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  #41  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 7:31 PM
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Aren't killer bees in the US now? I've heard about them causing havoc in France.
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  #42  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 7:31 PM
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In Arizona, of course, there's these guys:

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  #43  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 7:33 PM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
Aren't killer bees in the US now? I've heard about them causing havoc in France.
Yes, just about all the bees in the Southwest are now "Africanized" (i.e the so-called "killer bees").

This was from 2013:

Quote:
Killer bee attacks: 'It could happen to anybody'
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -

Two bee attacks in the same week have some Southern Arizona neighborhoods on edge.

The Africanized bees killed four dogs and hospitalized two more. They've also attacked humans.

Both incidents happened Thursday afternoon. The first one took place in Rancho Sahuarita and the second one near Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

"You really can't tell until they're aggressive and attacking you," said Joe Jackson, owner of Barrier Pest Management . . . .
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/2...es-damages-and
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  #44  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 9:12 PM
DePaul Bunyan DePaul Bunyan is offline
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Chicago has a major parasite infestation, 121 N. Lasalle is the epicenter.
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  #45  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 9:31 PM
CaliNative CaliNative is offline
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Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc View Post
Stinkbugs are a lot of fun to deal with, especially in the fall and the spring. In the fall they're all coming inside to find a place to wait out the winter and tourists in hotels in particular find them a terror. In the spring they emerge from their indoor hiding places and blunder around looking to find their way back outside again. I worked in hotels for several years and starting in October you'd have well-heeled assholes calling down in conniptions and threatening to go elsewhere because they'd found one. Problem though, is that whether you're paying $500/night or $80/night, you're still going to have to deal with them. They're everywhere, in the nice hotels and neighborhoods, and in the shitty no-tells and housing projects. They're an invasive species and nothing eats them. Like Cartman, they run with twelve gangs and do what they want.

Meanwhile, the forests of Western North Carolina are pretty much under constant attack. The hemlock woolly adelgid has already killed off most of the wild hemlocks and the only ones to be found thriving are the ones in people's yards that they douse with pesticide on a regular basis. While this is going on pine beetles are killing the pines and emerald ash borers are doing what they do best and killing the ash trees. Plus, fungus is attacking oak trees, dogwood trees, and something is also eating the locust trees. They leaf out and look beautiful up until late summer and then every year something comes along and eats the locust leaves down to rusty scraps.
We have pine beetles out here in the west. The pines in the SoCal mountains and parts of the Sierra Nevada as well have been decimated. The drought starts the problem, and the sickly pines are then killed off by the pine beetle larvae. You see lots of brown dead pines pretty much everywhere, even parts of NorCal. Fortunately the redwoods haven't been hit much north of San Francisco (they are immune to the beetles but not drought). But there are local areas of drought distress in the drier inland parts of Santa Cruz Mountains & Oakland Hills & even Napa Valley at the drier/hotter east end of the redwood range but especially at the south end of redwood range in Big Sur. Some of the oaks, especially tan oaks, are in trouble as well due to some kind of a fungus. Climate change s*cks. The L.A. area had redwoods as late as the Pleistocene, but a warmer/drier climate killed them off 10,000 years ago. Ancient redwood bark & wood has been found in subway excavations in L.A. and in the tar pits.

Last edited by CaliNative; Mar 19, 2018 at 9:51 PM.
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  #46  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 9:45 PM
CaliNative CaliNative is offline
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
Yes, just about all the bees in the Southwest are now "Africanized" (i.e the so-called "killer bees").

This was from 2013:


http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/2...es-damages-and
I was on a hike in a park in north San Diego County last, and a swarm of bees chased me to my car. Fortunately I made it to the car before I could get stung. Their aggression may indicate they were the "killer" bee variety.

Last edited by CaliNative; Mar 19, 2018 at 10:07 PM.
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  #47  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 9:48 PM
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Philadelphia is one of the top bedbug cities. Having dealt with them personally a time or two I can attest. One of the ways that they spread is via our unfortunately cloth covered transit seats. Whoever thought that such a thing was a good idea in a major US city should be flogged.

Beyond that we have the usual urban pests for a city like this - four and six legs. In the summer months though our cockroaches get pretty bold. They come streaming out of steam vents and they do fly. Effing gross.
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  #48  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 10:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
Yes, just about all the bees in the Southwest are now "Africanized" (i.e the so-called "killer bees").

This was from 2013:


http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/2...es-damages-and
Does San Francisco have any kind of a pest problem? Do you get the little black Argentine ants like we do in SoCal sometimes--they are really annoying? Mice, rats, roaches, pigeons? Union Square & the Civic Square used to be loaded with pigeons, but some people like them.
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  #49  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 10:08 PM
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Originally Posted by volguus zildrohar View Post
Philadelphia is one of the top bedbug cities. Having dealt with them personally a time or two I can attest. One of the ways that they spread is via our unfortunately cloth covered transit seats. Whoever thought that such a thing was a good idea in a major US city should be flogged.

