Spiders, larder bugs and ants oh my...
I'm working on killing the ants, with the ant traps, and homeade food for them...with the borac stuff and p.butter. Today I found these blackish bugs with a brown stripe across the middle, after killing them (2 in the cat room, 1 on the carpet downstairs), I googled. I believe they are Larder Beetles often found near dry dog and cat food. I have a major cleaning of the cats area now, which is a tight space to begin with. I have to wonder how they came in...did they hitch a ride on the cats, come in a bag of cat food from the processing plant, ??? makes me all freaked out. Not to mention outside we have these horrible big spiders that take over our deck and hide under the railings. They spin big webs, hide during the day and come out at night. The kids refuse to use their playhouse for the spiders that have taken over. As soon as we kill 10, another 10 are their the next morning. Any suggestions....these things are gross. If they ate the ants I wouldn't mind at least that is one down. Hubby likes that they get the mosquitos before they come into the house. But I would rather keep the OFF replent on me. |
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| Yuck...I hate all bugs too....I get creeped out when I accidentally step through a spider web on the patio....ewwwww...... |
| Oh heck! Not those pests. Well, hopefully you caught the infestation early and they haven't gotten a good hold. They don't limit themselves to food stuffs, but it takes quite a while before they start after wood. Clean up and spray.
I had them in my kitchen........couldn't figure out why since the food is on other side of kitchen. They were coming from bird food stored in a plastic can with a small hole in the back.....into the house through a crack, between the walls and then into the kitchen. Once I found where they had started.....I cleaned, sprayed both inside and out. Years ago I was talking on the phone while staring at a jar filled with rice when I noticed the rice was moving. The larvae......gross. |
| Oh yuck, gives me shivers and feels like I'm crawling with them. I read they are bad if they get into the wood, I really hope we don't have a crack in our foundation somewhere, this house is only 10 yrs old.
So far no more sightings, but I need hubby's help to completely clean out the storage area. He's coming home with some spray, and I will completely bleach the area as well. The cats have the area under the stairs, so more like acrawl space, with the door being the only place to stand up....the rest of it you are hunched over. |
Darcy wrote: Yuck...I hate all bugs too....I get creeped out when I accidentally step through a spider web on the patio....ewwwww......
LOL.... I hate that!!! I opened the slider in our bedroom last week and between the slider and screen was a BIG momma Black Widow 
I quickly ran to the bathroom to get some toilet paper so I could kill her. When I grabbed at her I got the web all over me. I could not get it off. I was so grossed out!! Trying to get the web off it just seemed to get more entangled. It had gotten all the way up to my shoulder. I was running around like a lunatic...swinging my arms...trying to get it off. Must have been quite a site because Billy was laughing at me. Actually Billy had sent me spider hunting. Rags was outside the night before and barking like a loon. So he opened the slider to yell for her and found the Black Widow. Billy is deathly afraid of Spiders. So when he went back to sleep he had a dream that the black widow turned into a 10 ft Spider and was eating him. So I had to kill it to ease his mind. LMAO |
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Good for you to be the brave one. I'd be so freaked out. I hate spiders and will kill them....where hubby sets them free. However when it comes to a bee, he's running around like a little girl, "is it gone"... 
Well I completely cleaned out the cat room, washed blankets, vacuumed all the edges, bleached the cement floor, then sprayed insecticide. I found 4 all together so far, but not a cluster to indicate where they started from. The entire basement got an extra good vacuuming. 3 out of the 4 were close to the cat's area. |
| Hi,
>>I love bugs!!!! Seriously! Only 2 % of bugs are considered "bad bugs" the rest are helpful bugs that keep the bad ones under control. Most of the time pesticides kill indescriminantly and results in more spraying..but left alone they usually regulate themselves. When I counted lady beetles for the Canadian Wildlife Federation..LOL yes!! I know I have no life and did that for a few years..counting spots on them told me if they were European, Asian or local..to keep track of the effect of imported ones on domestic populations. The local paper was looking for budding scientist..(aka kids) to do this and contact them with their findings...my son soon tired of it after 2 wks but as an avid gardener I couldn't help but see them and continued...did it for 5 years and in that time noticed the other creatures in the yard. Well unless bugs are in your house..letting them be is the best. One time I found one of my shrubs heavily infested with aphids..left it alone and soon the lady beetles (called lady bugs by most) found a food source and covered the plant and had a huge feast for days. Wolf spiders and all spiders catch flies and other "bad bugs" generally. While ugly to look at by some..they are considered good bugs. Lady Beetles go in a larval stage and before they do when they hatch from their eggs they resemble strange looking long bugs. Almost alligator like with a orange stripe down their backs..in this stage they eat up to 2000 aphids a day. No need for sprays if you manage to get them in your yard. Sprays however will kill them as well as butterflies and Humming birds which eat the mosquitos or other bugs that may be laden with pesticides. Large black beetles eat grubs and other creatures..and yup even slugs aren't considered pest in my yard. They generally eat waste..as they are natural decomposers...ever wonder how doggie do mysteriously dissapears .even if you've neglected to pick up? Where you see ants you may have aphids too as ants keep them, feed them and protect them..milking them for their honey do..yes it's true..kinda like what humans do with cows. Planting lady beetle friendly plants like Yarrow which they love to lay eggs on...makes them visit your garden...which keeps aphids and ants under control.....circle of life kinda thing. Yup...I no longer get the willies with bugs...I love em! ..LOL Marianne.. |
| I knew there was a reason I love you Marianne! And not just for your love for sheepdogs.
