The Great Fly Chase
By ElicBxn
@ElicBxn (64169)
United States
September 8, 2008 1:32pm CST
Well, following the demise of the second rat, we thought we were done with the problems, but that was just the start of a short term, but annoying problem.
It seems a fly somehow found its way to lay its eggs on the dead rat. Could this be a house fly? nooooooo.
This was a HORSE fly. You know the things, they look like elephant sized flies to normal flies.
We came home from work one day, went to the bathroom and suddenly we had this giant fly in the house - where did that come from?
Maggie was all for me killing this thing, but I don't like to squash big bugs, they are gooie inside - yuk.
So, she found a plastic tub and peice of cardboard and I caught it and took it outside. We guessed that maybe it had come in some how
How wrong we were!
The next day after getting home from work there were about 5 of these things.
Now, these are BIG, FAST, NOISY things, that go "BUZZZZZ" as they fly.
The cats thought they made pretty good toys, but they just didn't kill them fast enough. Doctor caught one and killed it, Jellibaby caught one, but it got away so we ended up putting 4 of them out.
Then there were more!
It was to the point where we came home from work and de-flied the house before we did anything else.
We'd start in the bedroom, then get any that got into the livingroom and kitchen. The plastic bowl and cardboard was still the best method - who wanted to get too close to these monsters?
The cats still thought they were entertaining and we used them as kind of "pointers" because they could track them better than we could. When the buzzing stopped, we'd look at a cat and see where they were looking if we couldn't see the bug.
One time one went down behind the bed - buzZZZzzz... and stopped. I guessed it had landed on the bedspread and walked around to see where only to find Jellibaby licking her lips and look please with herself.
they were yukky, but easier to get rid of then our next insect invasion years later
Have you ever been invaded by bugs?
6 people like this
13 responses
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
9 Sep 08
Yes, we had a lady bug invasion. They were in our ceiling and would drop down while we were asleep. We would accidently roll on them and get bit. Normally there are only one or two and when the weather gets warm, they go outdoors and do their duty. That year, there must have been a hundred. I got a fly swatter and went to town. They didn't got outdoors when summer came, they stayed inside and multiplied. So to heck with them. Currently, we are in a spider invasion. So next thing I have to go after.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
9 Sep 08
Yes, the American, indigeonous lady bugs are fine. The ones that came over on a boat or plane from some other continent or island don't winter over outdoors, they come in. North American ones winter over outdoors. The ones you buy are fine. They're North American.
We weren't the only ones having problems. Our newspaper did an entire article on the difference. When you see them in a garden, they're identical. But when they invade your house, at first, one or two you don't mind, but they multiply and can hit 50 or a hundred in no time, they lay eggs, esp. in wallpaper (and the ding-a-lings that owned this farmhouse before us had a relative who worked in a wallpaper plant so the bedrooms up stairs have layers of it, the stuff downstairs, we've mostly taken out of most rooms). Then they start to crawl around the ceiling (yes, the ding-a-lings wallpapered the ceilings, too, several wallpapers thick) and fall down on your bed. We would vacuum them out of the bed, go to bed and they would fall while we were sleeping, we would roll over and they would bite us in self-defense. They don't kill easily either, they have a hard shell. So I got a metal fly swatter and hit them as hard as I could. Vacuum cleaner didn't kill them, just put them in another place. It was horrible.
3 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
9 Sep 08
!!!
Ladybugs -bite?!-
But...but they're so danged cuuuute! LOL! I always liked them. I guess too much of a good thing would be more than I could handle, too, though.
I like crickets a lot, too, but one year when Elic & I were living in Denton (40 miles north of Dallas), there was a cricket invasion, & it was another Hitchcock movie. Entire STOREFRONTS & BUILDINGS were BLACK with the things. When your car went down the street, there was a sickening, constant CRUNCHINESS under the wheels...erg....
I also remember one night when we drove up to an ATM, & the place was covered with them, & some girl was trying to get her money out, but they kept hopping all over her, & dropping in her hair. It was too funny watching her get the royal willies, & hopping around -herself- trying to get them to leave her alone while she made quick little stabs at retrieving her funds.
Funny, but I think we BOTH got a case of willies just watching her! Ain't bugs fun? LOL!
