sophia

Poor Sandra, my tale of woe is nearly as bad (or worse...you judge!!).

When we were in Perth in October we were staying at a rellies house and we came in one night and I saw this HUGE black thing scuttling across the floor (the light had obviously frightened it)....I screamed that 'there is a creature in the house' everyone came running, but of course, the thing had long gone into hiding.

I described the thing to my sister who informed me that it sounded like a bush cockroach....apparently they can fly!!! EEEWWWWW!!! I spent the rest of the night searching for the thing with my hood up!!!

And this from an Aussie (who admittedly has spent most of her life in the UK!!!).

love sophia x

PS: My PC has just weirded out on me so if this message appears 3 times, please ignore it...I'm really not that mad!!!

rday

just a few stories from when i went to mauritius 15 years ago with some pals

there were 8 of us in two chalets one above the other.on the 1st night after a few drinks in the bar,we all went to the ground floor chalet for a cofee,we noticed the painting on the wall moving,we were puzzled,we moved the picture and aaaahhhhhhhhhhh,there was a massive 3" cockroach ,we all screamed like young ladies(3females/5 males) we manage to beat the crap out of it after40 minutes.

i slept on the 2nd floor with 3 pals,pretty insect free i supposed because of the height, all thru the night we could hear the screams and a bash bash bash from our pals downstairs.i must admit it was a comfort that we were insect free while our pals were running around like luneeees downstairs.
next day i had a shower in a small cubicle,shampoo over my eyes etc i heard a scraping sound,i wiped my eyes and aaaaahhhhhh there was a huge cockroach on the wall millimetres from my nose ,i ran out naked ,all my pal cornered it and crushed it with a rock.
they went to put it in the waste paper bin where they had throne the others from last night,and what a wonderfull suprise we found aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh they were all still alive to certain degrees,although most of them had vital organs hanging out of their shells,we ended up burning them to be sure.
2nd day i was woken by a spine chilling scream from my pal in the next bedroom,we allrushed to his bedroom (as slow as possible ,not wanting to be the 1st person in)and we saw our mate on his side,head on pillow,staring straight into all 16 eyeballs of a big hairy spider the size of a cd disk,we pulled our pal of the bed ,slapped the spider off the bed using a large coconut knife
and cut it in half with a sickening crunch,and for good measure we sprayed a full can of mozzy spray onto it making it look like a large lump of whipped cream,and would u believe it?the cheeky little mite still tried to crawl of, in two differant directions!!!!any way we destroyed it use our trusted 'crush and burn system'.

we spent all day searching every nook and crany for insects,so the rest of the hols was ok

p.s.no insects were harmed in the making of this true story (apart from the ugly and gross ones)

btw,did any one read in the papers couple of years ago,a tesco guy was unpacking bananas in the warehouse when a bananan spider jumped on his face and sank his fangs into his face,the man panicked(hey-why not) and smashed the spider three times using a small wooden crate smashing two of his own teeth out,i was reading this story in a cafe and was laughing uncontrolably with tears running down my cheeks,every one was starring at me as if to say 'psycho alert-psycho alert'
dont be put off of going to mauritius,as there are no deadly insects or animals there,and these days the owners control the pests.
rday

timsorrell

regarding the leeches, yes! I was wearing sandals. There's another creepy thing too which happened... which I hear could equally well have happened in England, but in 37 years never did. Ticks! They don't just go on cats and dogs.... they get on you too if you've been in the bush so if you've been pushing through hedges, trees etc, best to check yourself when you get back inside. These things are called paralysis ticks... tiny little things with a head 3-4 mm and a curved beak. It burrows its beak and practically the whole head into your skin and you have no idea at all it is there. Then they feed off the blood, and the body gets bigger and bigger. On cats and dogs apparently it can make them lethargic and then become ill, possibly paralysed, and can even die if they are on for too long. On humans, though the most likely outcome is an itchy area... it depends on how well you get it off. They're really difficult to remov and there's conflicting advice... some say don't pull it off... spray them with bug spray so they eventually let go voluntarily and just be patient. Others say use tweezers and grab the head taking care not to squeeze the body, and patiently tease it out, rotating the correct way and pulling back gently. Whatever.. do it wrong and apparently as it knows it's going to die, it may regurgitate toxins through it's beak back into your skin. There are a whole host of allergic symptoms that can result - including massive swelling or worse.... up to 2 weeks later and even potential for serious diseases. I did completely the wrong thing. After some heavy duty hedge trimming work, I had a shower and noticed this thing on my knee. After 30 seconds of just knowing I shouldn't do anything rash... I couldn't stand it any longer because it gave me the creeps. Just touching it showed it was quite alive, wriggling it's tiny legs and intently burrowiing in further!, so I just grabbed it and pulled it off by hand. They are very difficult to get out and the head & beak remained. I tried to pull the remains out with tweezers but it just seemed locked in there. Having read about the possible allergic reactions I decided to go to the doctor by which time it seemed to have gone under the skin. The doctor used a small local anasthetic so she could burrow around and got a small piece out and lectured me on how I had done the wrong thing! Was advised to take antihistamine just in case... though I didn't bother. Only happened once to me and I'm more careful now if pushing through hedges to check and brush myself down... but our friend had one on her back and our daughter had one too on her scalp, and our cat had one too - we got these off without trouble. I guess we didn't live in such a country area in England for this to have been a risk to us.
Oh - there's some scary huge grasshoppers here too...gives you a huge fright when one takes off right near you !
Cheers
Tim

