Hawaii has roaches...

[patnjess]

that is what I'm doing after looking at all this.




to the OP, for every one that you see, there are well over a hundred more!

 

[ranchhand]

In SC we call them Palmetto Bugs. They get 3-4" long and they will fly at you. One reason I let the rat snakes slither all over the great outdoors.

 

[mylittlechickpea]

chicken lady i think your bug beats out the roaches and centipedes, well i think it might be ties with the cenitpede, but it's close.. that thing flies and is huge. i'm so glad the roaches here don't fly, don't know what i'd do with myself

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

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LOL, to tell the truth, I got them illegally....how? Well....I can't say. (Shhhh

)

But I got plain sick of crickets, they would get out and chirp in my room. These roaches need a constant 80+ degree temp to live....anything lower and they die.

It sure is a great way to save money, with 6 adult leopard geckos and a 18+ inch bearded dragon!

 

[chicken_china_mom]

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What IS that thing???!!! Is it really as big as it looks? I had a job one time that required traveling, sometimes out of state, and one weekend it took me to the Quad cities (Illinois/Iowa border). I stopped at a Checkers (fast food joint that I'm not even sure exists anymore), and as I'm talking to the girl behind the counter I heard this strange, loud buzzing sound. So of course I look around, but I don't see the source. I was a little unnerved because it was LOUD, way too loud to be even an abnormally large bumblebee, if you get my drift. So I go back to talking to the cashier and I hear it again. This time it sounds like it's coming from under the counter at which I'm standing. So I take a step back, lean down to look under the counter...and HOLY CRAP!!!! There's this flying bug that looks JUST like the thing you posted! I gasped, but somehow managed not to scream, but all the blood drained from my face and I began to panic, cause I've NEVER in my life seen a bug THAT big! So the cashier thinks I'm over exaggerating, so she comes outside, leans down to look, and jumped back so fast she nearly fell down! I asked her what it was, but she had no idea! Just that it scared the heck out of her too! See, for me, if I can SEE it's pincers THAT clearly, it can and will bite, and I need to be FAR away from it! Then this lady comes along with her kids, sees us panicking, so she looks under the counter. She laughs softly and takes a container out of her bag and proceeds to collect the insect, who, let me tell you, did NOT want to be collected! I had the heebie jeebies the whole rest of the day, and I NEVER forgot that bug!!! I don't have the first clue as to what it was, but if I had to give a size, that thing was easily 6 inches long! The Mississippi river is really close to there, and I was later told that some really freaky bugs live along the river, but that, for me, was the mother of all insects! I wish I knew what it was, and where it normally resides, so that I can avoid those places like the plague!

As for roaches, they are my only true insect phobia. I can handle most bugs, even if they do make my skin crawl, but not roaches. Roaches send me into fits of hysteria and give me major anxiety attacks. I just can't stand them!!! My younger DD was just asking me the other day where did I think my phobia of roaches came from. I was pretty sure I knew. When I was a kid living in Chicago, even though we lived in a really good area, we owned an apartment building, and on either side of ours were more apartment buildings. Ours was spotless, nothing out of place. My great-grandmother owned the place and you could eat off the floors, it was THAT clean. But the one building next door? It was a cess pool. The landlord NEVER cleaned the place, the carpet in the hallways smelled like urine, vomit, and alcohol, the lights didn't work right, it was just a nasty, dirty place. Well, we had this elderly lady that lived in that building, and some years before she had had surgery to remove her kneecap. This was back before they had artificial joints, so her knee was locked and stuck straight out. She also had cataracts and could barely get around. So some genius got it in their head that she was lonely and needed a companion, so they bought her a puppy.

This lady, her name was Eleanor, could not get up and down the stairs to let this dog out, nor was there even a yard in which to let the dog run in if someone came over to let it out, so it was tied in her kitchen with papers on the floor, and my mom would send me over to walk to dog, feed it, and put down water for it. I was not happy about that cause I hated that building. Well, Eleanor would often times keep the dog in the dark. He was tied in her kitchen, but she would always turn the lights off, so this poor dog was living in an apartment that probably hadn't had a good cleaning since maybe 1960, and in complete darkness. So here I was, 8 or 9 years old, coming into the apartment, and I would head for the kitchen. As soon as I would turn on the kitchen floor, the floor would run. Yes, you read that right, THE BLACK FLOOR WOULD RUN!!!!! Eleanor's floor was white, but every time I entered it to let that dog out, the floor was pitch black when I would turn those lights on! Eventually Eleanor needed more surgeries, so we would take the dog while she was in the hospital, and then finally she graduated to a nursing home and we took him in permanently. I was sooooooooo glad when I never had to step into that apartment building again! But when they would fumigate (probably because a health inspector was coming through there), guess where the bugs would go? Yep, right over to us! So we would fumigate and they would run back to the nasty building. It was a tiresome game, and I was glad when we moved. But my aunt's apartment had roaches as big as gerbils, and a friend of mine had roaches really had when she was still living in the city. I hated being in her apartment because it grosses me out how they can walk on walls and ceilings, and I am just so terrified that they will fall in my hair.

