Never will I ever.……….

I was told to vacuum up spiders.
Then I was awake, wondering if it might crawl out of the hose.

I got up and put the vacuum outside my door, and found it had been stolen when i got up.

I always take a glass of water to bed at night. A while ago I read about somebody who took a drink from their glass of water only to find that they had a spider on their mouth. After that I switched to a bottle with a screw top.

I do normally try to put them outside but once I vacuumed one up with the handheld vacuum then watched as it popped out of the end of the hose.
We repeated the process 3 times until I finally picked it up and plonked it outside in the rain.

Jane43 after my encounter last week with the spider in my bed it made me consider the bedside glass of water. I now have a tissue over it!

It was only a few days since I’d changed my bedlinen but I stripped all the bed again and vacuumed the bed and room thoroughly. The spider experience was unpleasant but tbh the rodent stories are sending my anxiety levels much higher.

When I was a child, I wore my wellies to school but forgot to take my shoes to change into. No problem, my teacher told me I could just wear my wellies so I carried on and joined the orchestra at the front of the hall for assembly. As I put my trombone to my mouth, I felt an itch under my foot as if something was moving around. After trying to ignore it while I played my piece, I took my wellies off after we had finished while the Head was saying a prayer. I can still remember the telling off I got for screaming and throwing my wellie to the floor when I saw the enormous hairy spider crawling around inside!

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Living so near the bush, I often get skinks (like geckoes) bush cockroaches and cicadas in the house and although I'm not scared of any of them, jumping mice included, the most troublesome of the lot are crickets.

They come in at the end of summer and lie silent until I'm sleep then start this loud creechy-creechy. As soon as the light goes on, they stop. Leaving the light on doesn't work btw - I tried

Even if you can find them, they're too quick to catch.

The worst though was finding a weta in the nightie I'd just slipped over my head. I didn't notice until I snuggled down and it pinched me!

What a liberty!

BradfordLass73 your mention of crickets reminded me of a very elderly uncle in rural Ireland in the 70’s. His wife had died and his son and Dil persuaded him to leave his remote cottage and live with them 4 miles away.

He was finding it hard to settle in their house and wanted to go back to his own cottage. He was so used to sitting by the fireside at night with just the sound of the crickets under the Aga range.

His son went back to the homestead and managed to catch a few crickets in a matchbox and take them to his house and deposit them under his Aga. Once the familiar sound of the crickets started there was no more mention of going home.

Wish I hadn’t read this just before going back to bed after a bathroom visit! I foresee a visit to Nightowls!

After living in the Far East I learnt (the hard way) to check before getting in bed, putting shoes and boots on and outdoor coats. It became a habit.

Had a flat in London eons ago. Flat below needed fumigating but before that happened, was troubled one night by an itch on my face. Not enough to truly wake me.
Next morning, came to make the bed, plumped up & turned the pillows and came across a massive German Cockroach. So THAT was what crawled over my face! Horrendous!

Most of my experience of nasties has been in France. Those great big hairy centipedes are horrid and send shivers down my spine when they run across your hands.
One early morning wake up call was courtesy of a lizard which plopped down from a beam and landed on my tummy, I never slept naked again after that.

When we first moved into this house, about 40 years ago, there were no carpets. I opened the cloakroom door and a rather confused little mouse ran out. It looked around for a suitable hole to dive into and the first one it saw was my wide-leg trousers! It disappeared up them very rapidly and I dropped them with a shriek just as quickly!

MrsEggy

When we first moved into this house, about 40 years ago, there were no carpets. I opened the cloakroom door and a rather confused little mouse ran out. It looked around for a suitable hole to dive into and the first one it saw was my wide-leg trousers! It disappeared up them very rapidly and I dropped them with a shriek just as quickly!

??????

Oh dear everyone, you’ve made me laugh out loud. However whilst living in Rhodesia, Zambia and South Africa when going to bed the rituaL was to strip back the sheets, check not 9nly spiders and other oddities but ticks. Then in the morning, especially if anything was outside, to shake and tap shoes, boots, Takkies to ensure no scorpions in there. Delightful creatures.

Spiders I can take, but a mouse sends me hysterical. I went to the toilet in our tiny downstairs loo. A mouse ran from behind the sink. I screamed so loud my husband thought there was an intruder hiding in the loo.

Many years ago I was on a lounger in the garden, it was a warm day and I'd been reading...
I must of dozed off slightly and I felt the cat jump up and lie next to my leg - thigh level.
I reached down to stroke her and can recall thinking that she felt very strange, her fur felt odd.
I sat up and came face to face with a huge rat .
I screamed and tried to get up, fell on the floor with the lounger and rat on top of me.
My Mum ran into the garden to find me, a hysterical mess!

I am an arachnophobe and this thread has given me the heebie jeebies.

I have such a visceral reaction to the shape of large, thick legged spiders that even the top of a large tomato which looks spiderish sets of the dread in the pit of my stomach.

I really wish I hadn't read this! I have a terrible phobia of spiders.

My DD lives in Wisconsin and seems to get quite a bit of wildlife in the house, despite living in the city. Millipedes so big that, seen from the corner of your eye, you think that they're mice. Stink bugs, which are as horrid as they sound. Recently they had to chase a chipmunk around the kitchen. They can carry rabies and apparently jump straight at your face if you get near them. Not like adorable little Alvin at all! Eventually her DH managed to push it outside with a brush.

Many years ago on holiday in Greece, we were sitting on the verandah of our holiday home under the shade of a luscious grapevine. We heard a loud thud as a dead rat dropped right in front of us, just missing my dad's head. Also, when I was child, I pulled back the candlewick bedspread on my bed to find the very bloody remains of a mouse that the cat had snuck upstairs to eat in peace.

When I was a child I had a fear of bats, I think somebody had told me the tale that they would get tangled in your hair. One morning my father came into my bedroom to wake me up, he pulled the curtains and was fiddling with something at the top of the window. When he finished I asked him what he had been doing and he told me there was a bat which had settled at the top of the window which had been open. He told me very gently what had happened, reassured me and gave me a long cuddle. One of the many reasons I adored my Dad and was devastated when he died in 1966, I was only 22.

I feel for you! A few weeks ago after having a bath I grabbed a towel. As I went into the bedroom I felt something skitter down my back. I flung the towel off and there was a huge spider on it! It still gives me the willies thinking about it. Every towel is inspected before use now

Years ago I remember my Mam telling me about cockroaches roaming over the eiderdown at night in the old colliery houses her family lived in.

It would never have occurred to me to check my bed for intruders of any kind before I got in. I do however check my wellies before I put them on.