worst infestation you've had

[love2read]

grain moths

I thought I just saw one and it reminded me of our 18 month nightmare. We think they came in on a little bag of brown rice and it took that long with the help of traps, cleaning out the pantry and regular vacuuming before they were all gone. They mystery was finally solved when we discovered that they were laying eggs behind the labels of PB and other similar jars, the only things we had left in the cabinet. Apparently they like the glue.

[Bluegoat]

We had carpenter ants in the window sill of our bedroom.

 

I kept thinking I was hearing a weird noise, and as it got louder, I thought it was ants. Dh did not.

 

Finally one night I couldn't sleep the noise was driving me nuts, and so I went over to the window to knock on the sill - I figured if it was ants, they might be quiet for a moment if I did.

 

Well, I knocked, and my knuckle made a hole in the sill, and HUGE ants came pouring out! I yelled for DH who came thinking it was a fire or something, and then he saw and ran for a can of raid as I frantically tried to smash them as they came out. The raid put a stop to them.

 

So we called the exterminators the next day, and when they came a week later they drilled into the bottom of the window frame to fog into the wall, and apparently the ants came marching right out of every hole, as they were perfectly ant sized.

 

Totally creepy, it gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

[Myeightkiddies]

Squirrels.

 

Yes. They are cute. But I really have an infestation of them. They are ruining my lawn (so many small holes in it). They've ruined a trampoline. Currently they destroyed the interior of my husband's Catalina sailboat. They are everywhere. The other day it sounded as if a grown man wearing boots was walking behind my fence. When I looked over it, it was a huge squirrel. We have some big ones here. They aren't so adorable when they start destroying things.

 

Plus sugar ants are on the counter. It's been about a month of fighting them. When I had carpet we'd have fleas in the summer (Florida). That hasn't been an issue since we put wood flooring in the house.

[LittleIzumi]

Bird mites.

 

*SHUDDER*

 

We had a bird nest in the vent to our bathroom, apparently. So the mites got in the fan grate, swarmed around it, would drop on you as you were in the bathroom, and they are nearly microscopic. They leave a pheremone marker when they find a host, so I was getting eaten alive nightly (when they are most active) with around fifty bites for two weeks and the baby was also being eaten up before we even figured out where they were coming from--they started in on dh & the girls at the end, too. We caught several, taped them on a slide, and took all day to ID them from the microscope image (we thought they were body lice maybe, they figured out they were definitely mites but thought they were cat mites, but nothing quite matched until I found chicken mites. Perfect match). Some sites will day you can ONLY get rid of bird mites with professional help. Can't afford that and that website seemed rather "sale-y" anyway, and we did it ourselves. We had to remove the bird nest and birds, bleach and bug spray of death the bathroom and the vent pipe multiple times for days, bleach & super hot wash & super hot dry everything in the house, take mild bleach baths (like the amount in a swimming pool), install a new vent pipe cover from the roof, etc. The best part? Chicken mites can remain dormant for EIGHT MONTHS waiting for a new host. That bathroom is completely off-limits until next summer.

[mothergooseof4]

Right now it is grain moths. They are driving me crazy. I have thrown away over $100 in food lately. Some of that was today when I discovered them in my rice. ARGH!!!!!

 

We have also had fruit flies, but I figured out how to get rid of them. Plus, they didn't really ruin anything. They are just annoying.

 

And, we had sugar ants this summer for the first time. But, again, they don't bother me much.

 

The absolute worst was when I first moved into my house. I was asleep in my bed one night and got woken up by fire ants. They were covering my side of the bed. I sprayed them and washed everything. I had never seen any inside the house before that. Then a few weeks later dd (a little over a year old at the time) woke up with a red bump on her arm. I didn't think much about it. Later that day, I went to put her down for a nap and her crib and the wall behind it were covered in thousands of fire ants. I called the exterminator at that point. That was years ago and I have never seen another. WEIRD!

[Cindy in FL.]

I have a pest control company coming in the morning to try to take care of a phorid fly infestation. Phorid flies are also known as filth flies or coffin flies. We really aren't dirty people! We think there might be a leak under the foundation of the house and they are breeding there.

 

Cindy

[scrappyhappymama]

I should not have read this thread. I am ridiculously creeped out!

[dirty ethel rackham]

We had an infestation of grain moths, too. It was terrible. Right now we are dealing with fleas, but it does not seem to be a terrible problem. We typically see one or two on him every day and we are vacuuming like crazy trying to get it under control.

[Paz]

Cattle ticks. They are the grossest, largest ticks you can ever imagine. We just moved to a new house in a newly build neighborhood. Our dogs were on the wrong flea/tick treatment for the state/area we were in and there were cows in the field across the lake. Our dogs got the largest ticks and we started to see them crawling across the floors and the wall. It didn't take too long to get rid of the all but it was the most freaky thing I ever experienced!