A neighbor a few years ago, before I moved down here, used to buy beat up properties, rehab them, and sell them. Well, he was so proud because he had found this house that he wanted to actually move his family into permanently. It was a serious fixer upper, and he asked us to come by one afternoon to see his "gem". So it's my ex, my mom, my two babies (my girls were maybe 1 and 2 at the time), and myself. We come in the front door, and as we do, he's giving us the rundown on all the things that need to be fixed. Ok, no big deal. Til we get to the kitchen, where he casually mentions that there's a little roach problem. Ok, I froze dead in my tracks. Roaches? I took a look around, and they were EVERYWHERE! On the red cabinet doors, on the stove, in the cabinets, on the walls, on the ceiling, etc. So I begin to panic. My mom tells me to calm down, finish looking at the place, and we'd get the heck out of there. So as we're climbing the NARROW staircase to the second floor, there are roaches on the walls. One falls off the ceiling onto my mom who promptly swipes it away. We probably did the fastest house tour known to man that afternoon. Less than 15 minutes after walking in the front door, my mother, the kids, and I were back out on the sidewalk jumping up and down and swatting at our hair and clothes. We both felt like they were crawling all over us. We did not carry any visitors outside with us, thank God! Then my ex comes out, and even though he had a buzz cut, he's swatting at himself and his clothes. He was as grossed out as we were, but not as vocal about it. Somehow that neighbor got rid of the roaches relatively fast, but I never went back to that house again. Roaches are just....EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!! Where I live now there are wood cockaroaches. And I've encountered those while camping too. I scream and panic with those too, but my older DD is my hero, she comes sweeping into the room to pick the scary bug up, and remove it. Of course she's sighing loudly and rolling her eyes as she does it. My younger daughter panics too at roaches, but she's worse with spiders. Now spiders I don't really mind. Though I was quite intimidated the first time I saw a Golden Orb Weaver. A female decided to make her home on the side of my house near my mint, and the first time I saw her I was like WOW! I went out and observed her on and off til Fall rolled around and she left. She hasn't returned yet, and I'm not sure she will. I wouldn't show her to my chickens, I wouldn't want them to eat her. But they are more than welcome to the wood cockaroaches!

I must add, I suppose we all have our phobias. Mine just happens to be roaches. And whoever posted the pics of the roaches, I had to pan REALLY fast past your post, I can't even LOOK at pictures of them. I'm off to bed now. Hope I don't have nightmares now...

 

[lovesduckies]

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww i hate bugs

x's a million!

 

[Bantimna]

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[mylittlechickpea]

chicken china mom. the centipede i saw, i would guess it was between 6-7 probably closer to 7 inches. i was reading about them and i guess they can get up 12 inches. they're part of the lobster family? at least that's what i read.. but if had to pick, i'd take the roach. the ones here don't bite, at least, or fly. they just grow so huge!! it's unbelievable. i grew up in reno, nevada, and we never had such bugs. rattle snakes and the occasional black widow were all to worry about. I'm sorry about your childhood roach ordeal, it sounds just awful, that poor lady and that poor puppy.. who in their right mind would think it a good idea to get some poor old half blind wheelchair bound lady in a roach motel a puppy

well glad it found a good home in the end

i haven't found any of those big centipedes at my place yet, and hope that i won't, but if they're crawling around the neighbors place i guess it's only a matter of time

i've heard stories of people chopping them with scissors or knives and the parts continue to crawl around!!!!!! eck i'll let chickpea eat the roaches but if a centipede can kill a baby i'm sure it could kill my chicken so i'll do my best to reduce hiding their places

oh, and i would think they'd be more common around the mountains, seeing as how that is still all undeveloped beautiful forrest and their natural habitat, i don't think there are quite as many in the city

i hope

 

[SarahFair]

I saw the first roach in my house Ive seen in 3 years! I looked at the SO and said "When you see one, that means there is about 1000 more behind the wall!"

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

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Be careful with centipedes over 5 inches....they can give quite a nasty bite. I know of someone in my neighborhood that got bit by his 9 inch giant centipede and he had to go to the ER just for pain medications. I remember him saying he thought he was going to die!