iancurtis

Jesus ! Looks like we'll forget taking any household items with us and just use the container to carry the flame-throwers, napalm, knives & guns we're obviously going to need to keep the local wildlife at bay !

Gareth W

rday !

The bloke who was unpacking bananas worked at the Morrisons depot just up the road from where I live in Wakefield.

Don't let anyone tell you there are no wildlife hazards here in the UK !

mxqth

I read somewhere about this experiment.

If you cut down the head of a cockroach and then live it alone it will take a few weeks to die. It dies of hunger!!!

rday

Carolyn Lewis

just for u

rday

stay or go ?

just found this thread. about the only nasty, bitey thing that attacks you without any provocation or warning, and for no apparent reason whatsoever is......

ATO

w@ankers.....


regards

man with tax bill

Herman

We live in a modern apartment block in Sydney and have not seen a spider of any description in our year and a half here.

However, our war stories:

Bush walking in Blue Mountains: leeches, everywhere! Wife was running in tears to get the hell of there and every 5 minutes we had to stop to pull at least 10 of the bastards out of our shoes and socks. I think it was because bush fires, a long dry spell and then rain the day before our walk. Each bitten abour 15 times on feet and ankles.

Manly beach 2 weeks later: both swam into a swarm of blue bottles and repeatedly stung. Our fault - they put signs up at the beach and we, along with everyone else, ignored the warning. Large welts across our bodies and legs like we had been caned. Wife vomitting from too much poison entering her body. [Note - do not confuse Bluebottles with Box Jellyfish they get in Queensland. Bluebottles hurt like hell but fatal extremely rarely, Box jellyfish can kill quite quickly but only get these in warm waters.]

Rainforest in Queensland: big brown snake blocked our path. Calmly waited for it to move on. No problem.

Surfing south of Byron Bay. Fin in water nearby identified as a Tiger Shark by a local surfer who not so calmly advised me to "GET THE ***** OUT THE WATER". He did not need to tell me again. I paddled in and continued to paddle until I reached the road, leaving a deep track in the sand behind me.

Magnetic Island: I was bitten in the most unfortunate of places by a green ant whilst relieving myself against a tree. Lets even not go there...

But MUCH WORSE in terms my personal phobias: when we first moved into our flat we had a cockroach infestation because the previous tenant was flithy son of a b. Pest exterminator came in and sprayed - oh my god people, there were about 100 of them behind the dishwasher. Cocky bombs everywhere now and spray always to hand. No problems in the 1 year since then. Be clean in OZ or they'll come and get you.

When we arrived my wife was PETRIFIED of spider related possibilities. She's calm now as so far we have escaped. But, summers coming......

Johnny Boy

Hey Herman,

What about our charming "bird-eating spiders", so-named because when they
were first discovered one was found to happily munching away on a
hummingbird it had snared. Crikey, these little beaudies make tarantulas
(and Huntsman spiders for that matter) look like plain old house-flies!
And get this - they bark! Yep, when they're threatened they hiss and bark at
you! Now that's trouser-packing material if ever. And they have fangs on
them that would make a Western Taipan jealous!

Where do you find them? Where else - sunny North Queensland!

Cheers,
Johnny

gezandshirl

Although there are many crawlies about, there are nice creatures as well.
Shirley my wife was coming home along our road approx 1km away and a kangaroo bounded across the road in front of her.

We even have a bird that sleeps under our rear deck on an overhanging branch.

For anyone wanting to move to OZ do it as soon as possible.

cheers,

gezandshirl

BritboyNZ

Cheers for a great post...had a good laff about some of the stories

And if you really really dont like beasties, move to NZ - we don't have any scorpions, flying roaches, huntsmen, ants...and only 1 native poisonous spider, the katipo...but apparently it's so shy and retiring no one ever sees it. There are in places a few white tails, but only a very small number.

good luck to everyone movin to oz lol

woodsy

Well you've got to laugh..........................!
I've got a friend of mine in Bribane, moved out there with the wife and kids.
A Huntsman spider decided to pay them a visit in there kitchen, being brave my mate and his boy decided they'd catch it and take outside, as they went for it the Huntsman lived upto it's name and chased them instead............!

Woodsy.

Bluerobot

Look at that! The birds in Oz don't have heads!

Dave