Does your city have a pest problem-spiders, roaches, bed bugs, mosquitos, rats etc.?
 

I live in San Diego area, and the pest populations (rodents, flies, ants) seem to be on the upswing in recent years. I was in Sydney once, and was told they have some massive poisonous spiders at times of the year that sometimes get into houses (funnel webs etc.) but I never saw any. Other cities are said to have infestations of bed bugs & roaches. The roaches in some southern cities are of impressive size. Saw some as big as a mouse. Saw a video of a rat carry away a pizza slice in NYC on youtube ("pizza rat"). Does your city have bug & vermin problems? Are there any cities free of bugs & other irritating creepy crawlies?

Sydney Funnel Web Spiders in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooWF0PeLWcw

Indoor giant roach hunt in Houston house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WAFSqV-Ez8

Denver with its dry climate and high elevation is probably one of the least hospitable cities for bugs in the U.S. There are bugs but they don’t seem to be as big of a problem as many other cities. You do have to be careful when you’re on trails in the foothills though due to rattlesnakes mainly in the spring and summer.

Rats came up from the massive sewer network here in Paris, because of (moderate) flooding some weeks ago.
That caused a little controversy about the sanitation of the central city, in particular. It's true that it's been somewhat dirty here and there.
I guess the local left wing has been ruling the central city for too long. It's about time to clean up the streets a little bit.

I wouldn't mind having a left-wing mayor in my conservative suburb for once, though.
You don't have to be faithful to any political party... Change is healthy in that matter.

Having a moderately sizable population of rats would nonetheless be helpful, cause rats eat lots of disgusting things.
They're not so ugly. Their paws and tails creepy, but their heads are actually kinda cute.

All animals are useful to my knowledge. Except for mosquitoes that are truly a useless pain, real parasites.

It's about time for all the skunks to start becoming more active in Flagstaff as the weather gets warmer...

Too many fucking packers fans.

Oh shit, I married one of them.

Stink bugs. I bet a lot of cities in the Mid-Atlantic will also claim this, as it's a region-wide thing.

you betcha. portland has a feral human problem! we dont have normal hobos that sit on benches and drink wine. we have mentally deranged urban hoarders sleeping in tents and derelict rvs! as far a the more ranger rick variety, we have lots of other. rats! lots of rats, urban coyotes, giant raccoons, chinese beetles, invasive sea lions (really) and some other stuff to. we dont have alot of bitey bugs tho so summer evenings are nice.

Same in Austin. They don't seem to multiply - at least I don't see pregnant ones. But their numbers continue to increase significantly. :shrug:

As well Austin has more Bats than average. Back in high school our theater had 1000's of bats in it. I remember finding a couple in the theater myself.
http://batspecialist.com/cave-notes/...at-akins-high/

I love the bats though because it helps with our mosquito problem in the summer. We also have huge amounts of fire ants.

You name them, we got em. Spiders (giant ones), ants, roaches (giant flying ones), mosquitos (zika is always fun). At least we don't get Lyme disease like up north. The golden orb weaver spiders are huge but harmless (see pic below). The worst are the giant whitish spiders that make their giant webs at night and during the day like to hide in places like my car and come out and nearly cause fatal accidents, at least to me they do.

These guys are the size of your hand (or larger):
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/me...state-park.jpg
https://www.supthemag.com/wp-content...7.24.59-AM.png

Do 3am thunderstorms that wake you up in the middle of the night count as pests?

Anyway, when I lived in Seattle it was pretty low on summer bugs because summer is the dry season. Here in KC we've got the usual mosquitoes and other stuff. Plus I've got moles in my backyard. :(

Pretty much anywhere in the South has more than its share, but I've been watching a live stream from Chicago all winter (in a friend's home), and there are bugs in the house even when it's below zero.

I respect all bugs and "pests". They were here first. Anything I find in my house, I put outside if I can. Mosquitoes are a different matter. But even they are useful because they're food for our huge bat population.

I particularly like spiders, and tend to leave them alone. If I saw a black widow or brown recluse in the house, I would definitely put it outside. When I lived in a rural area, scorpions sometimes got in the house, and they went outside quickly.

The animal shelter where I volunteer is in a very rural area, and we've seen a couple of rattlesnakes and even one coral snake (extremely dangerous). But our policy is to try to capture them and take them into the woods and let them go.