Beyond that we have the usual urban pests for a city like this - four and six legs. In the summer months though our cockroaches get pretty bold. They come streaming out of steam vents and they do fly. Effing gross.
Not as big as the Houston roaches probably, but still gross
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  #50  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2018, 11:58 PM
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Originally Posted by CaliNative View Post
Does San Francisco have any kind of a pest problem? Do you get the little black Argentine ants like we do in SoCal sometimes--they are really annoying? Mice, rats, roaches, pigeons? Union Square & the Civic Square used to be loaded with pigeons, but some people like them.
You know, I live on the 5th and 6th floors of my building and I rarely if ever see the sort of pest like ants that crawl in from outside. What I get are things I bring in, usually from the grocery store, like the weevils I described above or roaches which can sometimes also hitch hike on purchased food.

We do have some flying insects including common house flies but they aren't that big a problem. Many people don't have window screens.

Yes, the pigeons are a scourge and there are businesses that do very well "pigeon-proofing" buildings (including mine) but the resurgence of Peregrine Falcons and a few other birds of prey adapted to city life is helping.

Peregrine flying past Alcatraz

https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/...three-decades/

And yes, we have rats the size of racoons that you see especially in below-grade holes where buildings have been demo'd but the foundations left pending new development. But I have seen them in alleys and almost anywhere there is a food source, usually at night.
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  #51  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2018, 12:26 AM
LouisVanDerWright LouisVanDerWright is offline
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Originally Posted by DePaul Bunyan View Post
Chicago has a major parasite infestation, 121 N. Lasalle is the epicenter.
If only we could find a predator to release to fight this infestation...
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  #52  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2018, 3:44 AM
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Does anyone have these cocoon like things that very slowly crawl up the walls, attach themselves to the ceiling, and then tiny moths fly out? From what I've found online, they may be plaster bagworms. I've seen quite a few in my house.
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  #53  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2018, 9:09 AM
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Little black ants awake from winter slumber in San Diego

The little black ants (technically Argentine ants) are now starting to come back to life. Little trails of them in the garage. Some get into the house. Now way to stop them no matter how much you clean. They are everywhere. Hate it when they get on the couch, or even worse, into bed. Thinking about bribing them with a plate of food outside. Maybe that will keep them out. Refuse to use pesticide like Raid. Any safe ant repellants?
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  #54  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2018, 1:09 PM
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We hardly have any pigeons downtown. Do hawks eat pigeons because we have a good number of hawks that live downtown. I was thinking I'd like to capture and import a number of pigeons from other cities to make our downtown feel more like a real downtown.
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  #55  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2018, 5:14 PM
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Since moving to Sacramento from metro Denver (I'm a Denver native who's also lived a bit in Illinios, Maryland and near Dallas/Fort Worth) and I've got to say Sacramento takes the cake in bugs!! Plus lots of honey bees here too-I know why the local newspaper is called the Sacramento Bee.
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  #56  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2018, 6:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliNative View Post
The little black ants (technically Argentine ants) are now starting to come back to life. Little trails of them in the garage. Some get into the house. Now way to stop them no matter how much you clean. They are everywhere. Hate it when they get on the couch, or even worse, into bed. Thinking about bribing them with a plate of food outside. Maybe that will keep them out. Refuse to use pesticide like Raid. Any safe ant repellants?
Windex [blue window glass cleaner] works great. Kills on contact and I think it masks their sent trail(?).
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  #57  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2018, 12:41 AM
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Originally Posted by CaliNative View Post
The little black ants (technically Argentine ants) are now starting to come back to life. Little trails of them in the garage. Some get into the house. Now way to stop them no matter how much you clean. They are everywhere. Hate it when they get on the couch, or even worse, into bed. Thinking about bribing them with a plate of food outside. Maybe that will keep them out. Refuse to use pesticide like Raid. Any safe ant repellants?
This might be what we call "crazy ants". Every year at about this time, they invade my house. At that time, I have to put cat food on card tables away from furniture. The ants have a hard time finding the food.

I've tried "moat bowls", but the water in the moats gets really nasty because my cats drop food into the water as they eat. It keeps the ants away from their food, though.
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  #58  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2018, 12:46 AM
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Mt. St. Helens is obviously not a city, but I have to mention this. In 1996, when I visited Mt. St. Helens (at least the nearby visitor centers), there were swarms of small wasps that were attacking cars in the parking lots. They didn't attack people. It was the strangest thing, and actually pretty scary. I would say there were probably hundreds of these wasps on each car in the lots.
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  #59  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2018, 5:02 AM
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Originally Posted by CastleScott View Post
Sacramento takes the cake in bugs!!
Naw, the bug champ has to be Florida. I don't think anywhere else has "love bugs":






https://www.google.com/search?q=love...PVhRdbSVY-j7M:
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  #60  
Old Posted Mar 28, 2018, 5:18 AM
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This thread's making me really glad I live in Canada.

In Vancouver, we have ants that dig into your house through the baseboards every few years, and relatively bad mosquitos on summer evenings. Aside from that, you get the occasional spider or house fly but you hardly ever see them. I've never seen a cockroach in real life. Because of this, I have not have had the chance to become desensitized to these creates and absolutely flip my shit anytime I see a spider or fly near me.

Winnipeg's got it a bit worse, but having a 7 month winter helps. In the summer though, yellow jackets and ladybugs are everywhere, and there are a fair bit of mosquitos as well.
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