[cheryl h]

The fleas are bad this year. We had to spray the whole house...twice. The Advantage we gave our new kitten did.not.work. The local vet from whom I bought the spray said it wouldn't matter this year if you used Advantage or not...and that we should spray our yard and hope for an early freeze. Well, dd13 is one of those kids that bugs really love, the ones that always gets eaten alive by mosquitos on a camping trip. Well the fleas really like her too. Then to make matters worse her body started having an allergic reaction to the bites, and was covered in lots of little hives. Just at the start of basketball season, when you have to wear shorts, middle school girls...she felt humiliated. She ended up on antibiotics and prednisone for the week and is getting better...finally. Came home from grocery store last night to find the cat sleeping in her bed...accidently let in by little brother who doesn't close the door behind him...more bites appeared this morning....vacuum, vacuum, vacuum, wash, wash, wash. Seriously?

[Lucy in Australia]

Currently in the middle of a pantry moth explosion. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! :ack2::eek::banghead::cursing:

 

I'm trying to convince myself I can get rid of them without chucking out half my food. It's not working. :glare:

[joannqn]

Fleas.

 

I moved into an apartment right before we got married. Fleas don't bother me at all so I didn't realize there was a problem. One night, DH came to visit and his legs were black from the knee down with them by the time he walked from the front door to the kitchen. It took two professional treatments to get rid of them.

 

We have fleas now but I'm not too worried about it. We can usually get rid of them easily enough.

[MyLittleWonders]

Pantry moths ... what is with them this year? I don't think I've ever had to deal with them before. Now I think I need to inspect everything in the pantry. :(

[Mergath]

Spiders. No matter how many we relocate outside or just get rid of, we constantly have at least seven in our bathroom, and randomly in every other room. I can't change the bathroom garbage without a herd of them scattering in all directions.

[melissel]

I should not have read this thread. I am ridiculously creeped out!

 

Yes, not one of my best choices at 4:30 in the morning :eek: I was originally planning to bemoan our ant situation, but after reading the rest of the posts, I decided to sit back down and shut up!

[jlmom]

This is awful...rats.

 

Fortunately, not in the house. All over our property, though. Mostly in outer garages. We've been treating them for 4 years--since we moved in. Our neighbor has a pigeon coop that he NEVER cleans. The township is no help b/c it's a small town and they see it as a "neighbor issue" that they don't get involved in. All we can do is keep paying out $40/month pest-control company fee and do what we can to keep them away. We've cemented many areas and have traps everywhere we can. We've thought about moving but can't right now. It's very frustrating.

[Mommee & Baba]

Termites.

 

When dh & I bought our home 7 years ago the termite inspection was marked off as complete. However after living in our newly purchased home for 3 months I walked into the kitchen one afternoon to only find my entire floor covered in them.

 

YUCK!

 

Thankfully Terminex came right out and fixed us right up. But I was 9 months pregnant and chasing after a toddler. I was a bit of a wreck finding them! :tongue_smilie:

[Sandsam]

I should not have read this thread. I am ridiculously creeped out!

 

:iagree:

[mariposa]

Compared to some of the pp, this is mild, but stink bugs! If you live on the East Coast, you probably know what I'm talking about! Our house is in the woods and it is made of wood and in the fall our siding is covered with thousands of them. They don't hurt anything, but they look (and smell) disgusting. They get in the house, too, so every warm winter day, they'll be buzzing around.

 

Still, like I said, after reading some of the others, I'm thankful that it's just stink bugs!!

[Classical Country Mama]

Currently in the middle of a pantry moth explosion. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! :ack2::eek::banghead::cursing:

 

I'm trying to convince myself I can get rid of them without chucking out half my food. It's not working. :glare:

 

Another mill moth victim here too. I am currently throwing out over half our pantry and am physically ill over the waste. :ack2:

 

It helps me to remember that with food still left in the pantry (jars and cans!), we are still richer than most of the rest of the world.

[amey311]

I wasn't exactly an infestation, but...

 

We used to have one of those no-spill bubble soap things that had slots for 3 bubble wands. It had been left outside for a couple of weeks, and one Sunday morning the boys asked if they could blow bubbles. I brought the bucket in (which SEEMED empty) and sat down on the kitchen floor to open it and fill it with the kids' help. DH was happily cooking bacon and eggs, children were smiling and cheerful... such a lovely setting.

 

I unscrewed the top of the bubble jug and all the cockroaches in the world came running out. I shrieked. The children ran away. DH turned around and started shouting. Generally i'm the one who deals with the bugs, but he was more levelheaded and ran for the vacuum cleaner and sucked those things up. I threw the bubble jug outside. Chaos reigned.