You live some tropical place full of bugs... It's rough sometimes.
I'm a moderate victim of arachnophobia too. I don't kill spiders, though, cause they eat so many insects. Spiders themselves are no insects or so called bugs. They are predators like cats, belong to some different branch in the tree of species. If there weren't such huge species in your region, you'd be invaded by smaller bugs, and it would be much worse.

Humans like myself are naturally scared of spiders, as some silly uneducated reflex, because they can bite us, but only a tiny dozen of their races, out of thousands can be deadly to us. The biggest and most impressive are not even lethal. They may only bite if they feel under threat, but won't kill you. It's like sharks. They belong to a different world and are not really dangerous to us. They can't even recognize our species as any potential prey, cause we're too big and different from them.

Some people let them run on their skins and don't care. These people have my mad respect. I bow to these people not scared of spiders.

Moose, coyotes, mosquitos, sea gulls, pigeons. Moose is relatively new as they adapting to take advantage of farmland that is seeing a lot less people working them then it used to be. There are also no predators (bears and wolves) as there use to be and coyotes have no hope of picking off any.

in cleveland what would be best known are the infamous midges that come in a swarm off lake erie a couple times per season:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007..._help_cle.html

however, in the past swarms of the midges bigger cousin, the mayflies, were common. i remember relatives telling me about cities in the region driving scoop construction vehicles and sanitation staff with shovels around scooping them up at night as they tend to flock around streetlight posts.

the mayfly population has declined over the decades and the midges are more common these days.

i can certainly see how these two kinds of bug swarms would freak out visitors, but ne ohio residents take them and the swarm events in stride. they only live briefly, just to mate, are completely harmless and are a sign of a healthy lake erie. the worst that happens is they get in your nose if you are in a swarm of them and they are a mess to clean up. as a kid i was always fascinated with the midges, they look like fuzzy zebra bugs. and the mayflies are quite beautiful as far as bugs go.

a third bug event we would get would be cicada swarms every few years. they are also completely harmless, but they buzz and make quite a racket when they swarm to attract their mates. the shells end up stuck on trees and all over the place. cicadas are pretty cool big bugs actually. very prehistoric looking, yet friendly as bugs go if you can believe it. you can pick them up and look at them if you are curious. our cat put one in his mouth once and it buzzed and his cat cheeks were buzzing. he didnt know what to do! he finally spit it out in front of us and he just stared at it. it was pretty funny.

Well tonight I was sitting in my brother's bedroom as he just discovered the band CHVRCHES and watching a video when this creature just crawled unto our backyard patio and just sat there looking in through the patio doors & staring at us for a few minutes:

https://www.news-gazette.com/sites/a.../06/possum.jpg
https://www.news-gazette.com/sites/a.../06/possum.jpg

The backyard is fenced so I don't know how it got in and realized it was also limping.
It's kind of hard to believe some people in the south eat this critter.

We used to have lots of possums in a suburban/rural area north of San Diego (lived near a creek). But in the last 10 years or so, they have dwindled to almost nothing. Lots were run over by cars. They cross the road slowly, and when they see a car coming they just sit there ("play possum"). The drought in recent years has also taken a toll, not only on the possums but other critters. They never really bothered me, but they did eat the cat food so the cat was annoyed. They have lots of sharp teeth so you leave them alone.

Whenever I check into a motel or hotel in an unfamiliar city, I ask the front desk clerk if they have checked their rooms for bed bugs. If they look shifty and uncomfortable with the question, I get concerned. Bed bugs are widespread in many cities. They also tend to hitch rides in luggage, so you can bring them home. Bed bugs are totally disgusting pests.:runaway:

id be more worried about your airplane. how often do you think they actually clean the cabin? most commercial jetliners are like a flying motel 6 or truck stop. nnnnomp. and airlines that do treat their planes are basically fumigating them with low level pesticides! but yeah, gross. i do a load of laundry as soon i get in the door after a trip. and that suitcase lives in the garage.

In the past few years I've dealt with lots of spiders, some ants and roaches.

Spiders and ants are easily remedied, just call the exterminator. They'll spray the baseboards and window sills and sometimes the exterior trouble spots and they're immediately gone.

Roaches, you have to remove everything out of the kitchen cabinets and counter tops because that's where they reside. It's more of a pain than anything else, haven't had a problem since.