You would have loved our insect petting zoo at the state fair! We assembled many differty types of Arthropods, not just insects and had them in open displays for people to get up close and personal. Big hits were always the Madagascar hissing cockroaches.....or TV cockroaches as they appear in so many movies and TV shoes. They were easily handled but when agitated they'd fill with air and hiss out the "breathing ports." Kids loved them! Parents were usually against the back wall. We also had many different tarantulas and would let them crawl over us and the kids. Also a giant scorpion, but we kept him on us. The black widows got their own special display, closed tight! As for the giant garden spiders such as the orbs and pumpkins, I just love them. Their webs are so pretty in the morning. Loved the story about county Lady Bird beetles. For several years we monitored home landscapes and ID'd and counted both the good and bad buds and monitored their population ups and downs. Just yesterday while talking with a friend she pointed to an ash tree and asked why the leaves were curled. I said aphids and then began unrolling the leaves and pointing out the aphids, their sluffed off exoskeleton and all the various beneficials munching their way through the population. She too saw the ladybird "alligator" or "dragon." |
| I really don't have problems with Spider. I have actually seen a few Camel Spiders...aka Wind Scorpians...aka...Sun Spiders in our yard. Technically they are not even real spiders...
They are very cool looking and not poisionous. They look like Scorpions but without the tail. The first one scared the crap out of me. I was on the patio smoking and I look down to see this 6 inch long monster spider. He started making his way towards me and boy are these suckers fast. I jumped up on the bar stool just in time for him to go running under it. I quickly did an internet search and found out what it was. I was very relieved to find out what it was. The actually eat scorpions. Even though I have never seen one here I was glad to the Camel Spider was here to keep them away. When I first told hubby he was all nervous that it would climb thru the dog door. 
We saw a baby one that was about 2 inches long last month. Hubby asked what it was. I told him and even he though it was pretty cool. But the Black Widows MUST be killed. They are down right evil. I have even found a few in th house
I took a very close up picture of one when we first moved in. |
| Thanks for that Sheepie Boss!
I always had my neighbors chuckling when they saw my frantic finger pointing motions while desperately counting spots on the lady beetles. Hey Asian ones have 21...try counting that many on a little bug that running on a branch!!!..hee hee. Luckily now I can identify them by just a glance..good thing too as started getting strange looks. I'm now hiding the dandelions I cultivate at the back of the yard..for the bunny and guinea pig...want to keep on good terms with the neighbors. Good thing for high fences!
Once overheard the little guy next door ask his mom, if I lived on a farm after he saw me bringing in two bales of hay. It was my turn to laugh! Marianne and the boys |
| Funny I didn't know that about Yarrow, I did actually plant one last week. But it won't be ready for lady bugs until next year.
We welcome all the ladybugs, I also planted some plants that say they attract butterflies. But the ants are very much taking over. I think we have two colonies, or one very very big one. The spiders bother me the most tho, esp for the kids who stay couped up in the house and don;t want to be outside because we have so many spiders. We never had this problem in the last house. Lot more daddy long legs and none of those here, but instead we have these globeall size spiders, kinda clear looking...in all different sizes. Some having a body the size of a thumb tip. |
| Daisie,
This is the spider I encountered on my patio http://www.americanarachnology.org/gall ... fugae.html 6" long and that was just the body. |
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