Bugs that ruin summer

DigiTan · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 12:32:55 am Post subject:

About a year ago, I moved way up north toward the Minneapolis/St. Paul part of the country. Being somewhat of an outdoors guy and somewhat critter-paranoid I naturally I assumed the new climate would come with new outdoor annoyances (cold instead of heat, bears instead of snakes, etc). What I never counted on from the brochures was the insane number of blood-sucking critters out here. Leeches, ticks, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies. Everywhere you turn, something's after your blood! The deer fly sounds like the worst (its bite sounds worse than the venomous fire ant's, though I haven't seen any yet this year). Now after reading about this stuff I feel like I have critters crawling on me 24/7! How do people deal with this stuff?

tr1p1ea · Elite Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Posts: 870

Mozzies and sticky flie annoy me the most over here :S.

panyan · Member Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 142

the mosquitoes in london are ridiculous considering we have a massive pond in our garden. I bought some MOD insect repellent and it is meant to give me 12 hours protection with the size of a 5 pence piece!

bananaman · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 11:36:35 am Post subject:

I really like the outdoors myself and it is definitely the biting bugs that annoy me the most.

In the upper peninsula of Michigan we also have horse flies and deer flies that can produce some nasty marks. What I think is worse though is during black fly season. The flies are really small, but there are just swarms of them and you can get really chewed up if you don't use protection.

IAmACalculator · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 11:58:25 am Post subject:

I used to live in Minnesota. Land of 10,000 lakes, and, subsequently, land of 1,000,000 mosquitos. I grew up with horror stories about scout camps where you couldn't walk around with your mouth open due to the number of mosquitos. Wow.

Minnesota weather is perfect: Half the year, there's no snow, and the other half, there's no mosquitos!

Mosquito coils work pretty well. I don't know much about leeches, but I've heard that leech-proof socks are extremely helpful.

DigiTan · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 02:05:59 pm Post subject:

I'm mostly paranoid about the deer flies. Wikipedia described their bite as "extremely painful" and sharp enough to cause bleeding. I think one tried to stalk me in the woods but I was outta there before I got a good look. Going to REI to horde some repellents today. Or a bee suit.

magicdanw · **pcGuru()** Calc Guru Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 1110

I love the outdoors. I love the bugs outdoors. And best of all, the bugs seem to love me. They're adorable little critters, especially when they alight on my arm and do their little bug dances. I can barely tell the difference between bug bites and pimples since I get at most maybe three of each in a year. For whatever reason, bugs and I have some sympatico, and perhaps if you didn't post in threads how annoying they were, they would have more respect for y'all! Wink

DarkerLine · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 03:33:21 pm Post subject:

Newbie · Bandwidth Hog Joined: 23 Jan 2004 Posts: 2247

ztrumpet · Active Member Joined: 06 May 2009 Posts: 555

benryves · Active Member Joined: 23 Feb 2006 Posts: 564

Mosquitos are the most irritating - there have been quite a few this year - but moths are antisocially noisy buggers too.

Madskillz · Active Member Joined: 02 Jan 2004 Posts: 608

As a resident of MN myself I can tell you the horse fly bite is brutal. But to be honest they dont bite you as often as you think. For me i only really notice them on the lake and even then they rarely bite you, they like to land on you and you just swat them away. The Mosquito is far more pesky and the only thing to keep them away are the coils or candles or tiki torches. Ticks are a pain too, but if you stay out of the tall grass you'll be fine.

DigiTan · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 09:18:12 pm Post subject:

* Shudders * These biting critters give me the willies. I'll stick with slugs and snails as the only welcomed guests here!

cjgone · **Aw3s0m3** Active Member Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 693

Giant wood spiders scare me to death.

DigiTan · Posted: 25 Jul 2009 09:52:52 pm Post subject:

Hey! Those look like the giant corn spiders we had in Texas. They were harmless but 110% creepy.

tr1p1ea · Elite Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Posts: 870

We get these spiders everywhere. The Huntsman spider. They like to live in trees and often venture indoors.

They are completely harmless however (though they hurt if they bite), but as you can imagine, can give people a fright Smile

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Igrek · Member Joined: 23 Aug 2007 Posts: 151

I'm glad I live in western Europe, the most dangerous and scary things we have here are horse-flies and ticks. This spider looks like you can't kill it with your bare hands (I do that often with small annoying bugs), but really you need a hammer to kill that Razz

thornahawk · Posted: 26 Jul 2009 07:26:11 am Post subject:

"Bad air" (mal aria) is a persistent problem in my neck of the woods, and the pesky mosquitoes the come along with it. I've got a feeling some of the mosquitoes here aren't fazed by DEET anymore; and the newer repellent icaridin isn't available where I live. Oh well.

thornahawk

Weregoose · Posted: 26 Jul 2009 09:47:58 am Post subject:

calc84maniac · Elite Joined: 22 Jan 2007 Posts: 770

When I read the topic title, I thought it was programming bugs that ruined summer. By forcing you to stay inside and fix them. :ninja:

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