We just bought a house that has these unfortunate creatures in the sheds and basement. I had never heard of them (I actually thought they were spiders and I was FREAKING OUT about it until a friend correctly identified them as cave/spider crickets). Once I started asking friends etc about them, it seemed like everyone but me was all, "Oh yeah, I know those, they really are gross..." blah blah blah. I'm just purely curious-- have you heard about/know about them? (Also, any advice? I f-ing hate them already.)
Re: NPR-- "Cave Crickets" (aka "Spider Crickets")
Did the guy come today, during the window he promised?
What did he say about how long it'd take for them to go away. I told DH last night that I want to sell the house and move into a 3 BR condo. My yard is overwhelming me; and you know how big it is (not). HAHA.
He did! He was awesome. He checked through the whole house and sprayed the basement and by the doors on the first floor, then he did the whole exterior. He said he saw a couple big ones in the basement and the sheds (as if I was unawares) but he said it wasn't very bad "infestation-wise" inside at all. That's the good news. The bad news came when he said I could expect to see "more activity" in the next few days as they "sort themselves out" (and croak), and that I would "probably want to avoid the basement" for the duration of said sorting spell if I didn't care to witness their death throes. He also left glue traps in the laundry room so he can monitor their activity (which I could certainly live without seeing every time I try to do laundry, but...). So we went out for a while while he sprayed and all and I was scared to come back bc/ I had these mental images of angry, frenzied spider crickets leaping about everywhere, but so far... knock on wood... I can't stop thinking about them, though (hence this post).
I *hear you* on the condo. There certainly is something to be said for one-floor, low-maintenance, doorman-building living... But D is so happy here, I think we'll never go back to an apt/condo again. He hated it.
Oh yes, I hate those things. We were overrun with them during and after rain in our last apartment. Horrid horrid creatures.
We had to have the apartment management company bring someone to spray. At least I think that's what we did.
Man those things are scary as h*ll.
YES! But in my arachnaphobic mind, they look more like tarantulas than granddaddy long leggers. And they jump-- very high--right AT you, apparently in an attempt to scare you off, since apparently they are almost blind. They.Are.Awful.
AKA camel backed crickets.
My cousin calls them sprickets, because they look so much like spiders. They're relatively harmless, I think,.
DS - December 2006
DD - December 2008
"Camel backed crickets"- yuck!! and also apropros. Everything I have learned about them --and the Bug Man who was here today-- says that they are indeed harmless. Horrifying, but harmless. If they weren't, I'd be outta this place so fast.... I'm having a hard enough time hanging in even knowing that they are harmless!
OMG, I'm going to have freggin' nightmares!!! These things sound horrid!!! (i've never seen nor heard of them)
Oh, Dear God. Now I'm going to have nightmares tonight. My only saving grace has been that I've never seen one on the second (bedroom) floor, and have only seen one small one in the main living floor. They seriously are some of the most hateful things I've ever come across in my 34 years.
And kitty- I would Flip.My.Sh-t if I saw them hanging from a ceiling!!!! It was bad enough to open the shed and see them leaping across the floor.