Thanks to a lovely reader, Brian, I found out that I had an adorable little elephant weevil in my apartment last week… That AND a dirty little bastard of a cockroach that viciously attacked me and made me scream like a little girl. YEAH, well who’s laughing now?! Anyways, it was not only a day later that I was walking around the corner of the building to check the mail when I ran into this guy:
Yep, that’s like the biggest of the big walking sticks I’ve ever seen in my life, and it had to be hanging out in the right spot so I would run into it. Don’t let this picture fool you. It was well over a foot long, which from what I’ve researched is not uncommon.
I always feel like I’m unlucky. I was either born with some strange bug attracting scent that draws these ugly creatures near me, or I just have some zany bug radar that makes me spot them where others don’t. Either way, it is absolutely frustrating to have to deal with such misfortune because the sight of them drives me nuts!
Luckily the walking stick was outside, so it was no drama. If it were inside, it would be another story, but I think if it were to make an entrance indoors, that would be quite the journey off the beaten path since there are no trees in my place (also making the elephant weevil incident a bit stranger). However, what I do worry about running into, and I’m crossing my fingers and toes, is the horrifying huntsman spider.
According to Wikipedia:
“They live in the crevices of tree bark, but will frequently wander into homes and vehicles.”
Dear God, if that happens I will probably recreate the cockroach landing on me experience times 100, wake the dead with my wails, and then faint and hopefully forget it happened.
Patrick so kindly told me a story about the time he came across a huntsman hanging out in the fridge.
Huntsman spiders, be warned! I will not be having any of that in my house.
Ha! You should be hosting some sort of show on the Discovery network!
I love OZ, hate all the creepy crawlers…which is why I don’t think I’d live there!
Yeah, when I got here and lived right in the city, I didn’t experience much more than cockroaches. Now my apartment is surrounded by jungle type shrubbery and trees… oh it’s a different world.
Oh dear god, I just read the Huntsman spider link. If I woke up to find one of those above my bed, I fully suspect my heart would stop dead before I had the opportunity to scream.
Funny story – just after this post went out, my flatmate told me she brought a huge spider in with her laundry. She freaked and it was soooo big she couldn’t kill it. It disappeared. I found the spider on the door of the bathroom a few days later….
It was a huntsman! I might die this summer.
AND! When I was doing a very thorough cleaning this past weekend, I moved a box on the living room floor and found what looked like the skin of a pretty large spider hanging off the side.
Probably much like what is going on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Huntsman_spider_discarding_its_old_skin.jpg
I have yet to write about this on my blog (yet!) but when Mark and I were working on a vineyard in country Victoria, Australia, we found a Huntsman spider IN OUR BED.
I kid you not.
Thought I was going to have some sort of seizure.
Ewwww! Ew ew ew!