats that are terrified of my wife, and a family of magpies that scares off everything else.

 

[EternallyBored]

Nevada is a high altitude desert, so most of our insects freeze in the winter, still, gotta deal with black widows, mostly just don't go reaching into dark corners of your garage, the occasional brown recluse and scorpion although they usually don't hang out in houses. Rattlesnakes too, they're nice enough to warn you when they get pissed off at least.

Coyotes everywhere, you can hear them yipping at night, not really a threat to people, but they'll eat small dogs and cats at night if you aren't paying attention. Beyond that, the occasional mountain lion and bear sometimes wanders down from the foothills, there's been a couple occasions where I've found torn apart deer carcasses in my driveway, usually animal control picks them up if they hang around too close to the residential areas.

Not as numerous as some places, but still a nice variety of animals for living in a desert at least.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Well, the Aussies have already 'won' the thread by default, but I guess I'll pitch in.

Belgium. Only vermin we generally have to deal with are mosquitos, houseflies, pidgeons and seagulls.

...so, listen, how expensive is it to live in Belgium? Not saying Australia is bad, but if there's a distinct lack of poisonous spiders there, well...

About the same I think, but I don't really know how we'd compare to Australia. Also, we're a beer country, so ...

Keep in mind the weather sucks here though. It only a very slight step up from British weather, which is renowned for its suckiness.