harveyhare

Hi everyone, wondered if this would help.

I also hate spiders, cockroaches and all other bugs. We currently live in Cyprus where cockroaches are a problem, I purchased PEST MAGIC from Thane direct in the UK and had family forward them to Cyprus. They work by sending out signal through electrical wiring of house which interferes with nervous system of all creatures up to size of rodents. You cannot use if you keep pet hamster's etc..But are safe for cats and dogs.(we have a small dog)
So far so good- Not a single bug since we installed them, although they take approx 2 weeks to become effective and you may see more untill then,(suppose they need time to pack and vacate!!)
For those wanting more detail look up Thane direct shopping.

Di

scitta

Okay, I am not going to open this thread again, as I am really looking forward to going to Australia and this post is giving me the jitters :scared: flying roaches never seen one all my life.

john&jules

I worked on a banana farm in north queensland sorting bananas. The bananas used come along on a conveyor belt and we used have to check them for bruises, the cockroaches used to live in the hands of bananas and as you sorted through the bananas they used to run up you arms and into your hair so a few cockroaches in my house should be a piece of cake! They are fast little critters though and can be hard to kill. It was one of those jobs that made you appreciate all the other jobs you said youd hated as you were bored being stuck behind a desk.

jules

kirsty&al

With regard to Melbourne, we live about an hour from the centre in a semi-rural area. So far we have seen one enormous moth, a few ordinary sized rather colourful butterflies, a tiny frog, a big toad (swimming in the pool filter), 3 small dead cockroaches, ordinary ants (infestation behind the oven) bull ants (big b*ggers), native wasps, a few european wasps (hubbie jokes they may be living in the ducted heating), lots of tiny millipede type creatures, a couple of woodlice in the house and lots more outside, 8 or so huntsmen and the same number of white tails, and a few indeterminate spiders (no chance to study them properly before I sucked them up with the hoover - no redbacks yet though). We also came home from the snow to find one of the kids wooden toys covered in teeth marks, but the traps haven't caught anything and nothing else has been chewed so I guess the mouse has gone elsewhere. We are on a 2 acre plot so I guess we are much more likely to see 'wildlife' than city dwellers. We also have lots of birdlife; kookaburras, ibis, rosellas, cockatoos, gallas etc which is great (unless you don't like birds I suppose), no possums yet but lots of rabbits (cute at the moment but not so great when I plant my veggies). Apart from the millipedey things (I find at least 3 a day) I would say that we average one insect every couple of days, and apart from the hunstmen which we catch and put outside, most of the others fit very nicely down the vacuum hose! Hubbie was scared of spiders before we came, but now he can even catch huntsmen. I was really worried about redbacks and snakes because we have little kids. Our area (Mornington Peninsula) doesn't have a big snake problem, and redbacks mostly stay outside and high up. We met a guy in Canberra who had been bitten by a redback. He said it was deeply unpleasant, uncontrollable shaking and sweating, but not actually painful. The docs administered the antivenom and he was home 24 hours.

Invest in a good vacuum (and if you have a Sebo bring plenty of spare bags) and you should be fine.

Kirsty

Gethy

Hi All,

Reading the posts I have to admit I have been scratching and twitching like mad. We are thinking of migrating to Adelaide in the New Year so if anyone has the low down on any of the local nasties (I mean bugs) so we can be prepared that would be great.

Regards

walaj

I read that if you vacum up roaches that it won't kill them and they will find their way out. The only way to kill this way was to remove the bag and put it in a freezer (can't survive sudden change in temp) - but not great with a bagless dyson!

thanks for the lowdown on the other widlife

tonyk38

Pretty much all the bugs mentioned on this here thread will be found in Adelaide. Beyond that, I won't elaborate, as I guess a lot of people get freaked by the thought of this stuff.

What I will say however is that any 'danger' posed by Aussie wildlife is generally blown out of all proportion. Yes there are dangerous spiders etc, but bites are rare. And anyway, you'll soon learn to recognise Redbacks and whitetails for example, because as their name suggests, they are pretty distinctive. Also, I can honestly say that in 5 months of staying in grotty backpackers in Aus, I didn't see a single cockroach.......not one. They are very much a part of the Aussie fauna, but it's luck of the draw if they infest your house. Try not to let it bother you.

Hope that helps a bit!

Pollyana

And generally they won't infest the house - I gues we have only had a dozen or so in here in a year, and none at all from March till one last week. The big beggars live outside and just come in occasionally - for a change of scene I guess!