 

We managed to escape without an ongoing roach problem (probably because of the monthly exterminator visits we have to manage the scorpion problem). But oh holy cats.

 

So.... those bubble jugs? Open 'em outside.

[melissel]

I wasn't exactly an infestation, but...

 

We used to have one of those no-spill bubble soap things that had slots for 3 bubble wands. It had been left outside for a couple of weeks, and one Sunday morning the boys asked if they could blow bubbles. I brought the bucket in (which SEEMED empty) and sat down on the kitchen floor to open it and fill it with the kids' help. DH was happily cooking bacon and eggs, children were smiling and cheerful... such a lovely setting.

 

I unscrewed the top of the bubble jug and all the cockroaches in the world came running out. I shrieked. The children ran away. DH turned around and started shouting. Generally i'm the one who deals with the bugs, but he was more levelheaded and ran for the vacuum cleaner and sucked those things up. I threw the bubble jug outside. Chaos reigned.

 

We managed to escape without an ongoing roach problem (probably because of the monthly exterminator visits we have to manage the scorpion problem). But oh holy cats.

 

So.... those bubble jugs? Open 'em outside.

 

That just made my entire scalp prickle *shudder* WHY do I keep coming back here?! I must delete this thread from my User CP!

[Spy Car]

Crickets.

 

Several years ago we had a massive explosion of crickets. They were mostly outside (but it only takes one cricket inside to alter a night sleep—at least until you convince yourself cricket chirps are soothing :D)

 

My wife used to come in from the back and say, " Honey, the patio is moving." no exaggeration that, it was like a plague.

 

Fortunately nature took it's course. There were lots of happy (and full) birds and lizards and life has returned to normal.

 

Bill

Edited November 8, 2011 by Spy Car

[MomtoCandJ]

Cockroaches, when we lived in Georgia our neighbors were dirty nasty people and i watched thier nephews one day well low and behold they had roaches in the diaper bag that i didn't notice escape. No matter how many times we bombed we couldn't get rid of the nasty things, come to find out the Orcan (sp?) man told me that because we lived in a mobile home with wall paper that the roaches ate the wall paper paste and there wasn't much he or we could do about it because they lived where nothing could get to them.

[dirty ethel rackham]

When we first moved here, we had lots of crickets in the house. Not those small black ones either, but ugly brown ones as big as my big toe. They would only come out at night, when I was nursing a little one and watching late night TV. I couldn't squish them because they were on the carpet. I would keep a supply of plastic cups down there to trap the buggers until morning when DH would have to deal with them. The were coming from the crawl space. I refused to go in there for years. Yuck!

[EmilyinND]

I feel itchy all of a sudden...

 

 

 

 

:001_smile:

[K-FL]

We bought a fixer-upper home. During the 4 yrs we lived there we had a dry wood termites swarm (flying all over the inside living room!!), hand sized scorpions, subterranean termites (these are the kind that can eat a house in 2 yrs including the concrete), and my favorite--rats. Very cheeky, inside the house rats. I almost stepped on one 1st thing in the morning going to the kitchen!!!!!! Thankfully, they didn't go upstairs where the bedrooms were or I would not have been sleeping. Yep, miss that house.

[melissel]

After posting my coyote comments, I ended up out in my nightgown chasing them off again last night. The Pyr was going berserk and it was obvious that she'd jumped the fence to chase them off. But the Akbash was shut in and so she'd chase, but they'd just circle back. Time to put out the word to the neighbors again!

 

You know, I'm generally not in favor of shooting down the wildlife, but wow, that's a serious situation :( How sad and frustrating for everyone involved: the coyotes, the people, the chickens, the sheep...

[joannqn]

Spiders. No matter how many we relocate outside or just get rid of, we constantly have at least seven in our bathroom, and randomly in every other room. I can't change the bathroom garbage without a herd of them scattering in all directions.

 

We learned something interesting about spiders a couple of years ago. Outside spiders need outside living conditions to survive. Inside spiders need inside living conditions to survive. So, if you relocate an inside spider, it's only going to come back inside or die trying.

[melissel]

We learned something interesting about spiders a couple of years ago. Outside spiders need outside living conditions to survive. Inside spiders need inside living conditions to survive. So, if you relocate an inside spider, it's only going to come back inside or die trying.

 

I've heard this before too. I catch and release--I can't bring myself to squish them. I don't mind if they get back in, as long as I can't see them. If they don't make it, well, they were headed to that big shoe in the sky if they stayed in anyway, so I guess it's a wash :001_huh:

[Veritaserum]

In-laws. I have five of them living with me at one time.

 

If we're talking critters, carpenter ants. Ick.

[Celia]

Pantry moths. Hate them. Passionately. I think they came in with a box of Red River Cereal. I'm actually thinking of getting an extra fridge just to keep dry goods in.