Maggiepie
2 people like this
@GardenGerty (169449)
• United States
8 Sep 08
Mom had roaches when we were growing up. Some was from bad habits and lots of junk, but also, they were all over the neighborhood. You just could not kill them out. I put down boric acid powder wherever the pets cannot get to, as it kills and repels bugs. I also buy chemical strips for about $6.00 each, and hang them near some of the windows, they poison the flies that are attracted to the light. I had ants that came in when we were in San Diego. Crawled inside my steam hair rollers, and inside my steam iron. They wanted water. Mostly they came up the side of the trailer, in the top right hand corner of the kitchen, in the front of the Mobile home, then went straight across and out the opposite corner and down the outside wall. I put poison out across the trails outside of the house. It disrupted them and they left.
@GardenGerty (169449)
• United States
10 Sep 08
Thanks, I never heard that. Would you believe I have like ten pounds of that stuff that I buy in bulk to clean with and for kitty trays. I will just put it on the floor and voila, no bugs. Cheaper and less toxic than boric acid powder.
2 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
10 Sep 08
Elic & I had roaches, then MY mom came to stay. She NEVER tolerated a roach around her, so she went & bought gobs of baking soda (which, since roaches can't break wind, & they're actually obsessively CLEAN little critters, they'd lick off their feet & then blow up when the stuff expanded.../).
She laid down so much of that stuff it actually looked as if it had SNOWED--IN our house! (I'm NOT exaggerating -- just ask Elic!)
But after she did that, we didn't have any more roaches for 2 years!
Maggiepie
3 people like this
@slickcut (8140)
• United States
9 Sep 08
Whoo..girl better watch those horse flies then suckers sting you &it hurts....You better get you some bug spray because if one one of them sting you it does hurt...Those are the kind that hang around horses & cows..& i know they have a bad sting to them..
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (64169)
• United States
9 Sep 08
Ya know, the ONLY thing good about those bugs was they didn't seem to want to be in the house any more than we WANTED them in the house. Once they were gone, they NEVER came back!
And yeah, I know they bite, happily, the cats seemed more interested in biting them then they did in biting us! We did get rid of them all each day BEFORE we did anything else - YUK!
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (51818)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
8 Sep 08
Luckily, no. But the other end unit in this row house is infested with fleas...
3 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
10 Sep 08
Oh, lordy, fleas....
Some time before Elic & I met, I as living in a starving artist's apartment, & had no screens, so flies came & went. Heck, RACOONS came & went.
But one summer, the FLEAS came. And they -didn't- went.
I was working on a large painting at the time, & they got so bad I began working in my birthday suit, so I could GET to them easier & squash them. One day while doing this, I don't know what inspired me, but I caught a flea, & rather than kill it the usual way, I dropped it into a jar of turpentine I was using to wash my brushes. It's itty eyes bugged out, all its feet sproinged in different directions, it gave a teeny gasp, & went to flea heaven. Less than 5 seconds had passed!
Well MY mama didn't raise no fool; I started throwing them ALL into the turpentine, & then later, I started putting the stuff on my legs, which acted as a repellent.
Finally I think I BOUGHT more turpentine, & washed the floor in it, but whatever, I FINALLY BEAT the fleas!
Take THAT, you danged vamres!!!
Maggiepie
3 people like this
@blackcatbetty (555)
• United States
6 Oct 08
fleas are soo horrible . I was living in a huge house some years back sharing it with three roommates. I had only two cats at the time. My cats never went outside and I had treated them not long before I moved in . One roommate and his boyfriend had this dog. It went outside and of course walked it and the fun things you get to do when you have a dog. Well they did not treat the poor thing. Fleas everywhere. I had my feather mattresses on the floor at the time . These things would find their way into my nostrils , my hair , my eyes , everywhere. I asked the guys to please please buy some flea stuff for their dog. It was so infested it was starting to miss most of its fur. Instead they shave the dog. Well everything but its head. Talk about a poor miserable ugly dog! I bought more advantage for my cats ,and also had to pay an insane vet bill to get wormer for my cats, but it did not get rid of the fleas off the poor dog. I am pretty sure its a different type of formula. In the end I had to move out . Now thinking back on it I should have called the humane society after I left. I have no idea what happened to the poor creature or the horrible owners. All I know is fleas are so bad.
2 people like this
@pyewacket (43903)
• United States
9 Sep 08
LOL--well as you know right at this moment I do have my own little dilemma of a lot of flies in my apartment....they're avoiding the flypaper traps (must know what they're for) my cats just look at them flying, so they are hopeless as fly catchers...and I definitely have to bone up on my swatting skills....until I get a flyswatter I've just been using a rolled up newspaper, but alas ...I seem to be too slow getting the buggers.
2 people like this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
9 Sep 08
Gad...I remember those monsters! I felt like I was living in a Hitchcock film! They were coming from a hole near the ceiling in the bathroom as I recall -- one a mouse had chewed ages before. And they were the -second- loudest bug I've ever had the joy to share a home with, the first being a cicada. Those are like electric crickets. Oh, or MAYBE it was the dirt dauber that was second loudest.... No wait, they weren't so LOUD, just eerie, that peculiar noise (v-v-v-v-v-v-v-) they utter while they make their little "organ pipe" structures.
They're pretty, being delicately shaped, slender, & iridescent black...rather elegant, really, & I've never had one sting me, so it was with some surprise I that I heard one day they DO sting. Still, I enjoy their company.
But you can keep those mutant flies....!
Maggiepie
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
10 Sep 08
LOL! Yeah, dunno why THAT bothered me. I mean, after all, they spend quite a lot of time licking their furry little behinds, too! But for some reason, I find that MUCH less disgusting than when DOGS do the same thing. Maybe it's because dogs make so much nauseating NOISE while they do? Go figure.
Cats rule, dogs drool.
Maggiepie (who will now go hide from the dog lovers here.../o)
2 people like this
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
8 Sep 08
do you have screen on your windows and doors, you need that to keep them out. I have had a flea infestation for three years now, but I think they are finally gone, thank god for that.
2 people like this
@checapricorn (16060)
• United States
9 Sep 08
ohhh....we have also here but very few! Hubby will pick them up especially they love to stay in the fluorescent night time! When I will see one, I will always hit them with anything I will find and grab! I hate them too like flies!
1 person likes this
@blackbriar (9075)
• United States
23 Sep 08
I'd rather have your horse flies than the millions of ladybugs that invaded our mobile home 7yrs. ago. The place was full of holes and those bettles came in from everywhere to overwinter in our home. I was constantly vacuuming them up. Now that we have a new house, they only come in on our clothes and are much easier to control. Other than the normal amount of spiders, that's the only insect invasion we've ever had.
1 person likes this
@blackbriar (9075)
• United States
23 Sep 08
Ever have one bite ya, Elic? Rather get bit by a non-poisonous snake than a horse fly. My horse had one land on her butt once and I didn't know it. She started rearing and bucking and couldn't figure out why till I spotted it. I killed that dang fly real quick.
1 person likes this
@newzealtralian (3930)
• Australia
15 Sep 08
A few months back, we somehow managed to miss putting a bag of rubbish out that was full of dinner left overs.
Being the middle of summer, flies laid their eggs in it and a few nights later, I got up to go to the toilet only to find that I was walking on a carpet of maggots.
Guess who spent the rest of the night eradicating them all and tracking down the source of them? Yep, and I really needed matchsticks to keep my eyes from closing that day.
1 person likes this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
9 Nov 08
Wow, Elic! Thanks! That's 3 "best response" marks I've gotten in 2 days! (And only ONE of them from YOU! LOL!)
Y'all LIKE me! Y'all really LIKE me! LOL!!
Maggiepie
1 person likes this
@Maggiepie (7816)
• United States
9 Nov 08
Oh just ignore me; I was just having a Sally Fields moment, there....LOL!
Maggiepie
@tamarafireheart (15384)
•
9 Sep 08
Hi ElicBxn.
At least Jellibaby had a feast of bugs, YUK!! we don't have any invasion of bugs but we do have invasion of wasp and bees, a few weeks ago when it was quite hot we wasp flying in the garden and thy little nasty little things that can be very dangerous, and then there are bees, they are just as bad because I got stung by one of them late one night, so that is all the pesky bugs we get.
Tamara
2 people like this
